ecause they can't pay me."

"It's mad to think of such a thing; it would be worse for the college
than for you."

"If I knew it would be the worse for the college it might not be right
to do it" (he spoke as if this had cost him thought), "but there are
plenty who can manage a concern like this, now it is fairly established,
even if they could not have worked it up as I have."

"I'd like to see them get another man like you!"--loudly--"H'n, if they
accepted your resignation they'd find themselves on the wrong side of
the hedge! They wouldn't do it, either; it isn't as if you were not
known now for what you are. They can't be such fools as to think that
where I am, or what I do, can alter you."

"It is not with the more sensible men who are responsible for the
college that the choice would ultimately lie, but with the boys'
parents. If the numbers drop off--"

"Then the parents are the greatest idiots--"

There was a world of wrath in the words, but the principal of the New
College, who felt his position so insecure, laughed.

"Yes, you may fairly count on that. A clever woman, who kept a girls'
school, told me once that if she had to draw up rules for efficient
school-keeping they would begin:--'1st. Drown all the parents!'--My own
experience has led me to think she was not far wrong."

Alec stood looking out of the open window with a thunderous face. For
several reasons, some of which he hardly understood, he did not want to
leave Chellaston; but he had no intention of ruining his brother. It
annoyed him that Robert should seriously propose to retire, and more,
that he should let jokes and laughter fall on the heels of such a
proposal. He did not know that there are hours to some men, coming not
in the heat of party conflict, but in the quiet of daily life, when
martyrdom would be easy, and any sacrifice short of martyrdom is mere
play. And because he did not know this, he did not believe in it, just
as the average man does not. His cogitation, however, was not on such
abstruse matters, nor was it long, but its result was not insignificant.

"Put your money into it," he said, "and fight it out! Put part of my
money into it, if you like, and let us fight it out together."

Perhaps the sentiment that actuated the suggestion, even as concerned
part of his own inheritance, was nothing more than pugilistic; the idea,
however, came to Robert Trenholme as entirely a new one. The proceeds of
his father's successful