world in which you had put them. You deliberately deprived them of the
most valuable factor in existence--genuine responsibility. You made
them ridiculous in the esteem of all persons with a just perception of
values. You slowly bled them of their self-respect. Had you been less
egotistic, they might have been happier, even during your lifetime.
Your wife would have been happier had she been permitted or compelled
to feel the weight of the estate and to share understandingly the
anxieties of your wonderful business. Your girls would have been
happier had they been cast forcibly out of the magic world into the
real world for a few hours every day during a few years in order to
learn its geography, and its customs, and the terms on which food and
raiment and respect can be obtained in it, and the ability to obtain
them. And so would you have been happier, fool! You sent your girls on
the grand tour, but you didn't send them into the real world.

"Alpha, the man who cuts off another man's hands is a ruffian. The man
who cuts off a woman's hands is a scoundrel. There is no excuse for
him--none whatever. And the kinder he is the worse he is. I repeat
that you are the worst sort of scoundrel. Your family mourns you, and
every member of it says what an angel of a father you were. But you
were a scoundrel all the same. And at heart every member of the family
knows it and admits it. Which is rather distressing. And there are
thousands just like you, Alpha. Yes, even in England there are tens of
thousands just like you....

"But you aren't dead yet. I was only asking you to conceive that you
were.

"Believe me, my dear Alpha,