forth; but if you want prudence and sagacity and common-sense it's
a well-known fact that there's nothing like the practice of making
ready-closed uppers, sir, to develop 'em. If I'd taken your advice,
my boy, I'd have come up to visit you when you were an undergraduate,
and ruined your prospects at the very outset. No, no, Artie, I shall
stop here, and stick to my last, my dear boy, stick to my last, to
the end of all things.'

'You shall do nothing of the sort, Daddy; that I'm determined upon,'
Arthur cried vehemently. 'I'm not going to let you do any more
shoemaking. The time has come when you must retire, and devote all
your undivided energies to the constant study of modern criticism.
Whether you come to Oxford or stop in London, I've made up my mind
that you shan't do another stroke of work as long as you live. Look
here, dear old Daddy, I'm getting to be a perfect millionaire, I
assure you. Do you see this fiver? well, I got that for knocking
out that last trashy little song for Fradelli; and it cost me no
more trouble to compose it than to sit down and write the score out
on a sheet of ruled paper. I'm as rich as Croesus--made a hundred
and eighty pounds last year, and expect to make over two hundred
this one. Now, if a man with that perfectly prodigious fortune
can't afford to keep his own father in comfort and affluence, what
an absolute Sybarite and gourmand of a fellow he must be himself.'

'It's a lot of money, certainly, Artie,' said the old shoemaker,
turning it over thoughtfully: 'two hundred pounds is a lot of money;
but I doubt very much whether it's more than enough to keep you up
to the standard of your own society, up there at Oxford. As John
Stuart Mill says, these things are all comparative to the standard
of comfort of your class. Now, Artie, I believe you have to stint