Here Reggie expressed his approval by a loud tattoo on a tobacco tin, but broke off very suddenly on Freddy declaring: ‘It must be in your digs, because Squiff’s got lunch for sixteen and our landlady says she can’t undertake tea after it.’ ‘That’s very good of you,’ said the Pilot solemnly. ‘O don’t mention it,’ said Freddy, ‘we shan’t want your rooms again till Saturday, lunch is in Accrington’s on Wednesday and at ours on Friday.’ ‘By-the-bye Freddy,’ I remarked, ‘tell your girl to bring her complexion with her.’ I stooped behind the arm-chair knowing what was coming, and so the bacca tin which followed this remark fell harmlessly upon the tram-lines outside. ‘It seems to me that this week is likely to be faintly tinged with purple,’ observed the Pilot meditatively, ‘and if the rain keeps clear of us and we keep clear of the Proctors I prophesy a good time for the elect.’ At this point Freddy left hurriedly as the clocks were striking twelve, while the rest of us, after a short but pithy conversation through the window with O.P. 281, retired to bed. The Pilot and I spent the morning in the arduous duty of cutting lectures, while Reggie went round borrowing money to pay for a theatre ticket for the following Saturday. At lunch in Fatty’s rooms, de Beresford regaled me with a harrowing description of Squiff’s misfortunes on the preceding evening. ‘You see,’ he said, ‘poor old Squiff got no answer to the note he sent Kiddy Childe in the interval, so after the show he crawled round to the stage door and waited for her. I suppose a bull-dog must have spotted him, for when they were half-way to her lodgings the Progpiece was seen in full chase behind. Squiff clutched her hand and yelled, “Faster, faster,” like the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland, and they did the record down St. Ebbe’s into Paradise Square, where they got into her house unseen. Unfortunately it never struck them that their light was the only one in the Square, and this drew the Proctor like a moth. Squiff had barely time to get behind Kiddy’s dress-basket and pull a cabin trunk in front of him, when the obtrusive official entered the house and insisted on looking round the rooms. The dear girl shrieked through the door that she was going to bed, and when the Proctor had convinced himself of this, he departed, leaving two men to watch the house. At least this is how Squiff explained the fact that he didn’t reach his digs till 12.19.’ ‘And,’ added Fatty, ‘the estimable Corker, who has not yet joined the Temperance League, had gone to bed with the door-key in her pocket entirely oblivious of the fact that Squiff had not returned, so Freddy had to haul him up by a sheet.’ ‘If they do these things on the Monday, I shudder to think of Saturday,’ I remarked as I left to play against Barabbas’, while the others made for the river. I did rather well over the match, for after amassing 48 I persuaded Accrington to field for me, and returned for our tea-party.