“Ah, but you see I know something about this young man at home. His mother doesn’t count. She has her younger children, and they make her happy. And of course she is absurdly proud of Douglas. But the father and this son Douglas are of the same stuff. They have a deal more brains and education than their forbears ever wanted; but still, in soul, they remain our feudal lords and superiors, who have a right to the services of those beneath them. And everybody is beneath them—especially women; and foreigners—and artists—and people who don’t shoot or hunt. Ask their neighbours—ask their cottagers. Whenever the revolution comes, their heads will be the first to go! At the same time they know—the clever ones—that they can’t keep their place except by borrowing the weapons of the class they really fear—the professional class—the writers and thinkers—the lawyers and journalists. And so they take some trouble to sharpen their own brains. And the cleverer they are, the more tyrannous they are. And that, if you please, is Mr. Douglas Falloden!” “I wonder why you are so angry with him, my dear Sarah,” said Miss Wenlock mildly. “Because he has been bullying my nice boy, Radowitz!” said Mrs. Mulholland vehemently. “I hear there has been a disgraceful amount of ragging in Marmion lately, and that Douglas Falloden—can you conceive it?—a man in his last term, whom the University imagines itself to be turning out as an educated specimen!—is one of the ring-leaders—the ring-leader. It appears that Otto wears a frilled dress shirt—why shouldn’t he?—that, having been brought up in Paris till he was nineteen, he sometimes tucks his napkin under his chin—that he uses French words when he needn’t—that he dances like a Frenchman—that he recites French poetry actually of his own making—that he plays too well for a gentleman—that he doesn’t respect the customs of the college, et cetera. There is a sacred corner of the Junior Common Room, where no freshman is expected to sit after hall. Otto sat in it—quite innocently—knowing nothing—and, instead of apologising, made fun of Jim Meyrick and Douglas Falloden who turned him out. Then afterwards he composed a musical skit on ‘the bloods,’ which delighted every one in college, who wasn’t a ‘blood.’ And now there is open war between him and them. Otto doesn’t talk of it. I hear of it from other people. But he looks excited and pale—he is a very delicate creature!—and we, who are fond of him, live in dread of some violence. I never can understand why the dons are so indulgent to ragging. It is nothing but a continuation of school bullying. It ought to be put down with the strongest possible hand.”