The letter from Mr. Wodehouse was characteristic:—
“Dear Mr. Ross,—Law is not my line, or I would take your boy myself; but I know an excellent coach, Edwards of University, who is now settling a reading party, for Switzerland, I believe. Send your boy with him; you can’t do better. I send by this post a copy of the Examination Regulations, revised to this date. Details, of course, you will get from Edwards.
“I am yours truly,
“Philip Wodehouse.”
After the letters, there was not much difficulty in deciding that Edwards was the coach to be secured. But the Swiss tour! Frank said nothing, nor did Mr. Ross—the former because he knew his father’s disposition, the latter because he would not promise what he might not be able, with justice to the rest of his family, to afford.
However, after a suspense of three days, Frank was summoned after breakfast to the study. His father had received a letter from the coach, telling him the probable cost of the tour, and he had decided to send Frank. The party would leave London on the 1st of July. They were to meet for dinner at the Grosvenor Hotel at six o’clock, and go from Victoria by the mail that catches the night-boat from Dover to Calais. Mr. Edwards added a few particulars as to books, and, rightly conjecturing this to be Frank’s first journey abroad, some suggestions as to clothes and necessaries generally.
Mr. Ross winced a little when he heard the route that was chosen. But when he had made up his mind to an expense, he was not a man to worry over the inevitable extras.
The few days of June that remained passed quickly enough. Frank, somehow, was not at home as much as his brothers and sisters could have wished. At meals there were sundry questions as to his doings, amused looks at his evident confusion, till even Mr. Ross, usually oblivious to the jokes that passed between the young folks, questioned his wife as to their meaning.
When he heard the suggestion, he at first laughed at it as ridiculous, then said the whole affair was “out of the question,” not from any dislike to Rose, for he was indeed very fond of her, and finally saying he would speak to Frank, said nothing after all.