Marmaduke Massenger, although of English parentage, had begun his education at the University of Glasgow, but before he took his degree he removed to Bonn, and afterwards to Heidelberg, where, in due time, he became Doctor of Philosophy. Returning to England, in the full pomp of his new Doctorate, Dr. Massenger commenced a career as private tutor, and soon became celebrated for his success in that capacity. Nor, indeed, was this without reason, for he was a really good scholar, had the art of instruction, and was successful with his pupils. His charges were high, but he justified them by keeping a most liberal table, by making his pupils work hard, and by working hard himself. Dr. Massenger was suspected by some of being a freethinker; but he took his pupils to the Parish Church, and, unlike most freethinkers, did not attempt to proselytize. That, he felt, would not pay in his profession. Out of work hours, the Doctor did not trouble his head about his young men, but let them go and come as they liked, and, so long as they were back by work hours, do exactly as they please. “I am a cramming machine,” he once said to an intimate friend, “and am paid for cramming. I don’t pretend to teach morality according to English notions, and I object to be a spy or a policeman after the ideas of the French. I teach Greek, and Latin, and Philosophy, and Mathematics, and History, as far as I know them; if parents want anything else, they must go to another shop.” The Doctor professed to be very particular as to the pupils whom he vouchsafed to take, and seldom took one who had not a handle to his name. For this reason perhaps his house was always full. Dr. Massenger’s weakness, indeed, was that he was a tuft-hunter of the deepest dye, and he tacitly held that a nobleman could do no wrong. As the young noblemen committed to his charge sometimes _did_ do wrong, this propensity occasionally led to scandals and awkward circumstances, but the tutor would not see it, and remained as oblivious of any moral failings in the character of his aristocratic pupils as he was before. In person he was a large, fat man, with big fubsy hands and a square red face, with a close-trimmed beard and moustachios of pale hair much speckled with grey. His wife was a showy, vulgar woman, with an auburn front, who dressed in ill-assorted colours, wore showy jewellery, and loved to talk about what she called “the Upper Ten,” and she was never so happy as when she could get up a mild flirtation with some young sprig of nobility.