"Why not? Not that I think much of Tressor's stuff myself. Of course he can write rattlin' English, and it all flows placidly enough, but there's nothing much in it. It's extraordinary what the public will read. He has huge sales. I know him quite a lot you know. Knew him at Winchester." "He reads my essays, of course," said Paul, "but I never thought to show a don my verse, let alone a fellow with a reputation like Tressor's." "Well, he's the man to help you obviously. And he would too. He's a jolly decent sort is Tressor. I spent a week last vac. at his place. He's got some rippin' stuff." "Has he?" said Paul, eyeing with astonished awe the man who had stayed with a foremost literary lion and actually dared to criticise him. "Yes, jolly fine. And it's a lovely old house and grounds, under the South Downs. I read quite a lot there, and we had some toppin' motoring and a little rough shooting. He keeps a good cellar, too, which is something these days. By the way, have you tried the college port?" "No," said Paul shortly. He wondered if he ought to say that he was a teetotaler for life. "Well, you should. It's damned good. Have a cigarette." "I don't smoke," said Paul. "Wise man," said the other. "By the way, there's a company bringing up _The Mikado_ and _The Gondoliers_ this term, a good crowd, I think. I know a girl in it. Gilbert and Sullivan's stuff's great, I think. Don't you?" "I'm afraid I haven't seen any," said Paul, who had never been to a theatre in his life. He began to wish he had got out of coming to tea, but he need not have done so, for the other seemed curiously unsurprised. "Haven't you? Then you've a treat in store for you," he said. And he plunged into gossip in which Paul heard great names bandied about--Ibsen, Bernard Shaw, Galsworthy--almost for the first time in conversation. He said Yes and No at intervals; and if he had no contribution of his own to make, he was at least very obviously interested. Manning was attracted by the boy. He told Tressor, later, that Kestern knew nothing and had been nowhere, but that he had possibilities and was at any rate not consciously a prig. As for Paul, there opened before him a new heaven and a new earth. When he had departed, carrying volumes of the _Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant_, he found it hard to settle down to his books. In half an hour, he was, indeed, repolishing some verses entitled "The Backs in Autumn" with a view to getting Manning to read a fair copy. At lunch next day, there came a knock on his door. "Come in," he called, expecting the arrival of Donaldson to fetch him for the river. The door opened, and a stranger entered. "Kestern?" he said enquiringly, standing in the doorway. "How do you do. I must introduce myself--I'm Hartley of Jesus. Possibly you may know my name as I'm on the Committee of the C.I.C.C.U. I meant to call before, for I heard you were up at St. Mary's and you ought to be a great strength to us."