He had procured, under the most distinguished auspices, their admission to a first-rate school; and, fond as he was, he enforced in some matters a standard of conduct more rigid than usual. He set his face against their taking money from any one but their parents, and expressed righteous indignation when Lord Holland defended to him the practice of tipping. Still more indignant was he when the head master represented to him that the elder boy could get an exhibition worth about £100 a year to take him to college, and that Moore need only add an allowance of £150! It seems, however, that exhortations against extravagance prevailed less than the example of spending money freely, which was set to the young Tom by those with whom his father led him to associate. The younger son, Russell, was steadier in character, but decided, like his brother, for the army; and Moore was accordingly put to the heavy expense of outfitting both and launching them in this costly profession. Once launched, however, he was sanguine enough to expect that they could live on their pay. Tom was gazetted to the 22nd regiment in 1837, and was given six months to study French in Paris, where his father established him under pleasant conditions. Having joined his regiment in 1838 at Cork, he was shortly transferred to Dublin, and here his presence was a pleasure to his aunt, Moore's favourite sister; the news of this made a happy break in the anxieties at Sloperton, where Bessy Moore, always delicate, had just come through a severe illness. In the summer, Moore joined his son and his sister, and was, as we have seen, enormously applauded by his countrymen at the theatre. Next day the father and son were to have dined with Lord Morpeth, the Irish Chief Secretary, but by one of the lapses of memory which began to be habitual with Moore, they presented themselves instead at the Vice-Regal Lodge and were half through dinner before the guest realised what he had done, only to be overwhelmed with expressions of delight at the mistake. It was no doubt a little difficult for a young man with a father who was on such terms with both the people and the rulers of Ireland to realise that he was only the son of a needy and struggling worker, always at straits to make ends meet: and probably Tom himself took the view, expressed to Moore by a friend newly come from Ireland, that such an allowance should be made to the young soldier as would enable him to "live like a gentleman." Moore was angry, and it is easy to sympathise with his disappointment; easy also to condemn his want of foresight.