Bags took up the first page which David had written, and which resembled some loose sort of triolet with its repetition of lines. In spite of the difficulty of managing two pens with success, it was wonderfully uniform, and written in David’s neat and vigorous hand. “I’ll get on with another page of them, if you like,” suggested Bags, “all the fellows say I write exactly like you.” “Thanks; that’s jolly good of you,” said David. “And you do write awfully like me. I wonder why. You used not to, as when Maddox spotted my handwriting in that crib.” “Oh, I suppose it’s being with you and all that,” said Bags vaguely, knowing quite well that he had long tried to write like David, out of affection and admiration for all that pertained to his pal. “I’ll begin at line a hundred, shall I, so that when you get there you can skip the next hundred and go on at line two hundred?” “Yes, that’s the trick,” said David. “Thanks awfully. Sure it doesn’t bore you? I say, shall I lash a couple more pens for you?” “Don’t think I should get on well with them,” said Bags. The Lent term, about half of which was now over, seemed to David a very poor affair in comparison with other terms. Rugby football was finished with; cricket, of course, did not exist; the weather had been consistently diluvian, so that the golf-links where he had intended to pass most of his leisure, were generally half flooded. Other fellows, it is true, were busy on athletics, but David, seeing through Frank’s eyes, had no sympathy with just running when there was no ulterior object except to run quicker than anybody else. In fact, there were no games except fives and racquets, and, the demand for courts being largely in excess of the supply, he could not get one as often as his energy needed. Thus, since there was so little that might legitimately be done, he had chiefly occupied himself in breaking school-rules, and, as Bags had said, he had really passed most of the half in writing lines, which, though it took time, merely bottled up instead of relieving him of his exuberant vitality. Furthermore, since there was not the slightest chance of his getting out of the middle fifth at Easter (only geniuses, of whom he was certainly not one, did that) David had argued that the less time he spent over work the better.