"Nasty thing!" said Pamela. "I was glad when we saw his back. He couldn't bear the dear dogs lying on his bed either, though Mary told him it was a proof of their friendliness towards him. He fired his bootjack after Mark Antony, you remember, and though it's not easy to stir up Mark Antony, yet I'm glad he had the spirit to go for Gwynne's legs." "Mark Antony had been burying bones under Gwynne's pillow, my dear." "Only because it was a wet day, and he never liked to go out in the rain. I daresay if he'd had time he'd have removed the bones to the garden. However, I don't suppose this youth will be like Gwynne. What do you think, dad?" "His father was the best fellow ever stepped on shoe-leather. If the lad is like him, we shan't complain. What a handsome, dashing fellow he was! I can see him now in his scarlet and gold lace that night at Lady Westbury's ball, where I first met----" He broke off suddenly with a little sigh. "That was another world, Pam." "A world well lost--was it not?--dad." "Aye, a world well lost, little girl." It was plain to see that a tender intimacy existed between this father and daughter. "I daresay he'll find my ways rather old-fashioned, Pam. It was an odd thing that his father should have remembered me, and have wished the lad to come to me." "It would have been odd if he hadn't," said Pam shortly. "There are new ways and new methods in the world since I was at Oxford. I daresay the lad'll find me rather rusty in my knowledge." "You'll teach over his head, as you always do, and you'll get great delight out of it. You'll forget all about your pupil, and you'll go mouthing Greek poetry till we think downstairs that the study chimney is on fire. And while you're growling and thundering the youth will be making caricatures of you under the table, or cutting his name deep in the oak of your precious study table." "Is that my way, little Pam?" "That's your way, dad. There was never one of your pupils that could follow you, only little Sells, and he died young, poor boy!" "Ah, little Sells. I am proud of Sells. He died fighting the small-pox with all the heroic soul in his little body. He had the making of a fine scholar." "Never mind, dad. None of us can do more than die heroically. And Sells would always have been a poor curate. They'd never have made him a bishop." "I suppose not, poor lad! Scholarship doesn't count for much, Pam." "Or you wouldn't be here, dad." "I'd always be in the ruck, Pam; I'm afraid I'm a worthless old fellow. From what you say, Pam, I'm as much of a failure at the teaching as anything else. I'm really afraid it's true." "Never mind, dad. As Mick St. Leger said, you taught them better things. It isn't your fault that you're over their heads." "Did poor Mick say that, now?" said Mr. Graydon, answering the first part of her sentence. "Mick was a good boy; but no scholarship in him. A child could beat Mick at the Greek verbs."