“It is a great pity to be rude, Wynne, and you should try to guard against it. You will never get on if your manners are not nice. Your Great-uncle Bryan” (he was a deceased relation on her side of the family who had made a nice little income as a chemist) “attributed his success entirely to the possession of an agreeable counter-manner.”
“Preserve me from that,” cried Wynne, and fled from the room.
When his father returned from the City the scene in many respects was re-enacted. Mr. Rendall senior ignored his son’s classical and literary successes, and focused his attention upon the absence of any achievement on mathematical lines.
“Lot of use Socrates and all these other Latin chaps are if you can’t cast up a row of figures!”
Wynne smiled.
“I fancy that Socrates was a Greek,” he replied.
“I’m not going to quibble about that. He could have been an Esquimaux for all the good he’ll do you in the City.”
Wynne had been expecting this for some time, and he replied with a steady voice,
“I shan’t take him to the City, father.”
“Better not. Better forget all about him and fix your mind on things that matter. How did you do with book-keeping?”