[1] Plutarch's Life of Lysander.




CHAPTER III.

THE HERO INTRODUCED TO OUR READER'S NOTICE.--DIALOGUE BETWEEN HIMSELF AND
HIS FATHER.--PERCY GODOLPHIN's CHARACTER AS A BOY.--THE CATASTROPHE OF HIS
SCHOOL LIFE.

"Percy, remember that it is to-morrow you will return to school," said Mr.
Godolphin to his only son.

Percy pouted, and after a momentary silence replied, "No, father, I think
I shall go to Mr. Saville's. He has asked me to spend a month with him;
and he says rightly that I shall learn more with him than at Dr.
Shallowell's, where I am already head of the sixth form."

"Mr. Saville is a coxcomb, and you are another!" replied the father, who,
dressed in an old flannel dressing-gown, with a worn velvet cap on his
head, and cowering gloomily over a wretched fire, seemed no bad
personification of that mixture of half-hypochondriac, half-miser, which
he was in reality. "Don't talk to me of going to town, sir, or--"

"Father," interrupted Percy, in a cool and nonchalant tone, as he folded
his arms, and looked straight and shrewdly on the paternal face--"father,
let us understand each other. My schooling, I suppose, is rather an
expensive affair?"