"Considering that I've known you for at least twenty years, those

jokes must have worn a little--er--threadbare. I'm extremely sorry for

these--these breaches of etiquette. I shall do my best to repair them.

That's a specimen of the thing you mean, I imagine?" From sheer

nervousness Louis did what was generally the best thing to do after

any little squabble with Tyson. He laughed.

Unfortunately this time Tyson was in no mood for laughter. The plebeian

was uppermost in him. His wrongs rankled in him like a hereditary taint;

this absurd quarrel with Stanistreet was a skirmish in the blood-feud

of class against class. Tyson was morbidly sensitive on the subject of

his birth, but latterly he had almost forgotten it. It had become an

insignificant episode in the long roll of his epic past. Now for the

first time for years it was recalled to him with a rude shock.

How real it was too! As he thought of it he was back in the stifling

little shop. Faugh! How it reeked of shoddy! Back in the whitewashed

chapel, hot with the fumes of gas and fervent humanity. He heard the

hymn sung to a rollicking tune:-"I am so glad that my Father in heaven

Tells of His love in the book He has given.

"I am so glad that Jesus loves me,

Jesus loves me, Jesus loves me,

I am so glad that Jesus loves me," etc.

The hateful measure rang in his ears, racking his nerves and brain. He

could feel all the agony of his fierce revolting youth. The very torment

of it had been a spur to his ambition. He swore (young Tyson was always

swearing) that he would raise himself out of all that; he would

distinguish himself at any cost. (As a matter of fact the cost was borne

by the Baptist minister.) The world (represented then by his tutor and a

few undergraduates), the world that he suspected of looking down on him,

or more intolerable still, of patronizing him, should be compelled to

admire him. And the world, being young and generous, did admire him

without any strong compulsion. At Oxford the City tailor's son scribbled,

talked, debated furiously; the excited utterance of the man of the

people, naked and unashamed, passed for the insolence of the aristocrat

of letters. He crowned himself with kudos. How the beggars shouted when

he got up to speak! He could hear them now. How they believed in him!

Young Tyson was a splendid fellow; he could do anything he chose--knock

you off a leading article or lead a forlorn hope. In time he began to be

rather proud of his origin; it showed up his pluck, his grit, the stuff

he was made of. He owed everything to himself.




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