ho followed the
profession of underwriter at Lloyd's. His family had consisted of three
daughters before Ronald appeared to gratify a long ambition. Now, Mr
Vane was a widower, and his son engrossed a large share in his
affections, being at once his pride, his hope, and his despair. The lad
was a good lad; upright, honourable, and clean-living; everything, in
fact, that a father could wish, if only,--but that "if" was the
mischief! It was hard lines on a steady-going City man, who was famed
for his level-headed sobriety, to possess a son who eschewed fact in
favour of fancy, and preferred rather to roam the countryside composing
rhymes and couplets, than to step into a junior partnership in an
established and prosperous firm.

It is part of an Englishman's creed to appreciate the great singers of
his race,--Shakespeare, Milton, Tennyson, not to mention a dozen lesser
fry; but, strange to say, though he feels a due pride in the row of
poets on his library shelves, he yet regards a poet by his own fireside
as a humiliation and an offence. A budding painter, a sculptor, a
musician, may be the boast of a proud family circle, but to give a youth
the reputation of writing verses is at once to call down upon his head a
storm of ridicule and patronising disdain! He is credited with being
effeminate, sentimental, and feeble-minded; his failure is taken as a
preordained fact; he becomes a butt and a jest.

Mr Vane profoundly hoped that none of the underwriters at Lloyd's would
hear of Ronald's scribbling. It would handicap the boy in his future
work, and make it harder for him to get rid of his "slips"! No one
could guess from the lad's appearances that there was anything wrong,--
that was one comfort! He kept his hair well cropped, and wore as high
and glossy collars as any fellow in his right mind.

"You don't know when you are well off!" cried the irate father. "How
many thousands would be thankful to be in your shoes, with a place kept
warm to step into, and an income assured from the start! I am not
asking you to sit mewed up at a desk all day. If you want to use your
gift of words, you couldn't have a better chance than as a writer at
Lloyd's. There's scope for imagination too,--judiciously applied! And
you would have your evenings _free_ for scribbling, if you haven't had
enough of it in the daytime."

Ronald's reply dealt at length with the subject of environment, and his
father was given to understand t