use of the language?"

Mrs. Trevor, as usual, agreed. So thenceforward, whenever they were
abroad, which was for three or four months of each year, Phineas
revelled in sheer idleness, nicotine, and the skilful consumption of
alcohol, while highly paid professors taught Marmaduke--and,
incidentally, himself--French and Italian.

Of the world, however, and of the facts, grim or seductive, of life,
Doggie learned little. Whether by force of some streak of honesty,
whether through sheer laziness, whether through canny self-interest,
Phineas McPhail conspired with Mrs. Trevor to keep Doggie in darkest
ignorance. His reading was selected like that of a young girl in a
convent: he was taken only to the most innocent of plays: foreign
theatres, casinos, and such-like wells of delectable depravity,
existed almost beyond his ken. Until he was twenty it never occurred
to him to sit up after his mother had gone to bed. Of strange
goddesses he knew nothing. His mother saw to that. He had a mild
affection for his cousin Peggy, which his mother encouraged. She
allowed him to smoke cigarettes, drink fine claret, the remains of the
cellar of her father, the bishop, a connoisseur, and _creme de
menthe_. And, until she died, that was all poor Doggie knew of the
lustiness of life.

Mrs. Trevor died, and Doggie, as soon as he had recovered from the
intensity of his grief, looked out upon a lonely world. Phineas, like
Mrs. Micawber, swore he would never desert him. In the perils of Polar
exploration or the comforts of Denby Hall, he would find Phineas
McPhail ever by his side. The first half-dozen or so of these
declarations consoled Doggie tremendously. He dreaded the Church
swallowing up his only protector and leaving him defenceless.
Conscientiously, however, he said:

"I don't want your affection for me to stand in your way, sir."

"'Sir'?" cried Phineas, "is it not practicable for us to do away with
the old relations of master and pupil, and become as brothers? You are
now a man, and independent. Let us be Pylades and Orestes. Let us
share and share alike. Let us be Marmaduke and Phineas."

Doggie was touched by such devotion. "But your ambitions to take Holy
Orders, which you have sacrificed for my sake?"

"I think it may be argued," said Phineas, "that the really beautiful
life is delight in continued sacrifice. Besides, my dear boy, I am not
quite so sure as I was when I was young, that by confining oneself
within the narro