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 contemptuous anger and depart, dragging their puzzled offspring with them. Some of the things they said would hurt the Rev. Dr. Tetteridge by reason of their truth, especially things said by those among the poor who had known him when he was Mr. Emanuel Tetteridge, to whom success had not yet come.

Mr. Emanuel Tetteridge had thought to help the poor. In what way better than by educating their sons? For which purpose, it would seem, he had been granted special gifts. It was the thing that compensated him for giving up his dreams. Maybe the poor, not knowing the etiquette of these matters, might have overlooked his playing of the fiddle; perhaps, lacking sense of propriety, might have tolerated even odes to "Irene."

An eccentric schoolmaster, an oddity of a schoolmaster, content with what the world called poverty so that he might live his own life, dream out his dreams, might have done this. If only he hadn't got on. If only success—a strong-minded lady—was not gripping him so firmly by the arm, talking incessantly, without giving him a moment to think of the wonderful place to which she was leading him: a big house of many rooms, strongly built and solidly furnished, surrounded by a high brick wall pierced by a great iron gate; with men and women