But I didn't think he had a good influence over my other pupils, so before I planned that Italian journey--on which you refused to accompany me--I advised him to leave my tuition--I wasn't modern enough, I said.

I also advised him to make up his mind whether he wanted to be a sane architect--he despised questions of housemaids' closets and sanitation and lifts and hot-water supply--or a scene painter.

I think he might have had a great career at Drury Lane over fairy palaces or millionaire dwellings.

But I turned him out of my studio, though I put the fact less brutally before his father--said I should be absent a long while in Italy and that I feared the boy was too undisciplined.
Afterwards I think he went into some South African police force..." _Vivie_: "He did, and died last year in a South African hospital.
Had he--er--er--many relations, I mean did he come of well-known people ?" _Praed_: "I fancy not.

His father was just a dreamy old Welsh clergyman always seeing visions and believing himself a descendant of the Druids, Sam Gardner told me; and his mother had either died long ago or had run away from her husband, I forget which.