He is anxious to take the place at the _Examiner_, and his uncle thinks that would be best--if they will give it him. I'm a little reluctant for many reasons, but there are considerations--some of them going to the matter of character and disposition--which point to that as the best arrangement. The boy needs discipline, control, and work. He needs to learn by experience that life is not all beer and skittles. Of course you can't quite know him as I do. As to his earning anything on the _Examiner_ or elsewhere, that cuts no figure--he'll spend everything he can get his fingers on anyhow; but I feel that he ought to have the advantage of a struggle for existence where the grass is short and the soil stony. Well, I shall let him live down there somehow, and see what can be done with him. There's a lot of good in him, and a lot of the other thing, naturally. I hope Hume has, or will, put you in authority in the _Post_ and give you a decent salary. He seems quite enthusiastic about the _Post_ and--about you. With sincere regards to Mrs. Partington and all the Partingtonettes, I am very truly yours, AMBROSE BIERCE. [Angwin, April 10, 1893.] MY DEAR PARTINGTON, If you are undertaking to teach my kid (which, unless it is entirely agreeable to you, you must not do) I hope you will regard him as a pupil whose tuition is to be paid for like any other pupil. And you should, I think, name the price. Will you kindly do so? Another thing. Leigh tells me you paid him for something he did for the _Wave_. That is not right. While you let him work with you, and under you, his work belongs to you--is a part of yours. I mean the work that he does in your shop for the _Wave_. I don't wish to feel that you are bothering with him for nothing--will you not tell me your notion of what I should pay you? I fancy you'll be on the _Examiner_ pretty soon--if you wish. With best regards to your family I am sincerely yours, AMBROSE BIERCE. [Angwin, April 10, 1893.] MY DEAR BLANCHE, As I was writing to your father I was, of course, strongly impressed with a sense of _you_; for you are an intrusive kind of creature, coming into one's consciousness in the most lawless way--Phyllis-like. (Phyllis is my "type and example" of lawlessness, albeit I'm devoted to her--a Phyllistine, as it were.) Leigh sends me a notice (before the event) of your concert. I hope it was successful. Was it? It rains or snows here all the time, and the mountain struggles in vain to put on its bravery of leaf and flower. When this kind of thing stops I'm going to put in an application for you to come up and get your bad impressions of the place effaced. It is insupportable that my earthly paradise exist in your memory as a "bad eminence," like Satan's primacy.