Peter Binney. Archibald Marshall

from his country grammar school. Mr. Binney had first of all considered a belated career at Cambridge as an opportunity for mending a defective education; under the encouragement of Mrs. Higginbotham's yearnings after vanished delights he had come to look upon it as a means of gaining some of the prestige of golden youth; influenced by Minshull's complacent reverence, he had insensibly drifted away from the careless acquiescence with which Lucius, for instance, regarded his own proposed residence at the University, and now felt that he should break his heart if he was prevented from taking his part in the glamorous delights which his tutor held before his eyes. He made herculean efforts to get on terms with his examination subjects, and worked harder than he had ever done in his life before.

      Minshull arrived at nine o'clock the next morning as usual. Mr. Binney, who had been working since seven and had breakfasted at eight, had not yet returned from a short constitutional, and Lucius had the privilege of an interview with his father's tutor.

      Minshull was a tall young man, rather shabbily dressed, with a long solemn face diversified by little ranges of spots of an eruptive tendency. He greeted Lucius with some respect, for Lucius was a potential "blue," and Minshull would have been as incapable of keeping on his hat in church as of talking without due reverence to a "blue."

      "How's the governor getting on with his work?" asked Lucius with an abashed snigger.

      "Oh, pretty well," replied Minshull. "He works very hard, but of course he has to do everything from the beginning."

      "No chance of his getting through, I suppose?" said Lucius.

      "Oh, I don't know," said Minshull. "If he works as hard as he has been doing so far for the next three months he may just be able to scrape through in October."

      Lucius began to pace the room.

      "If he gets into Trinity I won't go up, that's flat," he said.

      "What! Not go up to the ''Varsity' when you've got a chance!" exclaimed Minshull. "My dear fellow, you don't know what you're talking about. You will regret it all your life if you don't."

      "Look here," said Lucius, "you were at Cambridge, weren't you?"

      "Yes, certainly," said Minshull, slightly offended. "I took my degree last year."

      "Well, how would you have liked to have your old governor playing the fool up there at the same college?"

      "I see no reason to suppose that Mr. Binney will play the fool," said Minshull stiffly. "I have put him up to everything he ought to know. He won't make mistakes. He is not likely to carry an umbrella with a cap and gown or anything of that sort."

      "Why shouldn't he carry an umbrella if it rains? Look here, can't you make certain of his getting pilled for this examination?"

      Minshull looked horrified. "What! and prevent his going up to the 'Varsity when he wants to?" he exclaimed.

      "Or if you can't do that and he's likely to get through, tell him that you don't think much of Trinity, and get him to go somewhere else."

      "There are plenty of good colleges in Cambridge besides Trinity," said Minshull, "although Trinity men don't seem to think so. My own college, for instance, Peterhouse, isn't big, but it is one of the best, if not the best of the smaller ones."

      "Is it? Well then, get him to go there. Do you mean to say you don't think it's a beastly shame him wanting to come up and spoil all my time at Cambridge?"

      "I can't see——" began Minshull, but just then Mr. Binney came in, and Lucius left them to their labours, with the uncomfortable conviction that the toils were closing in on him and that there was no help at any rate to be gained from his father's tutor.

      Henley week came round in due course, but Mrs. Higginbotham, alas, did not come round with it. Her cold had settled on her lungs and the poor lady was brought very low. At the time Mr. Binney hoped to have been paddling her about on the Thames in a Canadian canoe she was surveying the beauties of Torquay in a bathchair. Mr. Binney had been told by Minshull that if he really wished to pass the Trinity entrance examination in October, it was absolutely imperative that he should not lose a single day's work if he could possibly help it, so Lucius won a reprieve for that occasion, at least, and as the Eton boys managed to win the Ladies' Plate and rowed a good race in the semi-final heat for the Grand Challenge Cup, he spent on the whole a pleasant Henley. During the first few weeks of his holidays he was training for and rowing in some of the up-river regattas, and September he spent with various school-fellows in Scotland, so it was not until just before he was due at Cambridge that he found himself once more in the house in Russell Square and the society of his father. Mr. Binney, in the meantime, fired with a mighty ambition to show his mettle and acquit himself well in his examination, had retired to an east coast village with Minshull, and devoted himself strenuously to his books. He had worked very hard for six months, but a man who has left a cheap commercial school at the age of fourteen, and that thirty years before, can hardly expect to do in that time what a public school boy has been working steadily up to ever since his education began. A month before the examination, Minshull saw that his pupil had no chance of success, and told him so one morning as they were walking together by the sea. Mr. Binney was heart-broken.

      "No chance, Minshull?" he asked plaintively. "I don't mind working another two hours a day, you know. Isn't there any chance?"

      "I'm afraid not, Mr. Binney," said Minshull. "You have worked very hard; you couldn't have done better; but you see the work is all new to you. You might get in at the Hall, perhaps, or if you cared about it I should think I might have enough influence with the Peterhouse authorities to——"

      "Never," said Mr. Binney firmly. "Trinity or nowhere. If I make up my mind to a thing, I stick to it. I shouldn't have made my fortune if I hadn't."

      "I should advise you, sir, to give up all ideas of attempting the October examination," said Minshull. "I can assure you you can't possibly pass it, and if you do very badly it may be prejudicial to your chances in the future. Take a month's holiday, or you'll knock yourself up. Then set to work again and be ready for them next spring."

      "I feel you're right," said poor Mr. Binney. "I feel you're right, Minshull, but it's a sad blow. You'll excuse me if I just walk on alone for a bit. I shall get over it better."

      Minshull left him, and Mr. Binney spent a very bitter hour by himself. He had never been beaten before when he had made up his mind to succeed, and it enraged him to think of the two hundred beardless boys who would enter Trinity College as freshmen in a month's time, most of whom had succeeded without any difficulty in doing what he could not do even with the most strenuous endeavours. Lucius, for instance, had taken the whole thing very calmly, although he was not a particularly clever nor a particularly diligent boy. Then his thoughts passed on to Mrs. Higginbotham—Martha. That was the worst thought of all. He had written once a week to Mrs. Higginbotham, alluding in an airy way to his new acquaintances, Plato and Virgil and Euclid, as if he and they were on the most intimate terms of familiarity. Now he would have to tell her that their thoughts were too deep for him—for him who had familiarised all England with the mind of a Shakespeare—and that the languages by means of which they expressed their thoughts still presented such a mountain of obstacles to him that it was doubtful if he would ever succeed in getting over them. Still, the confession would have to be made, and Mr. Binney, with that directness which characterised all his actions, determined that it should be made that very night. "I am very, very sorry, Martha," he wrote, "I have really done my best. I shouldn't have been worthy of you if I hadn't. I'm afraid your Peter is a bit of a dunce, although he never thought so before. Write and say you will not throw me over for it, and I shall set to work again with renewed earnestness."