"Rather!" said Tom expressively. "You've come back what I call a beastly sneak, you know, this term. The other fellows don't like it; they'll send you to Coventry unless you take care." "I wish they would," said Paul. "You don't talk like the same fellow either," continued Tom; "you use such fine language, and you're always in a bait, and yet you don't stick up for yourself as you used to. Look here, tell me (we were always chums), is it one of your larks?" "Larks!" said Paul. "I'm in a fine mood for larks. No, it's not one of my larks." "Perhaps your old governor has been making a cad of himself then, and you're out of sorts about it." "I'll thank you not to speak about him in that way," said Paul, "in my presence." "Why," grumbled Tom, "I'm sure you said enough about him yourself last term. It's my belief you're imitating him now." "Ah," said Paul, "and what makes you think that?" "Why, you go about strutting and swelling just like he did when he came about sending you here. I say, do you know what Mums said about him after he went away?" "No," said Paul, "your mother struck me as a very sensible and agreeable woman--if I may say so to her son." "Well, Mums said your governor seemed to leave you here just like they leave umbrellas at picture galleries, and she believed he had a large-sized money-bag inside him instead of a heart." "Oh!" said Paul, with great disgust, for he had thought Mrs. Grimstone a woman of better taste; "your mother said that, did she? Vastly entertaining to be sure--ha, ha! He would be pleased to know she thought that, I'm sure." "Tell him, and see what he says," suggested Tom; "he is an awful brute to you though, isn't he?" "If," growled Mr. Bultitude, "slaving from morning till night to provide education and luxury for a thankless brood of unprofitable young vipers is 'being a brute,' I suppose he is." "Why, you're sticking up for him now!" said Tom. "I thought he was so strict with you. Wouldn't let you have any fun at home, and never took you to pantomimes?" "And why should he, sir, why should he? Tell me that. Tell me why a man is to be hunted out of his comfortable chair after a well-earned dinner, to go and sit in a hot theatre and a thorough draught, yawning at the miserable drivel managers choose to call a pantomime? Now in my young days there _were_ pantomimes. I tell you, sir, I've seen----" "Oh, if you're satisfied, I don't care!" said Tom, astonished at this apparent change of front. "If you choose to come back and play the corker like this, it's your look-out. Only, if you knew what Sproule major said about you just now----" "I don't want to know," said Paul; "it doesn't concern me."