"Yes, sir," went on the waiter. "It is splendid, the way the young gentlemen are coming up, and I say a man isn't a man if he stays at home at a time like this. I wish I was ten years younger, I'd be off like a bird." "It's the same everywhere," reflected Bob, "wherever I go I seem to have poisoned arrows shot at me. I don't care what this fellow thinks about me, and yet I am ashamed to tell him that I have not come up for training, at all." "By the way," he said to the waiter in order to stop his garrulous talk, which was becoming painful to him, "will you ring up Dr. Renthall, and ask him if he can see me in about an hour's time?" A little later Bob was out in the streets again, on his way to Dr. Renthall's house. It was a relief to him to feel that here, at least, was one man who would understand his position. After the experiences of the last two or three weeks the Professor's study would be indeed a haven of rest. Bob was not kept waiting at the door. The Professor's old serving-man knew him well, and showed him into the study without any delay whatever. "I am glad to see you, Nancarrow," said the Professor. "Oxford has been a strange city to me these last few weeks; even here, in my den, I cannot get away from the strife and turmoil. Tell me what you have been doing, and how you have been getting on." "I have been like one in an enemy's country," was the young fellow's reply, and then he briefly told him what had taken place. "The thing that troubles me," said the Professor, "is the utter failure of Christianity. All our old ideas seem to have gone by the board. Even many of my Quaker friends have got the war spirit and are no longer sane. It is true we have placards all over the town calling us to prayer, but as far as Christianity is concerned it seems as dead as Queen Anne." "Then what is your attitude?" asked Bob. A few minutes later the Professor was explaining the beliefs which he had for long held so strongly, and Bob listened greedily. He spoke not only of the horror of war, but of its unrighteousness and of its futility. "We talk about the country going into war for the sake of honour," he said warmly. "But has there ever been a war in which we have not made the same plea, and how much honour has there been in it all? What honour was there in the Boer War? What honour has there been in half the wars we have made? In the main it has all been a miserable game of grab. How much was the Founder of Christianity considered when we bombarded Alexandria? How much of the Sermon on the Mount was considered when we went to war with those Boer farmers?"