But the universities were still open to Louis Philippe, and before he was eighteen he was entered as a gentleman-commoner at Trinity.  As he was, moreover, the eldest son of a baronet, and had almost unlimited command of money, here also he was enabled for a while to shine.

To shine! but very fitfully; and one may say almost with a ghastly glare.  The very lads who had eaten his father’s dinners at Eton, and shared his four-oar at Eton, knew much better than to associate with him at Cambridge now that they had put on the toga virilis.  They were still as prone as ever to fun, frolic, and devilry—­perhaps more so than ever, seeing that more was in their power; but they acquired an idea that it behoved them to be somewhat circumspect as to the men with whom their pranks were perpetrated.  So, in those days, Louis Scatcherd was coldly looked on by his whilom Eton friends.

But young Scatcherd did not fail to find companions at Cambridge also.  There are few places indeed in which a rich man cannot buy companionship.  But the set with whom he lived, were the worst of the place.  They were fast, slang men, who were fast and slang, and nothing else—­men who imitated grooms in more than their dress, and who looked on the customary heroes of race-courses as the highest lords of the ascendant upon earth.  Among those at college young Scatcherd did shine as long as such lustre was permitted him.  Here, indeed, his father, who had striven only to encourage him at Eton, did strive somewhat to control him.  But that was not now easy.  If he limited his son’s allowance, he only drove him to do his debauchery on credit.  There were plenty to lend money to the son of a great millionaire; and so, after eighteen months’ trial of a university education, Sir Roger had no alternative but to withdraw his son from his alma mater.

What was he to do with him?  Unluckily it was considered quite unnecessary to take any steps towards enabling him to earn his bread.  Now nothing on earth can be more difficult than bringing up well a young man who has not to earn his own bread, and who has no recognized station among other men similarly circumstanced.  Juvenile dukes, and sprouting earls, find their duties and their places as easily as embryo clergymen and sucking barristers.  Provision is made for their peculiar positions:  and, though they may possibly go astray, they have a fair chance given to them of running within the posts.  The same may be said of such youths as Frank Gresham.  There are enough of them in the community to have made it necessary that their well-being should be a matter of care and forethought.  But there are but few men turned out in the world in the position of Louis Scatcherd; and, of those few, but very few enter the real battle of life under good auspices.

Poor Sir Roger though he had hardly time with all his multitudinous railways to look into this thoroughly, had a glimmering of it.  When he saw his son’s pale face, and paid his wine bills, and heard of his doings in horse-flesh, he did know that things were not going well; he did understand that the heir to a baronetcy and a fortune of some ten thousand a year might be doing better.  But what was he to do? he could not watch over his boy himself; so he took a tutor for him and sent him abroad.