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tion.
‘I’ll write to Mr. Perkins about it and see what he says.’
‘Oh, I wish to goodness I were twenty-one. It is awful to
be at somebody else’s beck and call.’
‘Philip, you shouldn’t speak to your uncle like that,’ said
Mrs. Carey gently.
‘But don’t you see that Perkins will want me to stay? He
gets so much a head for every chap in the school.’
‘Why don’t you want to go to Oxford?’
‘What’s the good if I’m not going into the Church?’
‘You can’t go into the Church: you’re in the Church al-
ready,’ said the Vicar.
‘Ordained then,’ replied Philip impatiently.
‘What are you going to be, Philip?’ asked Mrs. Carey.
‘I don’t know. I’ve not made up my mind. But whatever I
am, it’ll be useful to know foreign languages. I shall get far
more out of a year in Germany than by staying on at that
hole.’
He would not say that he felt Oxford would be little better
than a continuation of his life at school. He wished im-
mensely to be his own master. Besides he would be known
to a certain extent among old schoolfellows, and he wanted
to get away from them all. He felt that his life at school had
been a failure. He wanted to start fresh.
It happened that his desire to go to Germany fell in with
certain ideas which had been of late discussed at Black-
stable. Sometimes friends came to stay with the doctor
and brought news of the world outside; and the visitors
spending August by the sea had their own way of looking

1 Of Human Bondage