If Crum ever said a word, he would jolly well punch his head, and there would be an end of it.

He walked a hundred yards or more, contented with that thought, then lost its comfort utterly.

It wasn't simple like that! He remembered how, at school, when some parent came down who did not pass the standard, it just clung to the fellow afterwards.

It was one of those things nothing could remove.

Why had his mother married his father, if he was a 'bounder'?
It was bitterly unfair--jolly low-down on a fellow to give him a 'bounder' for father.
The worst of it was that now Crum had spoken the word, he realised that he had long known subconsciously that his father was not 'the clean potato.' It was the beastliest thing that had ever happened to him--beastliest thing that had ever happened to any fellow! And, down-hearted as he had never yet been, he came to Green Street, and let himself in with a smuggled latch-key.