o take Marmaduke on the lazy river that flowed through the
Durdlebury meadows, thereby endangering his life, woefully blistering
his hands, and making him ache all over his poor little body. After a
quarter of an hour's interview with Mrs. Trevor, the indignant young
man threw up his post and departed.

Mrs. Trevor determined to select a tutor herself. A scholastic agency
sent her a dozen candidates. She went to London and interviewed them
all. A woman, even of the most limited intelligence, invariably knows
what she wants, and invariably gets it. Mrs. Trevor got Phineas
McPhail, M.A. Glasgow, B.A. Cambridge (Third Class Mathematical
Greats), reading for Holy Orders.

"I was training for the ministry in the Free Kirk of Scotland," said
he, "when I gradually became aware of the error of my ways, and saw
that there could only be salvation in the episcopal form of Church
government. As the daughter of a bishop, Mrs. Trevor, you will
appreciate my conscientious position. An open scholarship and the
remainder of my little patrimony enabled me to get my Oxford degree.
You would have no objection to my continuing my theological studies
while I undertake the education of your son?"

Phineas McPhail pleased Mrs. Trevor. He had what she called a rugged,
honest Scotch face, with a very big nose in the middle of it, and
little grey eyes overhung by brown and shaggy eyebrows. He spoke with
the mere captivating suggestion of an accent. The son of decayed,
proud, and now extinct gentlefolk, he presented personal testimonials
of an unexceptionable quality.

Phineas McPhail took to Doggie and Durdlebury as a duck to water. He
read for Holy Orders for seven years. When the question of his
ordination arose, he would declare impressively that his sacred duty
was the making of Marmaduke into a scholar and a Christian. That duty
accomplished, he would begin to think of himself. Mrs. Trevor
accounted him the most devoted and selfless friend that woman ever
had. He saw eye to eye with her in every detail of Marmaduke's
upbringing. He certainly taught the boy, who was naturally
intelligent, a great deal, and repaired the terrible gaps in Miss
Gunter's system of education. McPhail had started life with many eager
curiosities, under the impulse of which he had amassed considerable
knowledge of a superficial kind which, lolling in an arm-chair, with a
pipe in his mouth, he found easy to impart. To the credit side of Mrs.
Trevor's queer accoun