If any other incentive was wanted it was the supreme discomfort of my position at my guardian’s office.
My comrades there persistently misunderstood me.
They put me down as an opiniated young prig, with whom all sorts of liberties might be taken, and out of whom it was lawful, for their own amusement, to take unlimited “rise.”
I was, of course, unmercifully chaffed about the girls’ school.
“He’s getting on,” said one of them, on the very morning after my début. “They walk out together.”
“That was not Miss Bousfield you saw me with at all,” I explained. “That was my mother.”
“Quite time she came to look after you, too. How did she like your curls? You should put them in papers overnight, then we shouldn’t have to do them every day.”
Where upon I was seized, and had my locks tied up in wads of blotting-paper, and ordered to sit down and lick envelopes, and not dare to put my hand to my head till leave was accorded me from headquarters.
In this plight my guardian came in and discovered me.
“Please, Mr Girdler—” said I, not waiting for him to remark on my curious appearance.