The Demon in the House

When Tony Morland wasn’t at school he lived with his mother in the country. His father had died so long ago that he couldn’t remember him, so he just thought that fathers were things other people had. As his three elder brothers were usually abroad or at sea, he missed the fraternal snubbing which is supposed to improve the character. His mother sometimes tried to be a little unkind to him, because she felt the responsibility of being a father and mother rolled into one, but she wasn’t very successful. Mothers, as far as Tony could see, were just things that everybody had. One put up with them as one put up with cricket, M. Dubois the French master, Mr. Prothero, who gave one impositions just for doing nothing at all, like pushing another chap at drill and drawing pictures on one’s Ovid, or as one put up with anything else that had obviously been there for ever and would go on for ever. Also he liked his mother very much, and sometimes hugged her to strangulation point, till she had to beg for mercy.