Dear Papa and dear Mamma also thought these new crazes of George Augustus nonsensical and immoral. Dear Mamma read the opening pages of one of Mr. Hardy’s novels, and then burned the Obscene Thing in the kitchen copper. Whereupon there was a blazing row with George Augustus. Backed by the malicious Bulburry (who hated dear Mamma so much that he put several little bits of business he didn’t want into the hands of George Augustus, who thereby made about £70 in six months), George Augustus, who had never stood up for himself or his own integrity or Isabel or anything that mattered, stood up for Mr. Hardy and his own false pathetic pose of æstheticism. George Augustus locked all his priceless new books into a cupboard of which he jealously kept the key. And he spent hours a day locked in his “cosy study” WRITING, while the enraged thunder of the offended family rolled impotently outside. But George Augustus was firm. He bought art-y ties, and saw Bulburry nearly every evening, and went on WRITING. Bulburry was so malevolent that he persuaded a friend, who was editing an amateurish æsthetic review in London, to publish an article by George Augustus, entitled _The Wonder of Cleopatra throughout the Ages_. George Augustus got a guinea for the article, and for a week the family was hushed and awed. But in that atmosphere of exasperation and dread of the Unknown Obscene, rows were inevitable. And, since George Augustus remained almost hermetically sealed in his cosy study, and refused to come out and be rowed with, even when dear Mamma tapped imperiously at the door and reminded him, through the panes, of his Duties to God, his Mamma and Society, the rows inevitably took place between dear Mamma and Isabel. One night, after George Augustus was asleep, Isabel got up and stole £5 from his sovereign-purse. Next morning, she took the baby for a walk as usual, but took it to the Railway station and fled to the Hartly home in rural Kent. This was certainly not the boldest thing Isabel ever did—she afterwards did things of incredible rashness—but it was one of the most sensible, from her point of view. It was the first of her big efforts to force George Augustus to action. It reminded him that he had taken on certain responsibilities, and that responsibilities are realities which cannot always be avoided. She bombed him out of the dug-out of dear Mamma’s tyranny, and eventually Archied him out of the empyrean of æstheticism and writing.