INGLEBY, CHEMIST, HALESBY.
“Oho,” he said.
At breakfast, after a propitiatory but futile helping of jam from Edwin’s pot, he broke the glad news to Griffin.
“Ingleby’s father’s a chemist, Griff.”
“Then that’s why he’s such a skunk, Duggy. Is it true, Ingleby?”
“Yes. He’s a chemist.”
“Then he isn’t a gentleman.”
“Of course he’s a gentleman.”
“Not if he’s in trade. They oughtn’t to have sent you to school here. It’s a bally shame.”
That same afternoon Edwin was poring over a letter at his desk in Big School. His mother always told him to keep her letters. “Some day you may like to look at them,” she said. He was reading this letter for the tenth time to see if he could extract some last scrapings of the atmosphere of home which it had brought him.