“When I followed your most excellent and youthful advice, Tony, and started this confounded school,” explained Mr. Tetteridge.
“What’s wrong with it?” asked Anthony.
“Success,” replied Mr. Tetteridge. “It’s going to grow. I shall end in a big square house with boarders and assistant masters and prayers at eight o’clock. I shall dress in a black frock-coat and wear a chimney-pot hat. I shall have to. The parents will expect it.”
“There’ll be holidays,” suggested Anthony, “when you’ll be able to go walking tours in knickerbockers and a tweed cap.”
“No, I sha’n’t,” said Mr. Tetteridge. “I shall be a married man. There’ll be children, most likely. We shall go for a month to the seaside and listen to niggers. The children will clamour for it. I shall never escape from children all my life, and I’ll never get away from Millsborough. I shall die here, an honoured and respected citizen of Millsborough. Do you know what my plan was? I’d worked it all out? Wandering about the world like Oliver Goldsmith, with my fiddle. Earning my living while I tramped, sleeping under the stars or in some village inn, listening to the talk and stories; making sketches of odd characters, quaint scenes and places; sitting by the wayside making poetry. Do you know, Tony, I believe I could have been a poet—could have left a name behind me.”
“You’ll have your evenings,” argued Anthony. “They’ll all go at four o’clock. You can write your poetry between tea and supper.”
“‘To Irene of the Ringlets,’” suggested Tetteridge. “‘God and the Grasshopper,’ ‘Ode to Idleness.’ What do you think the parents would say? Besides, they don’t come between tea and supper. They come in the mental arithmetic hour. I kick ’em out and slam the door. They never come again.”
Anthony’s face expressed trouble. Something within him enabled him to understand. Tetteridge laughed.
“It’s all right,” he said. He took the photograph of the science master’s daughter from the mantelpiece and kissed it. “I’m going to marry the dearest little girl in all the world, and we’re going to get on and be very happy. Who knows? Perhaps we may keep our carriage.”
He replaced the latest photograph of Miss Seaton on the mantelpiece. She wasn’t as dolly-faced as she had been. The mouth had grown firmer, and the look of wonder in the eyes had gone. She suggested rather a capable young woman.