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for a scholarship when you leave. Have you got anything of
your own?’
‘My uncle says I shall have a hundred a year when I’m
twenty-one.’
‘You’ll be rich. I had nothing.’
The headmaster hesitated a moment, and then, idly
drawing lines with a pencil on the blotting paper in front
of him, went on.
‘I’m afraid your choice of professions will be rather lim-
ited. You naturally couldn’t go in for anything that required
physical activity.’
Philip reddened to the roots of his hair, as he always did
when any reference was made to his club-foot. Mr. Perkins
looked at him gravely.
‘I wonder if you’re not oversensitive about your misfor-
tune. Has it ever struck you to thank God for it?’
Philip looked up quickly. His lips tightened. He remem-
bered how for months, trusting in what they told him, he
had implored God to heal him as He had healed the Leper
and made the Blind to see.
‘As long as you accept it rebelliously it can only cause
you shame. But if you looked upon it as a cross that was
given you to bear only because your shoulders were strong
enough to bear it, a sign of God’s favour, then it would be a
source of happiness to you instead of misery.’
He saw that the boy hated to discuss the matter and he
let him go.
But Philip thought over all that the headmaster had said,
and presently, his mind taken up entirely with the ceremo-

10 Of Human Bondage