of being attached.”  He stopped to find the thread, it was a disconnected speech for him to formulate.  He had put his arm under his head now, and was looking round at his brother.  “I have never misrepresented anything.  For the matter of that, the man who had most to do with putting me in my berth here, knew all that there was to be known about my father.  He didn’t publish the matter, for the sake of the school; and when I had taken the school, I couldn’t publish it either.  All the world was free to inquire, but as far as I know, no one has done so; and I have let the sleeping dog lie.”

“I never said you ought to have been more talkative.  It’s not my business.”

“The position you take makes it appear that I am in a false position.  Give me time to get about again.  I ought at least to be more frank with my personal friends.  Wait till I have opportunity to speak myself—­that is all I ask of you.  After that do what you will; but I think it only right to tell you that if you set up shop here, or near here, I should resign my place in this college.”

“I’m not going to stay here.  I told you I see that won’t work.”

“Don’t be hasty.  As I said, it’s hard lines if this must separate us.  I can keep the church.  They can’t be particular about my status there, because they can’t pay me.”

“It’s mad to think of such a thing; it would be worse for the college than for you.”

“If I knew it would be the worse for the college it might not be right to do it” (he spoke as if this had cost him thought), “but there are plenty who can manage a concern like this, now it is fairly established, even if they could not have worked it up as I have.”

“I’d like to see them get another man like you!”—­loudly—­“H’n, if they accepted your resignation they’d find themselves on the wrong side of the hedge!  They wouldn’t do it, either; it isn’t as if you were not known now for what you are.  They can’t be such fools as to think that where I am, or what I do, can alter you.”

“It is not with the more sensible men who are responsible for the college that the choice would ultimately lie, but with the boys’ parents.  If the numbers drop off—­”

“Then the parents are the greatest idiots—­”

There was a world of wrath in the words, but the principal of the New College, who felt his position so insecure, laughed.

“Yes, you may fairly count on that.  A clever woman, who kept a girls’ school, told me once that if she had to draw up rules for efficient school-keeping they would begin:—­’1st.  Drown all the parents!’—­My own experience has led me to think she was not far wrong.”