"Not at all," said Mr. Binney, "not at all. I am prepared to take the rough with the smooth, and I can keep rules, if they are sensible rules, as well as the young fellows."
Mr. Rimington laughed nervously. "May I ask your reason for wanting to come up to Cambridge so--so late in life?" he asked.
"I have a pa.s.sion for education, sir," said Mr. Binney. "I left school at the age of fourteen, and have worked hard at my business ever since.
But money-making isn"t the sole interest in life--besides I have got as much money as I want. I wish to regain some of the lost opportunities of youth."
"Have you kept up your cla.s.sical studies at all since you left school?"
asked the Tutor.
"I never learnt any cla.s.sics, sir," answered Mr. Binney airily; "that has all to come. They didn"t consider that Latin and Greek prepared us for the business of life when I was a boy."
"Oh! then I am afraid it is not of the slightest use your attempting to enter for our examination," said the Tutor, with a visible shade of relief overspreading his face, "it would take you years to come up to the standard we require."
"That is _my_ affair, sir," said Mr. Binney. "I shall not only attempt it, I shall succeed. I have ability and determination."
Mr. Rimington looked annoyed. "I think you will find you are mistaken," he said. "However, as you say, that is your affair and not mine. But, apart from that, I am not sure, Mr. Binney--I speak quite openly--that it is the kindest course you could take, as far as your son is concerned, to enter at the same college. He comes to us with a very good character, and we hope he will do us credit. But it is likely to go against him--I mean it will hardly be giving him a fair chance with the other men of the college to be constantly under your supervision. A University education, you know, Mr. Binney, is a valuable training for a young man, because he begins to learn to stand alone, while he is not left entirely alone. Your son would lose that advantage, whatever else he might gain, if you were to be constantly with him."
Mr. Binney straightened himself up. Mr. Rimington"s opposition roused his fighting business instincts, which prompted him to take every opportunity of gaining an advantage. "That again is a matter for me to decide, sir," he said. "Lucius and I are very good friends and understand one another thoroughly. I have given him advantages of education that I never had, but when I put my foot down he has to obey.
He knows that by this time. We will leave him out of the question, if you please."
Mr. Rimington again looked annoyed.
"If you are determined to come up for entrance to this college," he said, "and succeed in pa.s.sing the necessary test, which, I warn you, will be a harder matter than you imagine, you would find yourself compelled to a.s.sociate with men of very immature views, Mr. Binney."
"I am not afraid of that," said Mr. Binney. "In fact I shall enjoy it.
I have preserved my youth and can take the young fellows on their own ground and beat "em."
Mr. Rimington pa.s.sed his hand over his mouth. "Then I had better give you the necessary papers," he said. "You must send us a certificate of good conduct, signed by a clergyman who has known you for three years."
"My pastor, the celebrated Dr. Toller, under whose ministrations I have sat for the last twenty years would do, I suppose," said Mr. Binney.
"I am a Baptist."
"Yes, certainly," said the Tutor. "Then there is the certificate of birth. And this paper will tell you all about the subjects for examination. I should advise you to engage a private coach. You are too late, of course, for the first examination, but----"
"There is another in October," interrupted Mr. Binney. "I know. I shall present myself for that."
"Then I will wish you good-morning, Mr. Binney," said the Tutor. "You will excuse me, but I have a good many pupils to see." Mr. Rimington summoned up his usual amiable smile and took leave of Mr. Binney with a warm grasp of the hand; and Mr. Binney went out through the ante-room, where the waiting crowd had swelled to unusual proportions, and clattered down the oak staircase into the court, hugging his precious sheaf of papers.
In the Combination Room, that evening, Mr. Rimington and Mr. Segrave discussed Mr. Binney over their wine.
"I did my best to dissuade him," said Mr. Rimington. "It is very hard lines on the boy."
"He is a nice boy," said the other. "Wargrave"--this was Lucius"s house-master at Eton--"says he is one of the best boys he has in his house; not at all brilliant, but of excellent character and a first-rate oar--just the sort of freshman we want, as we can"t expect them all to be scholars. I"m afraid it will spoil his life here if his father insists upon inflicting himself on us. What sort of a man is he?"
Mr. Rimington laughed. He would have liked to say, "Just a c.o.c.ky little tradesman," but he was a charitable man. "If I were the boy,"
he said, "I would rather have him in London than at Cambridge. But I don"t think we shall see him at Cambridge. He left school thirty years ago and has never learnt either Latin or Greek, or indeed anything that we want, excepting, perhaps, arithmetic, and we don"t want much of that. Yet he expects us to admit him in October."
"Oh, well then, we may set our minds at rest," said Mr. Segrave. "But it"s a curious idea altogether."
Mr. Binney had got back to Russell Square by that time and was just then engaged in writing out an advertis.e.m.e.nt for a resident tutor.
CHAPTER III
LUCIUS WINS A YEAR"S RESPITE
A week after Mr. Binney"s visit to Cambridge, he wrote the following letter to his son:--
"MY DEAR Lucius,--Yours of 29th ult. to hand. I note you are getting on with your work and enjoying yourself. I have now relinquished my attendance at the office, and have left the management in Mr. Walton"s hands, merely dropping in for an hour or two once a week to see how things are going. As far as I can see he will carry on the business well during my three years" absence, and at the end of that time I shall take the reins again and you will begin work there. If all goes well I shall take you into partnership a year after that, by which time you ought to have fully mastered the details.
"_Re_ work for Trinity Entrance Examination.
"I have started on above, having engaged a private coach. I had 430 answers to my application. My choice fell on a gentleman named Minshull, a Peterhouse man who dwells in the vicinity. He took his degree only last year and expects to enter the Church shortly. He comes every morning at nine o"clock and we work till one. He lunches with me, after which we take a walk in the Park or elsewhere, returning for tea and another two hours" work. Then Minshull leaves me, and after a light dinner I do preparation for him for another two hours and then to bed. On Sat.u.r.day we knock off at one, and I generally take an outing with Mrs. Higginbotham, who wishes to be kindly remembered to you. She takes a great interest in my enterprise, and refreshes her memory and mine during our little jaunts by getting me to repeat to her without book such things as I have learnt during the week as come within the limits of the curriculum to which she applied herself during girlhood. The subjects themselves are hardly such as in my judgment repay the amount of study necessary to master them. What with the growing compet.i.tion in commercial life, and the great influx of foreigners--Germans and others--it seems to me waste of time to devote three valuable years of a young man"s life in getting up the opinions of a man like Plato, who lived so many years ago that his ideas are by no means up-to-date. Or take a poet like Virgil again--if Virgil can be justly called a poet. Compare his thoughts with those of our own immortal Shakespeare--the Swan of Avon--or even with Macaulay"s _Lays of Ancient Rome_, if you _must_ have matters of ancient history treated in poetry. And what is the use of puzzling over the Acts of the Apostles in the Original Greek, when that book, as well as the rest of the New Testament, has been so admirably translated in the Revised Version? What the authorities of our Universities entirely fail to grasp is that Latin and Greek _are not spoken nowadays_. How much better young men would be fitted for the business of life if they were trained to speak and write French and German fluently! This is so obvious to a man of experience that I seriously thought of writing to the Chancellor of the University, the Duke of Devonshire, and laying my views before him, but Minshull dissuaded me, saying that I should be in a better position to bring to bear any influence I might possess after I have taken my degree, which is perfectly true. But the truth of it is there are too many old women at the head of the Universities. What you want are keen-headed men, men of experience in the world, who would move with the times, and get Oxford and Cambridge to move with them. I am so convinced I am right in this opinion, that if it were not for the cares of business, to which I must return when I have finished with Cambridge, I should apply for a Trinity fellowship after I have taken my degree, and try to infuse a little spirit into the counsels of the college and through it into the University.
"I must now draw to a close and return to my studies. I feel that they are beneath my powers, but at the same time I must not grumble at having to begin at the bottom rung of the ladder. "Thorough" has always been my motto and will continue so. No more at present, from your affectionate father,--PETER BINNEY."
Mr. Binney"s letters as the time went on became more and more sprightly in tone. With the cares of business he seemed to have finally laid aside all the interests commonly felt by gentlemen who have reached middle age. He relapsed into slang. Minshull, he said, was a "jolly good sort," only you had to work. It was no good trying to "kid him."
The subjects for examination he now found "beastly stiff," and it was an "awful sap" getting them up, but he quite expected to have "bowled them over" by the time the examination was due. He mentioned Mrs.
Higginbotham once or twice as one on whose approval of the course he was pursuing he greatly relied.
"Confound that old woman," said Lucius when he read this. "She"s backing him up in all this nonsense. She"s a sentimental old donkey.
Well, he can"t do it in time, that"s one comfort;" and Lucius would encourage himself by dwelling on this conviction, and then tear up his father"s letters.
He came up to town for two nights about the end of June on his long leave. Mr. Binney, of course, was full of his work. He wished to be treated just like any other youth with the ordeal of an examination before him, and itched to talk over his chances. But Lucius retired into his sh.e.l.l whenever Cambridge was mentioned. Mr. Binney, of course, noticed this and began to get his back up about it. At last he tackled his son in the most effectual way as they sat together in the library at Russell Square after dinner.
"Look here, young man," he said, "you may as well get used to this idea. You and I are going up to Trinity together, and I want to do the thing fairly and squarely. I shall put us both on an allowance, and at present I intend to make them equal. But if you"re going to be sulky about it, they won"t be equal, or anything like it. So put that in your pipe and smoke it."
"What allowance?" inquired Lucius with some interest. His father had always refused to come to the point when he had asked him the same question before.
"Well, I thought of 300 a year," said Mr. Binney. "Minshull did it on 200, and did it very well, but, as he says, Trinity is the college where all the swells go, and if you want to live up to "em you might have to spend a bit more. As I say, I want to do the thing well."
"I don"t suppose Minshull knows much about it," said Lucius. "Most of the chaps I know are going to have about four hundred, and hardly any of them less than three. You have to be jolly careful on three hundred a year at Trinity."
"Ah, well," said Mr. Binney, "I won"t let a hundred a year, or even two, stand in the way, and we"ll share alike if you"re sensible about it. But I"m not going to pay you four hundred a year to look down on your father, so you had better make up your mind how you"re going to behave before October comes."
Lucius sat silent with a gloomy countenance and his hands in his pockets. When he was at school the idea of his father accompanying him to Cambridge as a freshman seemed so absurd that he was sometimes surprised to find that he was enjoying life much as usual, without being very much burdened by it. When he was at home and realised how very much in earnest Mr. Binney was, the dark fate that hung over him became less remote, and filled him with gloomy forebodings. But youth is elastic. It seemed almost out of the question that Mr. Binney would succeed in pa.s.sing the entrance examination, while Lucius himself was already admitted a member of Trinity College. The allowance his father had named seemed to him quite adequate, and he allowed himself to cheer up a little and inquire after the health of Mrs. Higginbotham.
Mr. Binney coughed in some little embarra.s.sment.
"Mrs. Higginbotham has a bad cold," he said, "and is confined to the house. I hope she will be well enough to accompany me to Lord"s for the Eton and Harrow match, if the state of her bronchial tubes, which are giving her a lot of trouble just now, permit of it. You will be able to introduce us to some of your friends and future companions at Cambridge."
"I"m very sorry," said Lucius, "but I shan"t be there. Henley comes in the same week."