A servant announced their names. The Dean, a precise-looking person in most clerical dress, sealed at a little oak table all littered with papers, turned listlessly round in his swinging chair to receive them. 'Mr. Gillingham of Rugby,' he said, focussing his eye-glass on the credentials of respectability which the Born Poet presented to him. 'Oh, yes, that's all right. Sixth Form--h'm, h'm. Your headmaster was so kind as to write to me about you. I'm very glad to see you at Barham, I'm sure, Mr. Gillingham; hope we may number you among ourselves before long. I've had the pleasure of meeting your father once--I think it was at Athens. Or no, the Piræus. Sir Bernard was good enough to use his influence in securing me an escort from the Greek Government for my explorations in Boetia. Country very much disturbed; soldiers absolutely necessary. These papers are quite satisfactory, of course; h'm, h'm! highly satisfactory. Your Head tells me you write verses, too. Well, well, we shall see. You'll go in for the Newdigate. The Keats of the future!' 'We call him the Born Poet at Rugby, sir,' Paussett put in, somewhat mischievously. 'And you're going in for the modern history examination?' the Dean said, smiling, but otherwise not heeding the cheeky interruption. 'Well, history will be flattered.' He readjusted his eyeglass. 'Mr. Faussett: Rugby, too, I believe? H'm; h'm; well, your credentials are respectable--decidedly respectable, though by no means brilliant. You've a brother at Christ Church, I understand. Ah, yes; exactly. You take up classics. Quite so.--And now for you, sir. Let me see.' He dropped his eyeglass, and stared hard at the letter Richard laid before him. 'Mr.--er--Plantagenet, of--what is it?--oh, I see--Chiddingwick Grammar School. Chiddingwick, Chiddingwick? H'm? h'm? never heard of it. Eh? What's that? In Yorkshire, is it? Oh, ah, in Surrey; exactly; quite so. You're a candidate for the History Scholarship, it seems. Well, the name Plantagenet's not unknown in history. That'll do, Mr. Plantagenet; you can go. Good-morning. Examination begins in hall to-morrow at ten o'clock punctually.--Mr. Gillingham, will you and our friend lunch with me on Friday at half-past one? No engagement? Most fortunate.' And with a glance at the papers still scattered about his desk, he dismissed them silently. Dick slunk down the steps with a more oppressive consciousness of his own utter nothingness in the scheme of things than he had ever before in his life experienced. It was impossible for him to overlook the obvious difference between the nature of the reception he had himself obtained and that held out to the son of Sir Bernard Gillingham and his companion from Rugby. He almost regretted now he had ever been rash enough to think of pitting his own home-bred culture against that of these rich men's sons, taught by first-class masters at great public schools, and learned in all the learning of the Egyptians.