But Kit Sharp being exceedingly proud, and most secretive of his pride, would not long receive, without return, good hospitality. And this alone, without other suspicions, would have set bounds to his dealing with a race profusely hospitable. His dear and good mother would gladly have invited a Cross Duck Houseful of undergraduates, and left them to get on as they might, if only thereby her pet son might have sense of salt for salt with them; but Mr. Luke Sharp took a different view. To his mind, the junior members of the glorious University were a most disagreeable and unprofitable lot to deal with. He never, of course, condescended to the Vice-Chancellor's court, and he despised all little actions, in that large word's legal sense. He liked a fine old Don, or Head of a House, who had saved a sack of money, or well earned it by vitality. But for any such young fellows, with no expectations, or paulo-post-futura such, Mr. Sharp was now too long established to put a leaf into his dinner-table. This being so, and Christopher also of restricted pocket-money (so that no dinners at the Star or Mitre could be contemplated), Master Kit Sharp, in a "town and gown row," must have lent the weight of his quiet, but very considerable, fist to the oppidan faction. "Kit, now, my darling Kit, do tell me," said Mrs. Sharp for about the fiftieth time, as she sat with her son in the sweet spring twilight, at the large western window of Cross Duck House; "what is it that makes you sigh so? You almost break your poor mother's heart. I never did know you sigh, my own one. Now, is it for want of a rat, my darling? If rats are a sovereign apiece, you shall have one." "Rats, mother! Why, I can catch my own, without any appeal to 'the Filthy!' Rats are never far away from legal premises, like these." "You should not speak so of your father's house, Kit. And I am sure that no rats ever come upstairs, or out of the window I must jump. But now you are only avoiding the subject. What is it that disturbs your mind, Kit?" "Once more, mother, I have the greatest objection to being called 'Kit.' It sounds so small, and--and so horribly prosaic. All the dictionaries say that it means, either the outfit of a common soldier, or else a diminutive kind of fiddle." "Christopher, I really beg your pardon. I know how much loftier you are, of course; but I cannot get over the habit, Kit. Well, well, then--My darling, I hope you are not at all above being 'my darling,' Kit." "Mother, you may call me what you like. It can make no difference in my destinies." "Christopher, you make my blood run cold. My darling, I implore you not to sigh so. Your dear father pays my allowance on Monday. I know what has long been the aspiration of your heart. Kit, you shall have a live badger of your own."