Mr. Dixon, as a clergyman, viewed the question from a high standpoint and
found it all deplorable, but the general opinion was that Bennett was a
hopeless young lunatic. Old Mr. Gervase went purple when his name was
mentioned, and the young Dixons sneered very merrily over the adventure.

"I always thought he was a beastly young ass," said Edward Dixon, "but I
didn't think he'd chuck away his chances like that. Said he couldn't
stand a bank! I hope he'll be able to stand bread and water. That's all
those littery fellows get, I believe, except Tennyson and Mark Twain and
those sort of people."

Lucian of course sympathized with the unfortunate Bennett, but such
judgments were after all only natural. The young man might have stayed in
the bank and succeeded to his aunt's thousand a year, and everybody would
have called him a very nice young fellow--"clever, too." But he had
deliberately chosen, as Edward Dixon had said, to chuck his chances away
for the sake of literature; piety and a sense of the main chance had
alike pointed the way to a delicate course of wheedling, to a little
harmless practicing on Miss Spurry's infirmities, to frequent compliances
of a soothing nature, and the "young ass" had been blind to the direction
of one and the other. It seemed almost right that the vicar should
moralize, that Edward Dixon should sneer, and that Mr. Gervase should
grow purple with contempt. Men, Lucian thought, were like judges, who may
pity the criminal in their hearts, but are forced to vindicate the
outraged majesty of the law by a severe sentence. He felt the same
considerations applied to his own case; he knew that his father should
have had more money, that his clothes should be newer and of a better
cut, that he should have gone to the university and made good friends. If
such had been his fortune he could have looked his fellow-men proudly in
the face, upright and unashamed. Having put on the whole armor of a