"We've bagged a taxi," Gilbert went on. "The driver looks cheeky ... that's why we hired him. We'll give him a tuppenny tip and then we'll give him in charge!..." "All taxi drivers are cheeky," Roger interrupted. "But this is a very cheeky one!... Hi, porter!" It was extraordinarily good to be with Gilbert and Roger again; extraordinarily good to hear Gilbert's exaggerated speech and see him ordering people about without hurting their feelings; extraordinarily good to listen to Roger's slow, unflickering voice as he stated the facts ... for Roger had always stated the facts. In all their discussions, it was Roger who reminded them of the essential things, refusing persistently to be carried away by Gilbert's imagination or Ninian's impatience. People were sometimes irritated by Roger's slow, imperturbable way of speaking ... they called him a prig ... but as they knew him better, they lost their irritation and thought of him with respect. "But we're all prigs," Gilbert said once in reply to some one who sneered at Roger. "Ninian and Quinny and Roger and me, we're frightful prigs. That's because we're so much brainier than most people. Of course, Roger was Second Wrangler, and that affects a man, I suppose, but he's terribly clever, young Roger is!..." As they drove home, Gilbert told their news to Henry. "Ninian's coming up to-morrow ... sooner than he meant to. He's very keen on going to Harland and Wolff's, but he's afraid he's too old to begin building ships. Tom Arthurs says he ought to have gone straight to the Island from Rumpell's instead of going to Cambridge, and poor old Ninian was horribly blasphemous about it all. It's funny to hear him trying to talk like an Orangeman ... he mixes it up with Devonshire dialect ... and thinks he's imitating Tom Arthurs. I suppose he'll have to content himself with building railways and things like that. It's a great pity!" "I don't believe he really wants to be a shipbuilder," Roger said. "He likes Tom Arthurs, and he wants to be what Arthurs is. That's all. If Arthurs were a comedian, Ninian would want to be a comedian, too!" "It must be splendid," Henry murmured, "to be able to influence people like that!" The taxi drew up to the door of a house in one of the quieter Bloomsbury squares, and Henry, looking out of the window, while Gilbert opened the door of the cab, saw that the garden in the centre of the square was very green. He could see figures in white flannels running and jumping, and the sound of tennis balls, as they collided with the racquets, pleased him. "Your room overlooks the square," Gilbert said, as Henry got out of the cab. "Splendid!" he replied. "I shall imagine I'm in Dublin when I look out of the window. It's just like Merrion Square!..." "Well, pay the cabby, will you? I'm broke!" said Gilbert. "You always are," Roger murmured. 2