The large admixture of whimsicality in his father's composition, however, left Diggory's destiny in a very nondescript condition for some time; since his ideas of the exactest, best, and fittest way of making his lad into the thing he thought of were none of the clearest, and most fixed. One step, and one only, could Dig's father determine upon--and that was--that Dig should work no more! No: he could work himself, and could make as much money as ever Dig would want as long as he lived: but Dig shouldn't work; and his mother said, "No, _that_ he shouldn't," when she heard her husband say so; and so Dig was compelled, as the neighbours said, to "drop it"--and to lay aside his every-day clothes, and put on his Sunday ones, and to consider that, from that day forth, he had done working with his hands--to the end of his life. Well: for a lad of seventeen, who was so fond of books and of sentimentalising by the Trent, and in the Park, and as far as Clifton Grove, this was, certainly, for the first week, a glorious state of existence. But, somehow or other, the second holyday week, in Sunday clothes every day, was not so happy as the first; and when the third arrived--then Diggory Lawson, for the first time in his life, became "the lad who felt like a fish out of water." The river did not look so beautiful and silvery, nor the flowers so lovely, nor the Park so green; in brief, Dig was tired of all he saw, and all he read, and tired even of himself; and he told his father and mother so outright. But la! the mother had an answer for Dig so nicely opportune that she was in ecstacies to tell it--for she was sure it was a piece of such excellent "luck." Mrs. Strutabout, the lace-merchant's lady (who had a large family of unmarried daughters), had sent so politely to say that she would be very happy to see _young_ Mister Lawson to tea that afternoon--and they were such respectable people! Dig's father said, "Capital! just the thing!" when he heard it; for he felt instantaneously sure--and indeed all his convictions ran by fits and starts--that _that_ was certainly a step towards making Dig into a gentleman. An introduction to genteel society, to "respectable" company--what could be finer? Diggory himself, however, hung his head, and felt shy about it, for he had never been "out to tea" before, in his life. But his father said, "Pshaw! you young shame-face! you must shake all that off: remember I intend you to be as respectable a man as any of 'em!" And the mother reminded Diggory that he would be sure to hear some music, for the young ladies Strutabout were thumping away on the piano from morning to night; you might hear them any hour of the day that you went by the front-room windows. It was the last hint that enabled Diggory to master his bashfulness; for although he knew not a note scientifically, nor could he play on any instrument, yet his love of music amounted to a passion.