This soft answer, instead of turning away the dignitary’s wrath, caused him to grow purple in the face, but he controlled his temper very creditably and merely said, ‘Very well, Mr. Cochrane, I give you till one o’clock, but if the twenty shillings are not in my hands by that time I shall communicate with your Provost and make matters unpleasant for you, er--good morning.’ I joined the other two, and Reggie returned with me to breakfast, but the Pilot, who had to attend the Dean’s lecture at ten, put off his meal till eleven. As we made our way through the buttered eggs it became more and more clear that Reggie had a grievance, and at last it came out. ‘Here am I, a working man’--this is where I coughed, but Reggie did not appear to notice it--‘with two lectures between now and lunch, both of which I am compelled to cut because an unfeeling Proctor is dunning me for a pound, which I must borrow from some one before one o’clock.’ ‘Yes, it is very hard,’ I agreed. ‘But still I believe you have occasionally steeled your heart to cut a lecture even when there has been no Proctor in the background, and after all he can’t help it, it’s his business; I daresay if you knew him you’d find that he smoked a meerschaum and swore very much like other people.’ ‘Yes, I know, that’s all right,’ said Reggie, who never likes to pursue an argument after he has got his own particular complaint off his chest, ‘we’ll wait for the Pilot to have his brekker and then go round to see Freddy.’ ‘He’s sure to have his cheque by then,’ I said, ‘and of course he’ll lend us the wherewithal.’ The Pilot finished breakfast at 11.20 precisely, and then after carefully perusing the current society divorce case, we made our way to St. Aldate’s. We found Freddy crouching in an arm-chair murmuring to himself passages from Anson, and instantly demanded if the money had arrived. ‘Oh, I dare say it’ll come some time to-day,’ said Freddy, crossly, and muttered to himself, ‘Agents of Necessity.’ ‘That’s no earthly good,’ replied the Pilot, ‘we must find three quid by one o’clock and the oof-tree bears no fruit at this time of year.’ ‘What’s the money for?’ demanded Freddy. ‘Progged in the “Shades,”’ responded Reggie laconically, ‘and you are going to pay the fine.’ ‘I didn’t know it before,’ Freddy answered, ‘but of course if the money comes in time it’s yours.’ ‘We must manage it somehow,’ I said, ‘when’s the next post?’ ‘Ring and ask the Corker, I don’t know.’ ‘Which it sometimes comes at a quarter to one, and sometimes at ’arf past,’ said the old lady on being interrogated. When he heard this the Pilot collapsed heavily into an arm-chair, while Freddy, who did not yet fully appreciate the gravity of the situation, went upstairs to search for a note-book in the other sitting-room.