His son and heir was unable to explain.
“You are my son—why aren’t you clever? It’s laziness, sir; sheer laziness!”
“I’ll try and do better at Oxford, sir—honour bright I will!”
“You had better,” advised him his father; “because I warn you, your whole future depends upon it. You know me. You’ve got to be a credit to me, to be worthy of the name of Grindley—or the name, my boy, is all you’ll have.”
Old Grindley meant it, and his son knew that he meant it. The old Puritan principles and instincts were strong in the old gentleman—formed, perhaps, the better part of him. Idleness was an abomination to him; devotion to pleasure, other than the pleasure of money-making, a grievous sin in his eyes. Grindley junior fully intended to do well at Oxford, and might have succeeded. In accusing himself of lack of cleverness, he did himself an injustice. He had brains, he had energy, he had character. Our virtues can be our stumbling-blocks as well as our vices. Young Grindley had one admirable virtue that needs, above all others, careful controlling: he was amiability itself. Before the charm and sweetness of it, Oxford snobbishness went down. The Sauce, against the earnest counsel of its own advertisement, was forgotten; the pickles passed by. To escape the natural result of his popularity would have needed a stronger will than young Grindley possessed. For a time the true state of affairs was hidden from the eye of Grindley senior. To “slack” it this term, with the full determination of “swotting” it the next, is always easy; the difficulty beginning only with the new term. Possibly with luck young Grindley might have retrieved his position and covered up the traces of his folly, but for an unfortunate accident. Returning to college with some other choice spirits at two o’clock in the morning, it occurred to young Grindley that trouble might be saved all round by cutting out a pane of glass with a diamond ring and entering his rooms, which were on the ground-floor, by the window. That, in mistake for his own, he should have selected the bedroom of the College Rector was a misfortune that might have occurred to anyone who had commenced the evening on champagne and finished it on whisky. Young Grindley, having been warned already twice before, was “sent down.” And then, of course, the whole history of the three wasted years came out. Old Grindley in his study chair having talked for half an hour at the top of his voice, chose, partly by reason of physical necessity, partly by reason of dormant dramatic instinct, to speak quietly and slowly.
“I’ll give you one chance more, my boy, and one only. I’ve tried you as a gentleman—perhaps that was my mistake. Now I’ll try you as a grocer.”
“As a what?”
“As a grocer, sir—g-r-o-c-e-r—grocer, a man who stands behind a counter in a white apron and his shirt-sleeves; who sells tea and sugar and candied peel and such-like things to customers—old ladies, little girls; who rises at six in the morning, takes down the shutters, sweeps out the shop, cleans the windows; who has half an hour for his dinner of corned beef and bread; who puts up the shutters at ten o’clock at night, tidies up the shop, has his supper, and goes to bed, feeling his day has not been wasted. I meant to spare you. I was wrong. You shall go through the mill as I went through it. If at the end of two years you’ve done well with your time, learned something—learned to be a man, at all events—you can come to me and thank me.”
“I’m afraid, sir,” suggested Grindley junior, whose handsome face during the last few minutes had grown very white, “I might not make a very satisfactory grocer. You see, sir, I’ve had no experience.”
“I am glad you have some sense,” returned his father drily. “You are quite right. Even a grocer’s business requires learning. It will cost me a little money; but it will be the last I shall ever spend upon you. For the first year you will have to be apprenticed, and I shall allow you something to live on. It shall be more than I had at your age—we’ll say a pound a week. After that I shall expect you to keep yourself.”