“It makes me so happy to hear you say so,” said he.

“Then come here and talk about her.  I want Theodore to feel that you are his brother; it will be so important to you in the business that it should be so.”  After that he went away, and as he walked back along Piccadilly, and then up through the regions of St. Giles to his house in Bloomsbury Square, he satisfied himself that the life of Onslow Crescent was a better manner of life than that which was likely to prevail in Bolton Street.

When he was gone his character was of course discussed between the husband and wife in Onslow Crescent.  “What do you think of him?” said the husband.

“I like him so much!  He is so much nicer than you told me—­so much pleasanter and easier; and I have no doubt he is as clever, though I don’t think he shows that at once.”

“He is clever enough; there’s no doubt about that.”

“And did you not think he was pleasant?”

“Yes; he was pleasant here.  He is one of those men who get on best with women.  You’ll make much more of him for awhile than I shall.  He’ll gossip with you and sit idling with you for the hour together, if you’ll let him.  There’s nothing wrong about him, and he’d like nothing better than that.”

“You don’t believe that he’s idle by disposition?  Think of all that he has done already.”

“That’s just what is most against him.  He might do very well with us if he had not got that confounded fellowship; but having got that, he thinks the hard work of life is pretty well over with him.”

“I don’t suppose he can be so foolish as that, Theodore.”

“I know well what such men are, and I know the evil that is done to them by the cramming they endure.  They learn many names of things—­high-sounding names, and they come to understand a great deal about words.  It is a knowledge that requires no experience and very little real thought.  But it demands much memory; and when they have loaded themselves in this way, they think that they are instructed in all things.  After all, what can they do that is of real use to mankind?  What can they create?”

“I suppose they are of use.”

“I don’t know it.  A man will tell you, or pretend to tell you—­for the chances are ten to one that he is wrong—­what sort of lingo was spoken in some particular island or province six hundred years before Christ.  What good will that do any one, even if he were right?  And then see the effect upon the men themselves!  At four-and-twenty a young fellow has achieved some wonderful success, and calls himself by some outlandish and conceited name—­a double first, or something of the kind.  Then he thinks he has completed everything, and is too vain to learn anything afterward.  The truth is, that at twenty-four no man has done more than acquire the rudiments of his education.  The system is bad from beginning to end.  All that competition makes false and imperfect growth.  Come, I’ll go to bed.”