He was received by the Warden with a sort of grim kindness. "I perceive, Mr Rushton," that dignitary said, "that you have done the work the College required of you. It is done, but it is not at all well done, I am sorry to say."
"I know it isn't well done, sir," said John, with a rueful recollection of how hard it had been to do it at all.
"You have read your books flying—probably not in the vacation at all—probably since you came up. And you have not understood very well what you read. The work is done, however, and I'll say no more about how it was done. Let me ask you, however, Mr Rushton, what you think is the use of producing such an essay as that?"
"No use at all, sir," cried John. "I thought so all the time: more than no use. It has only driven me half mad and disgusted you. It is fit for nothing but to put in the fire. It should never have been written at all."
"Do you suppose, then, that you come to the University to amuse yourself, and that no work should be asked from you?"
"I don't amuse myself a bit," cried John. "And if you call that rot (I beg your pardon, sir) work——Well, yes, I suppose it was work, it was such a horrible task to me."
"Take care what you are saying, Mr Rushton: it's as easy for me to send you down, remember, as to throw your essay into the fire."
"I wish you would, sir," cried John; "it would give me an excuse for going away. It would give me satisfaction to see that rot burning, and myself too almost, in one way or other. I thought once I'd paint a little picture and bring you that instead."
"Oh, you can paint pictures?"
"I try," said John. He smiled a little to think that while the Warden probably expected him to produce a daub like a schoolboy's or schoolgirl's, there were people quite as good as the Warden in their way who would have needed no further information than his name as to what he could do. He who could produce nothing better than that very bad essay; he——Well, he had heard a picture of his recognised as a "little Rushton" once, by a man who knew. He laughed in a way which the Warden did not understand and thought silly, and then he grew grave. "I think, sir, on the whole," he said, suddenly, "I will take the advice you were good enough to give me when I first came up."