a comfortable florid man in the early sixties, took up his
parable and expounded it for three-quarters of an hour. If ever young
man heard that which was earnestly meant for his welfare, Doggie heard
it from his Very Reverend Uncle's lips.

"And now, my dear boy," said the Dean by way of peroration, "you
cannot but understand that it is your bounden duty to apply yourself
to some serious purpose in life."

"I do," said Doggie. "I've been thinking over it for a long time. I'm
going to gather material for a history of wall-papers."

CHAPTER II

Thenceforward Doggie, like the late Mr. Matthew Arnold's
fellow-millions, lived alone. He did not complain. There was little to
complain about. He owned a pleasant old house set in fifteen acres of
grounds. He had an income of three thousand pounds a year. Old Peddle,
the butler, and his wife, the housekeeper, saved him from domestic
cares. Rising late and retiring early, like the good King of Yvetot, he
cheated the hours that might have proved weary. His meals, his toilet,
his music, his wall-papers, his drawing and embroidering--specimens of
the last he exhibited with great success at various shows held by Arts
and Crafts Guilds, and such-like high and artistic fellowships--his
sweet-peas, his chrysanthemums, his postage stamps, his dilettante
reading and his mild social engagements, filled most satisfyingly the
hours not claimed by slumber. Now and then appointments with his
tailor summoned him to London. He stayed at the same mildewed old
family hotel in the neighbourhood of Bond Street at which his mother
and his grandfather, the bishop, had stayed for uncountable years.
There he would lunch and dine stodgily in musty state. In the evenings
he would go to the plays discussed in the less giddy of Durdlebury
ecclesiastical circles. The play over, it never occurred to him to do
otherwise than drive decorously back to Sturrocks's Hotel. Suppers at
the Carlton or the Savoy were outside his sphere of thought or
opportunity. His only acquaintance in London were vague elderly female
friends of his mother, who invited him to chilly semi-suburban teas
and entertained him with tepid reminiscence and criticism of their
divers places of worship. The days in London thus passed drearily, and
Doggie was always glad to get home again.

In Durdlebury he began to feel himself appreciated. The sleepy society
of the place accepted him as a young man of unquestionable birth and
irrep