r would not himself have been satisfied unless
everything had been plentiful, and everything of the best. He would have
hated a butcher who had attempted to seduce him with meat beneath the
usual price. But when he had supplied that which was sufficient according
to his own liberal ideas, he did not give more without charging for it.
Among his customers there had been a certain Honourable Mr. Stantiloup,
and,--which had been more important,--an Honourable Mrs. Stantiloup. Mrs.
Stantiloup was a lady who liked all the best things which the world could
supply, but hardly liked paying the best price. Dr. Wortle's school was
the best thing the world could supply of that kind, but then the price was
certainly the very best. Young Stantiloup was only eleven, and as there
were boys at Bowick as old as seventeen,--for the school had not
altogether maintained its old character as being merely preparatory,--Mrs.
Stantiloup had thought that her boy should be admitted at a lower fee.
The correspondence which had ensued had been unpleasant. Then young
Stantiloup had had the influenza, and Mrs. Stantiloup had sent her own
doctor. Champagne had been ordered, and carriage exercise. Mr.
Stantiloup had been forced by his wife to refuse to pay sums demanded for
these undoubted extras. Ten shillings a-day for a drive for a little boy
seemed to her a great deal,--seemed so to Mrs. Stantiloup. Ought not the
Doctor's wife to have been proud to take out her little boy in her own
carriage? And then L2 10_s_. for champagne for the little boy! It was
monstrous. Mr. Stantiloup remonstrated. Dr. Wortle said that the little
boy had better be taken away and the bill paid at once. The little boy
was taken away and the money was offered, short of L5. The matter was
instantly put into the hands of the Doctor's lawyer, and a suit commenced.
The Doctor, of course, got his money, and then there followed an
acrimonious correspondence in the "Times" and other newspapers. Mrs.
Stantiloup did her best to ruin the school, and many very eloquent
passages were written not only by her or by her own special scribe, but by
others who took the matter up, to prove that two hundred a-year was a
great deal more than ought to be paid for the charge of a little boy
during three quarters of the year. But in the course of the next twelve
months Dr. Wortle was obliged to refuse admittance to a dozen eligible
pupils because he had not room for them.

No doubt