From Crayshaw's he came to my father, the only "unexceptionable reference" left to Snuffy to put forward.
The Colonel came with a soldier's promptness, and, with the utmost courtesy of manner, went straight to the point.

His life had not accustomed him to our neighbourly unwillingness to interfere with anything that did not personally concern us, nor to the prudent patience with which country folk will wink long at local evils.

In the upshot what he asked was what my mother had asked three years before.

Had my father personal knowledge or good authority for believing the school to be a well-conducted one, and Mr.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.