in the turret. From his bed he could see the great
cumulus clouds that hung in the blue sky. He revelled in his freedom. He
could go to bed when he chose and get up when the fancy took him. There
was no one to order him about. It struck him that he need not tell any
more lies.
It had been arranged that Professor Erlin should teach him Latin and
German; a Frenchman came every day to give him lessons in French; and the
Frau Professor had recommended for mathematics an Englishman who was
taking a philological degree at the university. This was a man named
Wharton. Philip went to him every morning. He lived in one room on the top
floor of a shabby house. It was dirty and untidy, and it was filled with
a pungent odour made up of many different stinks. He was generally in bed
when Philip arrived at ten o'clock, and he jumped out, put on a filthy
dressing-gown and felt slippers, and, while he gave instruction, ate his
simple breakfast. He was a short man, stout from excessive beer drinking,
with a heavy moustache and long, unkempt hair. He had been in Germany for
five years and was become very Teutonic. He spoke with scorn of Cambridge
where he had taken his degree and with horror of the life which awaited
him when, having taken his doctorate in Heidelberg, he must return to
England and a pedagogic career. He adored the life of the German
university with its happy freedom and its jolly companionships. He was a
member of a Burschenschaft, and promised to take Philip to a Kneipe. He
was very poor and made no secret that the lessons he was giving Philip
meant the difference between meat for his dinner and bread and cheese.
Sometimes after a heavy night he had such a headache that he could not
drink his coffee, and he gave his lesson with heaviness of spirit. For
these occasions he kept a few bottles of beer under the bed, and one of
these and a pipe would help him to bear the burden of life.
"A hair of the dog that bit him," he would say as he poured out the beer,
carefully so that the foam should not make him wait too long to drink.
Then he would talk to Philip of the university, the quarrels between rival
corps, the duels, and the merits of this and that professor. Philip learnt
more of life from him than of mathematics. Sometimes Wharton would sit
back with a laugh and say:
"Look here, we've not done anything today. You needn't pay me for the
lesson."
"Oh, it doesn't matter," said Philip.
This was something new and
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