After his first escapade with Howden, Mr. Binney was a little upset by a letter he received from Mrs. Higginbotham in answer to the one in which he had given her an account of the proceedings.
"You must not let yourself be led away by your high spirits," wrote Mrs. Higginbotham, "and pray be careful that these new grand young friends you have made do not lead you astray. I should like you to keep a good character with your masters and bring home a good report at the end of the term. My dear father often used to say that he would rather my brothers won the conduct prize at school than any other, and they always did so, which pleased my father very much until he discovered that they used to buy the prizes themselves out of their very liberal allowance of pocket money and write their master's name in them, which was not right, and earned them a whipping from Mr. Wilkinson who was at that time the head of the Lewisham Academy for Young Gentlemen, where they were educated, as well as another from my father, which they told me was far the worse of the two, as I can quite credit, because my dear father, who made his own way in the world, had been employed in early life in a furniture warehouse, and among his duties was that of beating carpets."
Mr. Binney wrote in answer that little occurrences such as the one in which he had taken part were common in Cambridge and increased the fame of those who inaugurated them, and rebuked Mrs. Higginbotham for talking of his "masters." "The 'Varsity is not a school, my dear Martha," wrote Mr. Binney, "and we are allowed a great deal of freedom to amuse ourselves as we please."
Mr. Binney and Lucius now saw very little of one another, but before Mr. Binney had allied himself with Howden and his crew, Lucius had paid him a visit one afternoon and found a young man with a long, solemn face not unlike Minshull's sitting on Mr. Binney's sofa.
"Ah, Lucius," said Mr. Binney, "I'm glad you have come. This is your mother's cousin, John Jermyn, whose father you may have heard me speak of as a respected clergyman in Norfolk. John tells me he has gained a scholarship at Queens' and I am very glad to hear it—very glad. It is most laudable of him. We must go and call on him when we have time. Let me see, where is Queens'? That little college at the end of the Backs with a wooden bridge, isn't it? Quite so. A very nice little college indeed. I should have liked to have been at Queens' myself if I hadn't been at Trinity. Pity you couldn't come to Trinity, John. However, we can't all be at the best college, can we?"
After a little more patronage from his uncle, John Jermyn took his leave.
"You must look that young fellow up, Lucius," said Mr. Binney, "and he tells me his sister Elizabeth is at Girton. They both came up this term. A clever family. You must go and call on her too—I believe it's allowed—I don't care about going out there myself. Their mother was a great friend of your dear mother's when they were girls together. We never saw much of her after she was married, for her husband held his head high, although I have never heard that he was at Trinity or any good college as a young man. It is our turn to hold our heads high now, but you must certainly call on John and Elizabeth, and show them that we are not too proud to recognise our relations."
Lucius did call on John Jermyn soon afterwards and asked him to lunch. The two young men found they had very little in common and the acquaintanceship dropped.