“And then they comes to THAT—and grumbles. And the fools up in Westminster want you to put in fans here and fans there—the Longton fools have.... And then eating their dinners out of it all the time!”...
At high tea that night—my uncle was still holding out against evening dinner—Sibyl and Gertrude made what was evidently a concerted demand for a motor-car.
“You've got your mother's brougham,” he said, “that's good enough for you.” But he seemed shaken by the fact that some Burslem rival was launching out with the new invention. “He spoils his girls,” he remarked. “He's a fool,” and became thoughtful.
Afterwards he asked me to come to him into his study; it was a room with a writing-desk and full of pieces of earthenware and suchlike litter, and we had our great row about Cambridge.
“Have you thought things over, Dick?” he said.
“I think I'll go to Trinity, Uncle,” I said firmly. “I want to go to Trinity. It is a great college.”
He was manifestly chagrined. “You're a fool,” he said.
I made no answer.
“You're a damned fool,” he said. “But I suppose you've got to do it. You could have come here—That don't matter, though, now... You'll have your time and spend your money, and be a poor half-starved clergyman, mucking about with the women all the day and afraid to have one of your own ever, or you'll be a schoolmaster or some such fool for the rest of your life. Or some newspaper chap. That's what you'll get from Cambridge. I'm half a mind not to let you. Eh? More than half a mind....”
“You've got to do the thing you can,” he said, after a pause, “and likely it's what you're fitted for.”