A public school education cuts off a boy's
retreat; he can no longer become a labourer or a mechanic, and these
are the only people whose tenure of independence is not precarious-
with the exception of course of those who are born inheritors of money
or who are placed young in some safe and deep groove. Mr. Pontifex saw
nothing of this; all he saw was that he was spending much more money
upon his children than the law would have compelled him to do, and
what more could you have? Might he not have apprenticed both his
sons to greengrocers? Might he not even yet do so to-morrow morning if
he were so minded? The possibility of this course being adopted was
a favourite topic with him when he was out of temper; true, he never
did apprentice either of his sons to greengrocers, but his boys
comparing notes together had sometimes come to the conclusion that
they wished he would.
At other times when not quite well he would have them in for the
full of shaking his will at them. He would in his imagination cut them
all out one after another and leave his money to found almshouses,
found almshouses, till at last he was obliged to put them back, so
that he might have the pleasure of cutting them out again the next
time he was in a passion.
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