His professors applauded his resolve; his friends encouraged him
in it. It was to explain to his father the necessity for this course of
action, and wheedle the old man into approval and consent, that the
young doctor went home in the spring of the same year which gave him his
degree.
Caius had other sentiments in going home besides those which underlay
the motive which we have assigned. If as he travelled he at all regarded
the finery of all that he had acquired, it was that he might by it
delight the parents who loved him with such pride. Though not a fop, his
hand trembled on the last morning of his journey when he fastened a
necktie of the colour his mother loved best. He took an earlier train
than he could have been expected to take, and drove at furious rate
between the station and his home, in order that he might creep in by the
side door and greet his parents before they had thought of coming to
meet him. He had also taken no breakfast, that he might eat the more of
the manifold dainties which his mother had in readiness.
For three or four days he feasted hilariously upon these dainties until
he was ill. He also practised all the airs and graces of dandyism that
he could think of, because he knew that the old folks, with ill-judging
taste, admired them. When he had explained to them how great a man he
should be when he had been abroad, and how economical his life would be
in a foreign city, they had no greater desire than that he should go
abroad, and there wax as great as might be possible.
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