“What is this vision of yours?” sneered Walsall. “Ten thousand professors?”
“After all,” said Slingsby Darton with a weary insidiousness, “we do not differ about our fundamental idea. You must have funds. You must endow your schools. Without Tariff Reform to give you revenue——”
But Oswald was not going to begin over again.
“I ought to be in bed,” he said, looking at his watch. “My doctor sends me to bed at ten....”
“My God!” he whispered as he put on his coat under the benevolent supervision of an exceptionally fine Indian buffalo.
“What is to happen to the empire,” he cried, going out into the night and addressing himself to the moon, to the monument which commemorates the heroic incompetence of the Duke of York, and to an interested hansom cabby, “what is to happen to the empire—when these are its educated opinions?”
§ 5
But it is high time that Joan and Peter came back into this narrative. For this is their story, it bears their names on its covers and on its back and on its title-page and at the head of each left-hand page. It has been necessary to show the state of mind, the mental condition, the outlook, of their sole guardian when their affairs came into his hands. This done they now return by telephone. Oswald had not been back in the comfortable sitting-room at the Climax Club for ten minutes before he was rung up by Mr. Sycamore and reminded of his duty to his young charges. A club page called Mr. Sydenham to the receiver in his bedroom.
In those days the telephone was still far from perfection. It had not been in general use for a decade.... Mr. Sycamore was audible as a still small voice.
“Mr. Sydenham? Sycamore speaking.”