Alas! poor slacker. I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. Where be his gibes now? How is he to cope with the fiendish ingenuity of the examiners? How is he to master the contents of a book of Thucydides in a couple of days? It is a fearsome problem. Perhaps he will get up in the small hours and work by candle light from two till eight o'clock. In this case he will start his day a mental and physical wreck. Perhaps he will try to work and be led away by the love of light reading. In any case he will fail to obtain enough marks to satisfy the examiners, though whether examiners ever are satisfied, except by Harry the hero of the school story (Every Lad's Library, uniform edition, 2s 6d), is rather a doubtful question. In such straits, matters resolve themselves into a sort of drama with three characters. We will call our hero Smith. _Scene:_ a Study _Dramatis Personae:_ SMITH CONSCIENCE MEPHISTOPHELES _Enter_ SMITH (_down centre_) _He seats himself at table and opens a Thucydides._ _Enter_ CONSCIENCE _through ceiling_ (R.), MEPHISTOPHELES _through floor_ (L.). CONSCIENCE (_with a kindly smile_): Precisely what I was about to remark, my dear lad. A little Thucydides would be a very good thing. Thucydides, as you doubtless know, was a very famous Athenian historian. Date? SMITH: Er--um--let me see. MEPH. (_aside_): Look in the Introduction and pretend you did it by accident. SMITH (_having done so_): 431 B.C. _circ_. CONSCIENCE _wipes away a tear_. CONSCIENCE: Thucydides made himself a thorough master of the concisest of styles. MEPH.: And in doing so became infernally obscure. Excuse shop. SMITH (_gloomily_): Hum! MEPH. (_sneeringly_): Ha! _Long pause_. CONSCIENCE (_gently_): Do you not think, my dear lad, that you had better begin? Time and tide, as you are aware, wait for no man. And-- SMITH: Yes? CONSCIENCE: You have not, I fear, a very firm grasp of the subject. However, if you work hard till eleven-- SMITH (_gloomily_): Hum! Three hours! MEPH. (_cheerily_): Exactly so. Three hours. A little more if anything. By the way, excuse me asking, but have you prepared the subject thoroughly during the term? SMITH: My _dear_ sir! Of _course!_ CONSCIENCE (_reprovingly_):???!!??! SMITH: Well, perhaps, not quite so much as I might have done. Such a lot of things to do this term. Cricket, for instance. MEPH.: Rather. Talking of cricket, you seemed to be shaping rather well last Saturday. I had just run up on business, and someone told me you made eighty not out. Get your century all right? SMITH (_brightening at the recollection_): Just a bit--117 not out. I hit--but perhaps you've heard? MEPH.: Not at all, not at all. Let's hear all about it. _CONSCIENCE seeks to interpose, but is prevented by MEPH., who eggs SMITH on to talk cricket for over an hour._