(Nobody ever called him Mr.Crayshaw except the parents of pupils who lived at a distance.

In the neighbourhood he and his whole establishment were lumped under the one word _Crayshaw's_, and as a farmer hard by once said to me, "Crayshaw's is universally disrespected.") I do not think it was merely because "Crayshaw's" was cheap that we were sent there, though my father had so few reasons to give for his choice that he quoted that among them.

A man with whom he had had business dealings (which gave him much satisfaction for some years, and more dissatisfaction afterwards) did really, I think, persuade my father to send us to this school, one evening when they were dining together.
Few things are harder to guess at than the grounds on which an Englishman of my father's type "makes up his mind"; and yet the question is an important one, for an idea once lodged in his head, a conviction once as much his own as the family acres, and you will as soon part him from the one as from the other.

I have known little matters of domestic improvements, in which my mother's comfort was concerned and her experience conclusive, for which he grudged a few shillings, and was absolutely impenetrable by her persuasions and representations.

And I have known him waste pounds on things of the most curious variety, foisted on him by advertising agents without knowledge, trial, or rational ground of confidence.