I not only succeeded in getting my things ready, but I found time to call at the Benedict Club in Piccadilly, where I knew that I should find Manners if he were still in town. There he was sure enough in the smoking-room, and I questioned him, over a cigarette, as to his reasons for throwing up his recent situation. “You don’t tell me that you are going to Dr. Phelps McCarthy’s Academy?” he cried, staring at me in surprise. “My dear chap, it’s no use. You can’t possibly remain there.” “But I saw him, and he seemed the most courtly, inoffensive fellow. I never met a man with more gentle manners.” “He! oh, he’s all right. There’s no vice in him. Have you seen Theophilus St. James?” “I have never heard the name. Who is he?” “Your colleague. The other master.” “No, I have not seen him.” “_He’s_ the terror. If you can stand him, you have either the spirit of a perfect Christian or else you have no spirit at all. A more perfect bounder never bounded.” “But why does McCarthy stand it?” My friend looked at me significantly through his cigarette smoke, and shrugged his shoulders. “You will form your own conclusions about that. Mine were formed very soon, and I never found occasion to alter them.” “It would help me very much if you would tell me them.” “When you see a man in his own house allowing his business to be ruined, his comfort destroyed, and his authority defied by another man in a subordinate position, and calmly submitting to it without so much as a word of protest, what conclusion do you come to?” “That the one has a hold over the other.” Percival Manners nodded his head. “There you are! You’ve hit it first barrel. It seems to me that there’s no other explanation which will cover the facts. At some period in his life the little Doctor has gone astray. _Humanum est errare._ I have even done it myself. But this was something serious, and the other man got a hold of it and has never let go. That’s the truth. Blackmail is at the bottom of it. But he had no hold over me, and there was no reason why _I_ should stand his insolence, so I came away--and I very much expect to see you do the same.” For some time he talked over the matter, but he always came to the same conclusion--that I should not retain my new situation very long. It was with no very pleasant feelings after this preparation that I found myself face to face with the very man of whom I had received so evil an account. Dr. McCarthy introduced us to each other in his study on the evening of that same day immediately after my arrival at the school. “This is your new colleague, Mr. St. James,” said he, in his genial, courteous fashion. “I trust that you will mutually agree, and that I shall find nothing but good feeling and sympathy beneath this roof.”