Dear Lupin... by Roger Charlie; Mortimer Mortimer; Mortimer Charlie

you have been offered a new job by a reputable firm called Hamptons. No doubt you will be wise to accept it if the prospects for the future are reasonably good. I hope you will find somewhere suitable to live in London. I am not sure that I consider Maison Soames ‘suitable’. Personally, I rather like Soames but I am disturbed that so many of his own age-group rate him as ‘bad news’. I do not want you to be dragged into trouble or excesses. I hear that with a degree of folly that is hard to credit you permitted some child to drive your Fiat into a concrete wall. Doubtless Mr Addison in moments of exasperation used to quote to you: ‘Sunt pueri pueri; pueri puerilia tractant.’ I think Miss Blackwell is to ride in a race at Ascot in a fortnight’s time. Mrs Hislop went berserk at the Loyd’s ball; she kicked Lady Dartmouth up the arse and called her a ‘dreary old bag’ and then, after a brief argument, she punched poor old Dick Poole on the jaw!
    Yours ever,
    RM
    To everyone’s astonishment I am offered rather good job in St James’s, London, with an upmarket estate agent
.
    Dear Charles,
    Last night I had two long conversations on the telephone with Mr Shearer. He agrees with me that this proposed jaunt to South America must not take place.
    He spoke to me about his son with a candour that must have been painful to him. I gather that this boy of nineteen (or less?) has a lamentable record and was sent to an Approved School. He is still ‘under care’. He is unfortunately, according to his father, typical of young persons involved in the drug scene in that he is incapable of speaking the truth and is devoid of moral values.
    Surely, unless you prefer to remain wilfully blind, you must see that the poor boy is totally unsuited in every way to be your sole companion on an ‘adventure’ trip to South America? What do you know about South America? Can you speak the language? What are the political conditions existing there? What are the health dangers? Have you the money to transport yourselves and your car?
    If you went off with this boy, I would be subjected to the constant worry of you both ending up in some sleazy South American gaol.
    I am totally opposed to you going and Mr Shearer is totally opposed to the expedition, too. Of course, I cannot order you not to go and I cannot recollect any occasion when you have consented to take my advice. However, I regard this plan of yours as so undesirable and so potentially dangerous that it would be cowardly of me to wash me hands of the whole affair. If, therefore, you decide to go against my wishes on this occasion, you must be prepared to accept the consequences, which will not in the long run be to your advantage.
    Mr Shearer told me a long and involved story about shares, I.O.Us and so forth. The impression I gained is that either you are some complete fool and allowed yourself to be used; or else, with your eyes open, you went perilously close to aiding and abetting a fraud. I found the whole story squalid and distasteful.
    You are in many respects still very young for your age and I hope you will forgive me if I say you seem to have a regrettable propensity for picking up undesirable friends. You must try hard and steady down a bit. I know you were never any good at football but must you always try and kick the ball through your own goal? You are capable of working hard and effectively but since you were at Eton you have never been able to stick to anything. I am getting old and tired and I can’t last forever. What sort of a head of the family will you be? Will you really be in a position to look after – or at least help and advise – your mother and sisters? You won’t be much use if you are in Venezuela with a juvenile junky. Surely you are old enough to know that your mother is exceptionally highly strung and family worries can throw her off balance to an extent that is genuinely alarming.