|Next morning, when Richard went down to his work in town, Mr. Wells, his employer, accosted him at once with the unwelcome greeting:
'Hullo, Plantagenet, so I hear you're going up to college at Oxford!'
Nothing on earth could well have been more unpleasant for poor Dick. He saw at once from Mr. Wells's tone that his father must have bragged: he must have spoken of the projected trip at the White Horse last night, not as a mere speculative journey in search of a problematical and uncertain Scholarship, but as a _fait accompli_--a domestic arrangement dependent on the mere will of the house of Plantagenet. He must have treated his decision as when a Duke decides that he shall send his son and heir to Christ Church or Trinity.
This mode of envisaging the subject was doubly annoying to Dick, for not only would he feel most keenly the disgrace of returning empty-handed if he failed in the examination, but relations might perhaps become strained meanwhile between himself and Mr. Wells, if the employer thought he might at any moment be deprived of the assistant's services. However, we must all answer for the sins of our fathers: there was nothing for it now but to brazen it out as best he might; so Dick at once confided to his master the true state of the case, explaining that he would only want a few days' holiday, during which he engaged to supply an efficient substitute; that his going to Oxford permanently must depend on his success in the Scholarship examination; and that even if he succeeded--which he modestly judged unlikely--he wouldn't need to give up his present engagement and go into residence at the University till October.
These explanations, frankly given with manly candour, had the good effect of visibly mollifying Mr. Wells's nascent and half-unspoken resentment. Richard had noticed just at first that he assumed a sarcastic and somewhat aggrieved tone, as one who might have expected to be the first person informed of this intended new departure. But as soon as all was satisfactorily cleared up, the bookseller's manner changed immediately, and he displayed instead a genuine interest in the success of the great undertaking. To say the truth, Mr. Wells was not a little proud of his unique assistant. He regarded him with respect, not unmixed with pity.