"Well, I must go," said Thrale, getting to his feet, "I've got to find some sort of lodging." "I thought you were going to stay with those Gosling people of yours," said Gurney. "No! That's off. I went to see them last night and they won't have me. The old man's making his £300 a year now, and the family's too respectable to take boarders." Thrale picked up his hat and held out his hand. "But, look here, old chap, why the devil can't you stay here?" asked Gurney. "I didn't know that you'd anywhere to put me," said Thrale. "Oh, yes. There's always a room to be had downstairs," said Gurney. After a brief discussion the arrangement was made. "It's understood I'm to pay my whack," said Thrale. "Of course, if you insist----" When Thrale had gone to fetch his luggage from the hotel, Gurney sat pondering over the fire. He was debating whether he had been altogether wise in pressing his invitation. He was wondering whether the curiously rousing personality of Thrale, and the stories of those still existent corners of the world outside the rules of civilization were good for a civil servant with an income of £600 a year. Gurney, faced with the plain alternatives, could only decide that he would be a fool to throw up a congenial and lucrative occupation such as his own, in order to face present physical discomfort and future penury. He knew that the discomforts would be very real to him at first. His friends would think him mad. And all for the sake of experiencing some high emotion now and again, in order to feel clean and fresh and be able to discover something of the unknown mystery of life. "I suppose there is something of the poet in me," reflected Gurney. "And I expect I should hate the discomforts. One's imagination gets led away...." 2 During the next few evenings the conversations between these two friends were many and protracted. Thrale was the teacher, and Gurney was content to sit at his feet and learn. He had a receptive mind, he was interested in all life, but Uppingham, Trinity Hall, and the Home Civil had constricted his mental processes. At twenty-nine he was losing flexibility. Thrale gave him back his power to think, set him outside the formulas of his school, taught him that however sound his deductions, there was not one of his premises which could not be disputed.