Jim hesitated a moment, but all the same there mounted up into his cheek a pleasant colour and into his heart a certain warmth of gratification. He had always entertained a certain admiration for Osborne, a fellow who had played for the University! On the other hand, it was agreeable to lounge into the ‘Blue Boar,’ where everybody was so very civil to him, and where he anticipated meeting the vet. Thus it was with a mixture of pleasure and reluctance that he received the unlooked-for invitation. To look in upon Ormerod, who was another parson in Winwick, was not without its temptations too, for that gentleman was a fine cricketer, known over all the county. Jim was not often led into such society--his usual cronies admired Mr. Ormerod at a distance, talking big of having seen him do this and that feat. A fear of being _de trop_, of being looked down upon by these men, of having to act the part of an undesired third, checked, however, his pleasure in that thought. Poor Jim was proud, though he had not very much reason for it, and his pride had received some severe blows, and was always on the watch for more. For a moment its whisper that he would be nobody between these two, and that he was always somebody at the ‘Blue Boar,’ had almost turned him back. But then ‘Come along,’ said Osborne, ‘come along, don’t let us lose the best of the day!’ If Jim had known that Florry was at the bottom of it all--Florry, only a girl, one of the home police who kept that insufferable watch upon him, his sister! But, fortunately, no such idea could by any chance have crossed his mind. Florry! what could she have had to do with it? And he was moved by the cheerful call of the curate, who was not in general a very cheerful man, and who rather preferred in an ordinary way to tramp through the slush and cold than to take advantage of a beautiful morning for a walk. He said, ‘I suppose you will not be very late,’ hesitating at the corner. ‘Late! You know how far it is to Winwick,’ said Mr. Osborne, ‘a matter of three miles--not much that to you and me.’ ‘No, it’s not much,’ said Jim. ‘I think I’ll risk it,’ he added, when the turn was actually taken, and the Winwick Road stretched before them. ‘I’m on an easy bit to-day. I’ll have time to get it all up when we get back.’ ‘A good walk always clears a man’s head,’ said Osborne; and he resumed after a pause, ‘What are you reading now?’ ‘Oh, it’s Sophocles. Seven against Thebes, don’t you know, with all those hard choruses.’ ‘Oh, for Greats?’ ‘I wish I only knew what it was for,’ cried Jim. ‘You know I haven’t been lucky, Osborne. I got into a scrape, don’t you know. I suppose everybody knows: though we think at the Rectory that if we make-believe strong enough nobody need know.’ ‘A great many men get into scrapes,’ said the curate oracularly. ‘Don’t they, now?’ cried Jim, with eagerness; ‘that’s what my people won’t see.’ ‘The only thing is to get out of them as fast as possible,’ added Mr. Osborne.