He was a handsome, good-looking man of about thirty, and
would have been a happy man had he not been too ambitious in his
aspirations after gentry. He had been at school for three years at
Cheltenham College, which, together with his money and appearance
and undoubted freehold property, should, he thought, have made his
position quite secure to him; but, though he sometimes called young
Hampton of Hampton Wick "Hampton," and the son of the rector of
Dillsborough "Mainwaring," and always called the rich young brewers
from Norrington "Botsey,"--partners in the well-known firm of
Billbrook & Botsey; and though they in return called him "Larry"
and admitted the intimacy, still he did not get into their houses.
And Lord Rufford, when he came into the neighbourhood, never asked
him to dine at the Bush. And--worst of all,--some of the sporting
men and others in the neighbourhood, who decidedly were not
gentlemen, also called him "Larry." Mr. Runciman always did so.
Twenty or twenty-five years ago Runciman had been his father's
special friend, before the house had been built and before the days
at Cheltenham College. Remembering this Lawrence was too good a
fellow to rebuke Runciman; but to younger men of that class he
would sometimes make himself objectionable. There was another
keeper of hunting stables, a younger man, named Stubbings, living
at Stanton Corner, a great hunting rendezvous about four miles from
Dillsborough; and not long since Twentyman had threatened to lay
his whip across Stubbings' shoulders if Stubbings ever called him
"Larry" again.
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