intentioned man, all of which stood in his favour with the more
sober portion of society whose favour he courted. As his talents and
industry gained him grace in the eyes of the dons of his college, so his
good life and good understanding made him friends among the more worthy
of his companions. He was conceited and self-righteous, but not
obviously so.

When his college had conferred upon him the degree of doctor of
medicine, he felt that he had climbed only on the lower rungs of the
ladder of knowledge. It was his father, not himself, who had chosen his
profession, and now that he had received the right to practise medicine
he experienced no desire to practise it; learning he loved truly, but
not that he might turn it into golden fees, and not that by it he might
assuage the sorrows of others; he loved it partly for its own sake,
perhaps chiefly so; but there was in his heart a long-enduring ambition,
which formed itself definitely into a desire for higher culture, and
hoped more indefinitely for future fame.

Caius resolved to go abroad and study at the medical schools of the Old
World. His professors applauded his resolve; his friends encouraged him
in it. It was to explain to his father the necessity for this course of
action, and wheedle the old man into approval and consent, that the
young doctor went home in the spring of the same year which gave him his
degree.

Caius had other sentiments in going home besides those which underlay
the motive which we have assigned. If as he travelled he at all regarded
the finery of all that he had acquired, it was that he might by it
delight the parents who loved him with such pride. Though not a fop, his
hand trembled on the last morning of his journey when he fastened a
necktie of the colour his mother loved best. He took an earlier train
than he could have been expected to take, and drove at furious rate
between the station and his home, in order that he might creep in by the
side door and greet his parents before they had thought of coming to
meet him. He had also taken no breakfast, that he might eat the more of
the manifold dainties which his mother had in readiness.

For three or four days he feasted hilariously upon these dainties until
he was ill. He also practised all the airs and graces of dandyism that
he could think of, because he knew that the old folks, with ill-judging
taste, admired them. When he had explained to them how great a man he
should be when he h