“It’s a difficult thing not to be,” said Tussie, “if one is rich.  Hasn’t it struck you that this ridiculous big house, and the masses of things in it, and the whole place and all the money will inevitably end by crushing us both out of heaven?”

“No, I can’t say it has.  I expect you’ve been thinking of things like the eyes of needles and camels having to go through them,” said his mother, still patting and stroking his tie.

“Well, that’s terrifically true,” mused Tussie, reflecting ruefully on the size and weight of the money-bags that were dragging him down into darkness.  Then he added suddenly, “Will you have a small bed—­a little iron one—­put in my bedroom?”

“A small bed?  But there’s a bed there already, dear.”

“That big thing’s only fit for a sick woman.  I won’t wallow in it any longer.”

“But dearest, all your forefathers wallowed, as you call it, in it.  Doesn’t it seem rather—­a pity not to carry on traditions?”

“Well mother be kind and dear, and let me depart in peace from them.  A camp bed,—­that’s what I’d like.  Shall I order it, or will you?  And did I tell you I’ve given Bryce the sack?”

“Bryce?  Why, what has he done?”

“Oh he hasn’t done anything that I know of, except make a sort of doll or baby of me.  Why should I be put into my clothes and taken out of them again as though I hadn’t been weaned yet?”

Now all this was very bad, but the greatest blow for Lady Shuttleworth fell when Tussie declared that he would not come of age.  The cheerful face with which his mother had managed to listen to his other defiances went very blank at that; do what she would she could not prevent its falling.  “Not come of age?” she repeated stupidly.  “But my darling, you can’t help yourself—­you must come of age.”

“Oh I know I can’t help being twenty-one and coming into all this”—­and he waved contemptuous arms—­“but I won’t do it blatantly.”

“I—­I don’t understand,” faltered Lady Shuttleworth.

“There mustn’t be any fuss, mother.”

“Do you mean no one is to come?”

“No one at all, except the tenants and people.  Of course they are to have their fun—­I’ll see that they have a jolly good time.  But I won’t have our own set and the relations.”

“Tussie, they’ve all accepted.”

“Send round circulars.”

“Tussie, you are putting me in a most painful position.”

“Dear mother, I’m very sorry for that.  I wish I’d thought like this sooner.  But really the idea is so revolting to me—­it’s so sickening to think of all these people coming to pretend to rejoice over a worm like myself.”

“Tussle, you are not a worm.”

“And then the expense and waste of entertaining them—­the dreariness, the boredom—­oh, I wish I only possessed a tub—­one single tub—­or had the pluck to live like Lavengro in a dingle.”

“It’s quite impossible to stop it now,” interrupted Lady Shuttleworth in the greatest distress; of Lavengro she had never heard.