IX

THE WARDEN AND THE BRADDER

Of all penalties, sending a man down from the 'Varsity for a short time
seems to me the most unfair. For some people treat the culprit as if
he was almost a criminal, while others are glad to see him and aren't
in the least annoyed. Had I been sent down from Oxford I am sure my
father would have stormed and told me that I was going to that
universal rubbish-heap, called "The dogs," while my mother would have
been very hurt and very kind; but I know one man who went home
unexpectedly and was told by his father that if he had not been sent
down he would have missed the best "shoot" of the year. In some cases
the penalty is nothing, and in other cases it is far too heavy.

From the little I knew of Jack's people I did not expect that they
would be as unpleasant as they were, for as far as I could see he had
not done anything which was much of a disgrace to anybody.
Unfortunately, however, he went home at an unlucky moment, for his
father was mixed up with the Stock Exchange, and there was a slump or
something equally disagreeable in the City. Jack wrote to me: "I have
often seen my father in a bad temper, but I have never seen him keep it
up for so long before. There is a large bear syndicate formed in the
City, and my father is a bull, and fumes like one. I am very useful if
he would only see it, because he can work his rage off on me, and that
is a great relief to everybody else. But it is no use thinking of what
is to happen next; he has told me that I am going to start to Canada in
a month, and Australia in a fortnight, but wherever I go I am to have
only L10 besides my passage-money--he does the thing thoroughly. The
last scheme, announced at breakfast this morning, is that I am going to
Greece, to a quarry which has something to do with either marble or
cement; I didn't listen much, because I shall probably be booked for
Siberia before night. Anywhere but back to Oxford is really his idea,
and the more often he changes the place the better. Meanwhile I flaunt
history books before him. I left _Taswell Langmead_ on the lawn,
because it is the fattest book I have got, and it looks so like one of
the Stock Exchange books that I knew he would look at it. He did and
growled, but he put it back on the chair, which rather surprised me,
for I expected him to launch forth on the uselessness of me reading
such things. If I sit tight for a bit and don't get ready to go
anywhere, pe