experience cost Horace over four pounds and the loss of a day's
time. And the worst was that Sidney had a violent attack that very
night.

School being impossible for him, Sidney had intermittent
instruction from professors of both sexes at home. But he learnt
practically nothing except the banjo. Horace had to buy him a
banjo: it cost the best part of a ten-pound note; still, Horace
could do no less. Sidney's stature grew rapidly; his general
health certainly improved, yet not completely; he always had a
fragile, interesting air. Moreover, his deafness did not
disappear: there were occasions when it was extremely pronounced.
And he was never quite safe from these attacks in the head. He
spent a month or six weeks each year in the expensive bracing
atmosphere of some seaside resort, and altogether he was decidedly
a heavy drain on Horace's resources. People were aware of this,
and they said that Horace ought to be happy that he was in a
position to spend money freely on his poor brother. Had not the
doctor predicted, before the catastrophe due to Horace's culpable
negligence, that Sidney would grow into a strong man, and that his
deafness would leave him? The truth was, one never knew the end of
those accidents in infancy! Further, was not Sidney's sad
condition slowly killing his mother? It was whispered about that,
since the disaster, Sidney had not been QUITE sound mentally. Was
not the mere suspicion of this enough to kill any mother?

And, as a fact, Mrs Carpole did die. She died of quinsy, doubtless
aggravated by Sidney's sad condition.

Not long afterwards Horace came into a small fortune from his