“Does he, Mr. Viner?” echoed Michael, who somehow could never bring himself to the point of addressing the priest as ‘Father.’ Shyness always overcame his will. “What do you dream about, young Joseph?” “Oh, I only think about a good many things, and wonder what I’m going to be and all that,” Michael replied. “I don’t want to go into the Indian Civil Service or anything with exams. I’m sick of exams. What I most want to do is to get away from school. I’m sick of school, and the fellows in the Upper Fifth are a greasy crowd of swats always sucking up to Cray.” “And who is the gentleman with the crustacean name that attracts these barnacles?” “Cray? Oh, he’s my form-master, and tries to be funny.” “So do I, Michael,” confessed Mr. Viner. “Oh, well, that’s different. I’m not bound to listen to you, if I don’t want to. But I have to listen to Cray for eighteen hours every week, and he hates me because I won’t take notes for his beastly essays. I think I’ll ask my mater if I can’t leave school after this term.” “And then what would you do?” “Oh, I don’t know. I could settle when I’d left.” “What about Oxford?” “Well, I could go to Oxford later on.” “I don’t think you could quite so easily as you think. Anyway, you’d much better go to Oxford straight from school.” “Eight more terms before I leave. Phew!” Michael groaned. “It’s such a terrible waste of time, and I know Oxford’s ripping.” “Perhaps something will come along to interest you. And always, dear boy, don’t forget you have your religion.” “Yes, I know,” said Michael. “But at the Abbey I met some people who were supposed to be religious, and they were pretty good rotters.” The priest looked at him and seemed inclined to let Michael elaborate this topic, but almost immediately he dismissed it with a commonplace. “Oh, well,” Michael sighed, “I suppose something will happen soon to buck me up. I hope so. Perhaps the Kensitites will start making rows in churches again,” he went on hopefully. “Will you lend me the Apocryphal Gospels? We’re going to have a discussion about them at the De Rebus Ecclesiasticis.” “Oh, the society hasn’t broken up?” enquired Mr. Viner. “Rather not. Only everybody’s changed rather. Chator’s become frightfully Roman. He was Sarum last term, and he thinks I’m frightfully heretical, only of course I say a lot I don’t mean just to rag him. I say, by the way, who wrote ‘In a Garden’?” “It sounds a very general title,” commented Mr. Viner, with a smile. “Well, it’s some poem or other.” “Swinburne wrote a poem in the Second Series of Poems and Ballads called ‘A Forsaken Garden.’ Is that what you mean?” “Perhaps. Is it a famous poem?” “Yes, I should say it was distinctly.”