All these momentous questions the reader can settle for himself as well as I can for him.

He will at any rate be able to understand that when one day in October a telegram reached Railsford from Grandcourt with the brief announcement--"Vacancy here; see advertisement _Athenaeum_! am writing"-- it created no small stir in the manly breast of the worthy to whom it was directed.
He went at once to Westbourne Park and held a cabinet council with his chief adviser, and again, on returning home, called his sisters into consultation.

He wrote to his college tutor, drew up a most elegant letter to the governors, read a few chapters of _Tom Brown's Schooldays_, and then waited impatiently for Grover's promised letter.
"You will have guessed," said that letter, when it arrived, "from my telegram that Moss has resigned, and that there will be a vacancy for a house-master and Master of the Shell here at Christmas.

You know how I would like to see you appointed.

But--" "But what ?" inquired someone who read the letter over the reader's shoulder.
"I should not be your friend if I represented this place as a bed of roses, especially Moss's house.