“I wish you had. I made an awful fool of myself in the morning. I got in a wax with Abercrombie and the chaps, and said I’d never play football again.” “Whatever for?” “Oh, because I didn’t think they appreciated what it meant for a chap like your Uncle Kenneth to be killed.” “Do you mean they said something rotten?” asked Alan, flushing. “I don’t think you would have thought it rotten. In fact, I think the whole row was my fault. But they seemed to take everything for granted. That’s what made me so wild.” “Look here, we can’t start a conversation like this just before school. Are you going home to dinner?” Alan asked. “No, I’ll have dinner down in the Tuck,” said Michael, “and we can go for a walk afterwards, if you like. It’s the first really decent day we’ve had this year.” So after a lunch of buns, cheese-cakes, fruit pastilles, and vanilla biscuits, eaten in the noisy half-light of the Tuckshop, accompanied by the usual storm of pellets, Michael and Alan set out to grapple with the situation Michael had by his own hasty behaviour created. “The chaps seem rather sick with you,” observed Alan, as they strolled arm-in-arm across the school-ground not yet populous with games. “Well, they are such a set of sheep,” Michael urged in justification of himself. “I thought you rather liked them.” “I did at first. I do still in a way. I do when nothing matters; but that horrible line in the paper did matter most awfully, and I couldn’t stick their bleating. You see, you’re different. You just say nothing. That’s all right. But these fools tried to say something and couldn’t. I always did hate people who _tried_ very obviously. That’s why I like you. You’re so casual and you always seem to fit.” “I don’t talk, because I know if I opened my mouth I should make an ass of myself,” said Alan. “There you are, that’s what I say. That’s why it’s possible to talk to you. You see I’m a bit mad.” “Shut up, you ass,” commanded Alan, smiling. “Oh, not very mad. And I’m not complaining. But I _am_ a little bit mad. I always have been.” “Why? You haven’t got a clot on your brain, have you?” “Oh, Great Scott, no! It’s purely mental, my madness.” “Well, I think you’re talking tosh,” said Alan firmly. “If you go on thinking you’re mad, you will be mad, and then you’ll be sorry. So shut up trying to horrify me, because if you really were mad I should bar you,” he added coolly. “All right,” said Michael, a little subdued, as he always was, by Alan’s tranquil snubs. “All right. I’m not mad, but I’m excitable.” “Well, you shouldn’t be,” said Alan. “I can’t help my character, can I?” Michael demanded. “You’re not a girl,” Alan pointed out. “Men have very strong emotions often,” Michael argued.