Just lately he could never get to sleep here. In Oxford, it wasn’t so bad: he was inconspicuous among the rows of little rooms. He rarely went to lectures; his tutor told him that he was a Beckforth as if he would never amount to anything, which made him laugh once out of the man’s sight. It was true, he supposed, for six generations of Beckforths had gone to Oxford and six had come back without an ounce of worthwhile knowledge: their wits had kept them alive and wealthy, their cunning and cruelty—not an education. And sometimes sheer laziness. Sometimes one of the generations had just lain about like hogs wallowing in their own sloth and terribly pleased with themselves, bleeding the local people dry and wasting a fortune here and there on Court intrigue and women. He didn’t see why he needed an education at all; it wasn’t as if he was ever going to be allowed to use it. He flung his arms wide on the bed, still in his clothes. He had not wanted Harrison or Hardy or Nash to attend to him.
