No More Learning

She spent her life in proving that rule.

Mrs. Hauksbee and she hated each other fervently. They heard far
too much to clash; but the things they said of each other were
startling--not to say original. Mrs. Hauksbee was honest--honest as her
own front teeth--and, but for her love of mischief, would have been
a woman's woman. There was no honesty about Mrs. Reiver; nothing but
selfishness. And at the beginning of the season, poor little Pluffles
fell a prey to her. She laid herself out to that end, and who was
Pluffles, to resist? He went on trusting to his judgment, and he got
judged.

I have seen Hayes argue with a tough horse--I have seen a tonga-driver
coerce a stubborn pony--I have seen a riotous setter broken to gun by a
hard keeper--but the breaking-in of Pluffles of the "Unmentionables" was
beyond all these. He learned to fetch and carry like a dog, and to
wait like one, too, for a word from Mrs. Reiver. He learned to keep
appointments which Mrs.
Reiver had no intention of keeping. He learned
to take thankfully dances which Mrs. Reiver had no intention of giving
him. He learned to shiver for an hour and a quarter on the windward side
of Elysium while Mrs. Reiver was making up her mind to come for a
ride. He learned to hunt for a 'rickshaw, in a light dress-suit under
a pelting rain, and to walk by the side of that 'rickshaw when he had
found it. He learned what it was to be spoken to like a coolie and
ordered about like a cook. He learned all this and many other things
besides. And he paid for his schooling.

Perhaps, in some hazy way, he fancied that it was fine and impressive,
that it gave him a status among men, and was altogether the thing to do.
It was nobody's business to warn Pluffles that he was unwise. The pace
that season was too good to inquire; and meddling with another man's
folly is always thankless work.

Pluffles' Colonel should have ordered him back to his regiment when he
heard how things were going. But Pluffles had got himself engaged to a
girl in England the last time he went home; and if there was one
thing more than another which the Colonel detested, it was a married
subaltern. He chuckled when he heard of the education of Pluffles, and
said it was "good training for the boy. " But it was not good training in
the least.