so unfortunate!"

"Why the deuce wouldn't you go when I told you?"

"Who on earth would have thought that they'd have been so punctual?
They never are punctual on the Great Eastern. It was an infernal
shame. I think I shall go at once to Harnage and tell him all about
it." Mr. Harnage was Lord Gerald's tutor.

"But you've been in ever so many rows before."

"Well,--I've been gated, and once when they'd gated me I came right
upon Harnage on the bridge at King's."

"What sort of a fellow is he?"

"He used to be good-natured. Now he has taken ever so many crotchets
into his head. It was he who began all this about none of the men
going to the Derby."

"Did you ask him yourself for leave?"

"Yes. And when I told him about your owning Prime Minister he got
savage and declared that was the very reason why I shouldn't go."

"You didn't tell me that."

"I was determined I would go. I wasn't going to be made a child of."

At last it was decided that the two brothers should go down to
Cambridge together. Silverbridge would be able to come back to London
the same evening, so as to take his drag down to the Oaks on the
Friday,--a duty from which even his present misery would not deter
him. They reached Cambridge at about three, and Lord Silverbridge at
once called at the Master's lodge and sent in his card. The Master
of Trinity is so great that he cannot be supposed to see all comers,
but on this occasion Lord Silverbridge was fortunate. With much
trepidation he told his story. Such being the circumstances, could
anything be done to moderate the vials of wrath which must doubtless
be poured out over the head of his unfortunate brother?

"Why come to me?" said the Master. "From what you say yourself, it is
evident that you know that this must rest with the College tutor."

"I thought, sir, if you would say a word."

"Do you think it would be right that I should interfere for one
special man, and that a man of special rank?"

"Nobody thinks that would count for anything. But--"

"But what?" asked the Master.

"If you knew my father, sir!"

"Everybody knows your father;--every Englishman I mean. Of course I
know your father,--as a public man, and I know how much the country
owes to him."

"Yes, it does. But it is not that I mean. If you knew how this
would,--would,--would break his heart." Then there came a tear into
the young man's eye,--and there was something almost like a tear in
the eye of the old man t