“It ainʼt anything about fallacy, sir, that makes me refuse you,” cried Clinkers, who liked this outburst; “Iʼll tell you just what it is. You Hoxford scholars may be very honest, _but you ainʼt got the grease for business_.” Sorely down at heart and heel, Cradock plodded away from the yard of the hospitable Clinkers, who came to the door and looked after him, fearing to indulge his liking for that queer young fellow. But he had taken Cradʼs address; for who knew but something might turn up? “That man,” said Cradock to himself, “has a kindly heart, and would have helped me if he could. He wanted to pay my fare back to town, but of course I would not let him. It was well worth while to come all this distance, and get wet through twice over, to come across a kind–hearted man, when a fellow is down so. I began with applying for grand places; what a fool I was! Places worth 150_l._ or 200_l._ a–year. No wonder I did not get them: and what a lot of boot I have wasted! Now I am come down to 50_l._ per annum, and 75_l._ would be a fortune. If I had only begun at that mark, I might have got something by this time. ‘Vaulting ambition doth oʼerleap itself.’ And I might have emigrated—good Heavens! I might have emigrated upon the bounty of Uncle John, to some land where a man is worth more than the cattle of the field. Only Amy stopped me, only the thought of my Amy. Darling love, the sweetest angel—stop, I am so unlucky; if I begin to bless her, very likely sheʼll get typhus fever. After all, what does it matter what sort of life I take to? Or whether, indeed, I take the trouble to take to any at all? Only for her sake. A man who has done what I have lives no more, but drags his life. Now Iʼll go in for common labour, work of the hands and muscles; many a better man has done it; and it will be far wiser for me while my brain is so loose and wandering. I wonder I never thought of that. Isnʼt it raining, though! What we used, in the happy days, to call ‘Wood Fidley rainʼ”. The future chironax trudged more cheerfully after this decision. But he was very sorry to get so soaked, for he had his only suit of clothes on. He had brought but one suit of his own; and all he had bought with the rectorʼs money was six shirts at 3s. 6d., and four pairs of cotton hose. So he could not afford to get wet. There could be no doubt that he was shabbily dressed, no rich game to an hotel–tout, no tempting fare to a cabman; but neither could there be any doubt that he was a pure and noble gentleman; that was as clear as in the heyday of finest Oxford dandyism. Only he carried his head quite differently, and the tint of his cheeks was gone. He used to walk with his broad and well–set head thrown back, and slightly inclined to one side; now he bore it flagging, drooping, as if the spring of the neck were gone.