Crayshaw a fit man for his responsible
post? Had he ever heard rumours to the man's discredit?
Replies that must do for a wife will not always answer a man who puts
the same questions. My great-grandfather's memory was not evoked on this
occasion, and my father frankly confessed that his personal knowledge of
Crayshaw's was very small, and that the man on whose recommendation he
had sent us to school there had just proved to be a rascal and a
swindler. Our mother had certainly heard rumours of severity, but he had
regarded her maternal anxiety as excessive, etc., etc. In short, my dear
father saw that he had been wrong, and confessed it, and was now as
ready as the Colonel to expose Snuffy's misdeeds.
No elaborate investigation was needed. An attack once made on Mr.
Crayshaw's hollow reputation, it cracked on every side; first hints
crept out, then scandals flew. The Colonel gave no quarter, and he did
not limit his interest to his own nephew.
"A widow's son, ma'am," so he said to my mother, bowing over her hand as
he led her in to dinner, in a style to which we were quite unaccustomed;
"a widow's son, ma'am, should find a father in every honest man who can
assist him.
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