"Oh, John, thanks awfully."
Ponies were provided for the boys to ride, and they shot rabbits in the Chase. Also, they appeared at dinner, a tremendous function, and were encouraged by some of the younger guests to spar (verbally, of course) with the duke's Etonian sons. Fluff looked so much stronger and happier that his parents, delighted with their experiment, were inclined to cry up the Hill, much to the exasperation of the dwellers in the Plain.
When he left White Ladies John had learned one valuable lesson. His sense of that hackneyed phrase, noblesse oblige, the sense which remains nonsense with so many boys (old and young), had been quickened. Little more than a child in many ways, he realized, as a man does, the true significance of rank and wealth. The Duke of Trent had married a pleasure-loving dame; White Ladies was essentially a pleasure-house, to which came gladly enough the wit and beauty of the kingdom. And yet the duke, not clever as compared to his guests, not even good-looking as compared to the splendid gentlemen whom Van Dyck and Lely had painted, undistinguished, in fine, in everything save rank and wealth, worked, early and late, harder than any labourer upon his vast domain. And when John said to Fluff, "I say, Esmé, why does the duke work so beastly hard?" Fluff replied with emphasis, "Why, because he has to, you know. It's no joke to be born a duke, and I'm jolly glad that I'm a younger son. Father says that he has no amusements, but plenty of occupation. Mother says he's the unpaid land-agent of the Trent property."
John went back to Verney Boscobel, and repeated what Fluff had said, as his own.
"It was simply splendid, mum, like a sort of castle in fairyland and all that, but I am glad I'm not a duke. And I expect that even an earl has a lot of beastly jobs to do which never bother us."
"Oh, you've found that out, have you, John? Well, I hesitated when the invitation came; but I'm glad now that you went."
"Yes; and it's ripping to be home again."
The summer term began in glorious sunshine; and John forgot that he owned an umbrella. The Caterpillar and he had achieved their remove, but the unhappy Duffer was left behind alone with the hideous necessity of doing his form's work by himself. The boys occupied the same rooms, but John prepared his Greek and Latin with Scaife, Cæsar, and the Caterpillar; whom he was now privileged to call by their nick-names. They began to call him John, hearing young Kinloch do so; and then one day, Scaife, looking up with his derisive smile, said—
"I'm going to call you Jonathan."