nine in
the morning
Mr. Thorpe calmly -- always calmly -- said , first , that he `` would never compound with vice '' -LRB- which was what nobody asked him to do -RRB- , and , secondly , that he would , in no instance , great or small , `` consent to act from a principle of expediency : '' this last assertion , in the case of Zack , being about equivalent to saying that if he set out to walk due north , and met a lively young bull galloping with his head down , due south , he would not consent to save his own bones , or yield the animal space enough to run on , by stepping aside a single inch in a lateral direction , east or west . `` My son requires the most unremitting parental discipline and control , '' Mr. Thorpe remarked , in explanation of his motives for forcing Zack to adopt a commercial career . `` When he is not under my own eye at home , he must be under the eyes of devout friends , in whom I can place unlimited confidence . One of these devout friends is ready to receive him into his counting-house ; to keep him industriously occupied from nine in the morning till six in the evening ; to surround him with estimable examples ; and , in short , to share with me the solemn responsibility of managing his moral and religious training . Persons who ask me to allow motives of this awfully important nature to be modified in the smallest degree by any considerations connected with the lad 's natural disposition -LRB- which has been a source of grief to me from his childhood -RRB- with his bodily gifts of the flesh -LRB- which have hitherto only served to keep him from the cultivation of the gifts of the spirit -RRB- ; or with his own desires -LRB- which I know by bitter experience to be all of the world , worldly -RRB- ; -- persons , I say , who ask me to do any of these things , ask me also to act from a godless principle of expediency , and to violate moral rectitude by impiously compounding with vice . '' Acting on such principles of parental discipline as these , Mr. Thorpe conscientiously believed that he had done his duty , when he had at last forced his son into the merchant 's office . He had , in truth , perpetrated one of the most serious mistakes which it is possible for a wrong-headed father to commit .