,
and trying hard to look superior, "it is just as well for you and me to
understand one another. I have heard what sort of figure you cut at
Oxford, and the disgrace in which you left the University. Allow me to
say, sir, that it reflects little credit on your honour that you should
have imposed on your late employer, and taken advantage of his weak
health and faculties to foist yourself upon his family under false
colours."

"Will you oblige me with a light?" interposed Mr Armstrong.

"You are under a delusion if you think I am not perfectly well
acquainted with your disreputable antecedents. Let me tell you, sir,
that a music-hall cad is not a fitting companion for a lad of Roger's
rank and expectations."

"I perfectly agree with you. But really this has very little to do with
our arrangements for Roger's future."

"Do you mean to deny, sir, that you were a music-hall singer?"

"By no means. I was. On the whole, I rather enjoyed the vocation at
the time. I look upon that and the year (about which you apparently
have not been fortunate enough to learn anything) during which I was
tutor and private secretary in the family of the Hon. James Welcher--
the most notorious blackleg in the kingdom--as two of the most
interesting episodes in my career."

"I can believe it. And, before you devoted your energies to singing
disreputable songs to the blackguards of the East End--"

"Pardon me. I was particular. My songs were for the most part of the
classical order; but what were you saying?"

"I was saying," said the captain, now fairly dropping the dignified, and
falling back on the abusive, "what were you before that?"

"Really, Captain Oliphant, you have been so acute and successful so far,
I would not on any account deprive you of the satisfaction of
discovering what little more remains to complete my humble biography by
your own exertions. Meanwhile, as to Roger's college; had you leisure
when at Oxford to make any inquiries as to that rather important
question?"

"Oblige me by addressing your conversation to some one else, sir. I am
not disposed to be asked questions by an adventurer and sharper, who--"

The tutor's face blackened, the glass fell from his eye, and he rose to
his feet so suddenly that the chair on which he had been sitting fell
back violently.

Captain Oliphant turned pale and started to his feet too in an attitude
of self-defence and retreat. But the tutor only walked over to t