One of the Results of the Derby

On the following morning at about eleven Silverbridge and his brother were at breakfast at an hotel in Jermyn Street.  They had slept in Carlton Terrace, but Lord Gerald had done so without the knowledge of the Duke.  Lord Silverbridge, as he was putting himself to bed, had made up his mind to tell the story to the Duke at once, but when the morning came his courage failed him.  The two young men therefore slunk out of the house, and as there was no breakfasting at the Beargarden they went to his hotel.  They were both rather gloomy, but the elder brother was the more sad of the two.  ‘I’d give anything I have in the world,’ he said, ’that you hadn’t come at all.’

‘Things have been so unfortunate!’

‘Why the deuce wouldn’t you go when I told you?’

’Who on earth would have thought that they’d have been so punctual?  They never are punctual on the Great Eastern.  It was an infernal shame.  I think I shall go at once to Harnage and tell him about it.’  Mr Harnage was Lord Gerald’s tutor.

‘But you have been in ever so many rows before.’

’Well;—­I’ve been gated, and once when they’d gated me, I came right upon Harnage on the bridge at King’s’

‘What sort of fellow is he?’

’He used to be good-natured.  Now he has taken ever so many crotchets into his head.  It was he who began all this about none of the men going to the Derby.’

‘Did you ask him yourself for leave?’

’Yes; and when I told him about your owning Prime Minister he got savage and declared that was the very reason why I shouldn’t go.’

‘You didn’t tell me that.’

’I was determined I would go.  I wasn’t going to be made a child of.’

At last it was decided that the two brothers should go down to Cambridge together.  Silverbridge would be able to come back to London the same evening, so as to take his drag down to the Oaks on the Friday,—­a duty from which even his present misery would not deter him.  They reached Cambridge at about three, and Lord Silverbridge at once called at the Master’s lodge and sent in his card.  The Master of Trinity is so great that he cannot be supposed to see all comers, but on this occasion Lord Silverbridge was fortunate.  With much trepidation he told his story.  Such being the circumstances, could anything be done to moderate the vials of wrath which must doubtless be poured out over the head of his unfortunate brother?

‘Why come to me?’ said the Master.  ’From what you say yourself, it is evident that you know that must rest with the College tutor.’

‘I thought, sir, if you could say a word.’

’Do you think that it would be right that I should interfere for one special man, and that a man of special rank?’

‘Nobody thinks that would count for anything.  But—­’

‘But what?’ asked the Master.

‘If you knew my father, sir!’