ey might have retrieved his position and
covered up the traces of his folly, but for an unfortunate accident.
Returning to college with some other choice spirits at two o'clock in the
morning, it occurred to young Grindley that trouble might be saved all
round by cutting out a pane of glass with a diamond ring and entering his
rooms, which were on the ground-floor, by the window. That, in mistake
for his own, he should have selected the bedroom of the College Rector
was a misfortune that might have occurred to anyone who had commenced the
evening on champagne and finished it on whisky. Young Grindley, having
been warned already twice before, was "sent down." And then, of course,
the whole history of the three wasted years came out. Old Grindley in
his study chair having talked for half an hour at the top of his voice,
chose, partly by reason of physical necessity, partly by reason of
dormant dramatic instinct, to speak quietly and slowly.

"I'll give you one chance more, my boy, and one only. I've tried you as
a gentleman--perhaps that was my mistake. Now I'll try you as a grocer."

"As a what?"

"As a grocer, sir--g-r-o-c-e-r--grocer, a man who stands behind a counter
in a white apron and his shirt-sleeves; who sells tea and sugar and
candied peel and such-like things to customers--old ladies, little girls;
who rises at six in the morning, takes down the shutters, sweeps out the
shop, cleans the windows; who has half an hour for his dinner of corned
beef and bread; who puts up the shutters at ten o'clock at night, tidies
up the shop, has his supper, and goes to bed, feeling his day has not
been wasted. I meant to spare you. I was wrong. You shall go through
the mill as I went through it. If at the end of two years you've done
well with your time, learned something--learned to be a man, at all
events--you can come to me and thank me."

"I'm afraid, sir," suggested Grindley junior, whose handsome face during
the last few minutes had grown very white, "I might not make a very
satisfactory grocer. You see, sir, I've had no experience."

"I am glad you have some sense," returned his father drily. "You are
quite right. Even a grocer's business requires learning. It will cost
me a little money; but it will be the last I shall ever spend upon you.
For the first year you will have to be apprenticed, and I shall allow you
something to live on. It shall be more than I had at your age--we'll say
a pound a week.