A
public school education cuts off a boy's retreat; he can no longer become
a labourer or a mechanic, and these are the only people whose tenure of
independence is not precarious--with the exception of course of those who
are born inheritors of money or who are placed young in some safe and
deep groove. Mr Pontifex saw nothing of this; all he saw was that he was
spending much more money upon his children than the law would have
compelled him to do, and what more could you have? Might he not have
apprenticed both his sons to greengrocers? Might he not even yet do so
to-morrow morning if he were so minded? The possibility of this course
being adopted was a favourite topic with him when he was out of temper;
true, he never did apprentice either of his sons to greengrocers, but his
boys comparing notes together had sometimes come to the conclusion that
they wished he would.
At other times when not quite well he would have them in for the fun of
shaking his will at them. He would in his imagination cut them all out
one after another and leave his money to found almshouses, till at last
he was obliged to put them back, so that he might have the pleasure of
cutting them out again the next time he was in a passion.
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