ming to his soul, "Wild oats!
wild oats!"

He did not ask permission to see Dora and Adela.

Lord Heddon vehemently preached wild oats.

"It's all nonsense, Feverel," he said, "about bringing up a lad out of
the common way. He's all the better for a little racketing when he's
green--feels his bone and muscle learns to know the world. He'll never be
a man if he hasn't played at the old game one time in his life, and the
earlier the better. I've always found the best fellows were wildish once.
I don't care what he does when he's a green-horn; besides, he's got an
excuse for it then. You can't expect to have a man, if he doesn't take a
man's food. You'll have a milksop. And, depend upon it, when he does
break out he'll go to the devil, and nobody pities him. Look what those
fellows the grocers, do when they get hold of a young--what d'ye call
'em?--apprentice. They know the scoundrel was born with a sweet tooth.
Well! they give him the run of the shop, and in a very short time he
soberly deals out the goods, a devilish deal too wise to abstract a
morsel even for the pleasure of stealing. I know you have contrary
theories. You hold that the young grocer should have a soul above sugar.
It won't do! Take my word for it, Feverel, it's a dangerous experiment,
that of bringing up flesh and blood in harness. No colt will bear it, or
he's a tame beast. And look you: take it on medical grounds. Early
excesses the frame will recover from: late ones break the constitution.
There's the case in a nutshell. How's your son?"

"Sound and well!" replied Sir Austin. "And yours?"

"Oh, Lipscombe's always the same!" Lord Heddon sighed peevishly. "He's
quiet--that's one good thing; but there's no getting the country to take
him, so I must give up hopes of that."

Lord Lipscombe entering the room just then, Sir Austin surveyed him, and
was not astonished at the refusal of the country to take him.

"Wild oats!" he thought, as he contemplated the headless, degenerate,
weedy issue and result.

Both Darley Absworthy and Lord Heddon spoke of the marriage of their
offspring as a matter of course. "And if I were not a coward," Sir Austin
confessed to himself, "I should stand forth and forbid the banns! This
universal ignorance of the inevitable consequence of sin is frightful!
The wild oats plea is a torpedo that seems to have struck the world, and
rendered it morally insensible." However, they silenced him. He was
obliged to spare their feel