“My _noble_ son indeed, John! A very noble thing he has done. Shall I never hear the last of his nobility? And who ever called my Clayton noble? You have been unfair throughout, John Rosedew, most unfair and blind to the merits of my more loving, more simple–hearted, more truly noble boy, I tell you”. Mr. Rosedew, at such a time, could not of course contest the point, could not tell the bereaved old man that it was he himself who had been unfair. “And when”, asked Sir Cradock, getting warmer, “when did you know my poor boy Violet stick up for political opinions of his own at the age of twenty, want to drain tenants’ cottages, and pretend to be better and wiser than his father”? “And when have you known Cradock do, at any rate, the latter”? “Ever since he got that scholarship, that Scotland thing at Oxford”—Sir Cradock knew the name well enough, as every Oxford man does—“he has been perfectly insufferable; such arrogance, such conceit, such airs! And he only got it by a trick. Poor Viley ought to have had it”. John Rosedew tried to control himself, but the gross untruth and injustice of that last accusation were a little too much for him. “Perhaps, Sir Cradock Nowell, you will allow that I am a competent judge of the relative powers of the two boys, who knew all they did know from me, and from no one else”. “Of course, I know you are a competent judge, only blinded by partiality”. John allowed even that to go by. “Without any question of preference, simply as a lover of literature, I say that Clayton had no chance with him in a Greek examination. In Latin he would have run him close. You know I always said so, even before they went to college. I was surprised, at the time, that they mentioned Clayton even as second to him”. “And grieved, I dare say, deeply grieved, if the truth were told”! “It is below me to repel mean little accusations”. “Come, John Rosedew”, said Sir Cradock, magnanimously and liberally, “I can forgive you for being quarrelsome, even at such a time as this. It always was so, and I suppose it always will be. To–day I am not fit for much, though perhaps you do not know it. Thinking so little of my dead boy, you are surprised that I should grieve for him”. “I should be surprised indeed if you did not. God knows even I have grieved deeply, as for a son of my own”. “Shake hands, John; you are a good fellow—the best fellow in the world. Forgive me for being petulant. You donʼt know how my heart aches”. After that it was impossible to return for the moment to Cradock Nowell. But the next day John renewed the subject, and at length obtained a request from the father that his son should come to him.