the only one which is afflicted with manias for
eating dirt. . . . By the bye, where is poor Luke?'

Ah! where was poor Luke? Lancelot had received from him one short
and hurried note, blotted with tears, which told how he had informed
his father; and how his father had refused to see him, and had
forbid him the house; and how he had offered him an allowance of
fifty pounds a year (it should have been five hundred, he said, if
he had possessed it), which Luke's director, sensibly enough, had
compelled him to accept. . . . And there the letter ended,
abruptly, leaving the writer evidently in lower depths than he had
either experienced already, or expected at all.

Lancelot had often pleaded for him with his father; but in vain.
Not that the good man was hard-hearted: he would cry like a child
about it all to Lancelot when they sat together after dinner. But
he was utterly beside himself, what with grief, shame, terror, and
astonishment. On the whole, the sorrow was a real comfort to him:
it gave him something beside his bankruptcy to think of; and,
distracted between the two different griefs, he could brood over
neither. But of the two, certainly his son's conversion was the
worst in his eyes. The bankruptcy was intelligible--measurable; it
was something known and classified--part of the ills which flesh
(or, at least, commercial flesh) is heir to. But going to Rome!--

'I can't understand it. I won't believe it. It's so foolish, you
see, Lancelot--so foolish--like an ass that eats thistles! . . .
There must be some reason;--there must be--something we don't know,
sir! Do you think they could have promised to make him a cardinal?'

Lancelot quite agreed that there were reasons for it, that they--or,
at least, the banker--did not know. . . .

'Depend upon it, they promised him something--some prince-bishopric,
perhaps. Else why on earth could a man go over! It's out of the
course of nature!'

Lancelot tried in vain to make him understand that a man might
sacrifice everything to conscience, and actually give up all worldly
weal for what he thought right. The banker turned on him with angry
resignation--

'Very well--I suppose he's done right then! I suppose you'll go
next! Take up a false religion, and give up everything for it!
Why, then, he must be honest; and if he's honest, he's in the right;
and I suppose I'd better go too!'

Lancelot argued: but in vain.