of proportion to benefits bestowed is pleasant to the recipient, and doubtless the fact that Hugh was grateful and wanted Bert to know it had something to do with the latter’s liking for the younger boy. That difference in age――it was in reality a matter of eight months――was not greatly apparent. In some ways Hugh seemed older than Bert. He had expected to enter the lower-middle class, on life and things in general. Bert sometimes felt annoyingly young and thoughtless during their discussions. Hugh had studied so many things out that Bert had never even considered, and studied them out, too, to a conclusion which, right or wrong, was at least something to tie to. Bert’s convictions were few and concerned matters close at hand. Hugh’s had to do with the most extraordinary things: American politics, the British foreign policy, income taxation, home rule for Ireland, back-court versus net play in tennis, woman suffrage, the abolition of the stymie in golf, fancy waistcoats, farming as a profession, and many, many more. Once Bert asked curiously if all English fellows bothered themselves with as many things as Hugh did and failed to get any information because Hugh forgot the question in trying to establish himself as only a half-Englishman. (“Fifty-fifty,” suggested Bert, which expression on being explained was seized on joyfully by Hugh and added to his rapidly increasing collection of slang phrases.) Next to Bert, Hugh’s liking was given to Nick Blake, and then to Pop Driver, and after that, I suspect, to Guy Murtha. But Hugh had a fine capacity for liking everyone he met, finding, often to Bert’s amusement, qualities worthy of admiration in the fellows whom Bert had long since set down as utterly hopeless. Nick and Guy were daily visitors at Number 29, and many quite remarkable discussions took place up there under the roof, discussions usually conducted principally by Hugh and Guy, with Nick supplying a light comedy seasoning and Bert acting the rôle of audience and, generally, deciding the matter in the end. For, although frequently Bert found the argument too deep for him, he could sum up and award a verdict like a judge of the Supreme Court!