In short, David Lynde was warm-hearted and generous to the verge of
violence, but a man in every way unfitted by temperament, experience,
and mode of life to undertake the guardianship of a child. To have an
infant dropped into his arms was as excellent an imitation of a calamity
as could well happen to him. I am told that no one could have been more
sensible of this than David Lynde himself, and that there was something
extremely touching in the alacrity and cheerfulness with which he
assumed the novel responsibility.

Immediately after the funeral--Mrs. Lynde had resided in Philadelphia--
the uncle brought the boy to New York. It was impossible to make a
permanent home for young Lynde in bachelor chambers, or to dine him at
the club. After a week of inconvenience and wretchedness, complicated by
the sinister suspicions of his landlady, David Lynde concluded to send
the orphan to boarding-school.

It was at Flatbush, Long Island, that I made the acquaintance of the
forlorn little fellow. His cot was next to mine in the dormitory; we
became close friends. We passed our examinations, left Flatbush at the
same time, and entered college together. In the meanwhile the boy's
relations with his guardian were limited to a weekly exchange of
letters, those of the uncle invariably beginning with "Yours of Saturday
duly at hand," and ending with "Enclosed please find." In respect to
pocket-money young Lynde was a prince. My friend spent the long
vacations with me at Newburgh, running down to New York occasionally to
pass a day or so with the uncle. In these visits their intimacy ripened.
Old Lynde was now become very proud of his bright young charge, giving
him astonishing dinners at Delmonico's, taking him to Wallack's, and
introducing him to the old fossils at the club as "my boy Ned."