“That gurl’s pretty good, isn’t she? Looks rather nice too.” “You’re quite mashed on her, old chappie. But she’s not a patch on Mrs. Pat.” “Johnny can’t think of anything but Mrs. Pat. I say, let’s go and have a drink.” “All right. Johnny stands drinks. The gurl at the bar’s an awful clipper.” “Johnny will drop his pipe and get her to pick it up for him.” “Well, come on, you Johnnies. There’s only ten minutes. Keep an eye on Johnny.” The Babe’s eye followed them as they walked off to the bar, with rapturous enjoyment. “Aren’t they heavenly?” said he to Reggie. “Oh, I wish I was like that! It must be so nice to feel that one is the light and leading of the whole place and really knows what life is. I wish I knew what life was. I wonder how they get their hair to stick out like that. How I have wasted my time! I too might have been a Johnny by now, if I’d cultivated them. Reggie, do come to the bar: I want to gaze and gaze on them.” But Reggie refused: he said they made him sick, and the Babe told him that he regarded things from the wrong standpoint. “You know,” said the Babe, “they’ve persuaded each other that they are the very devils of fellows. They really believe it. What a thing it is to have faith. They will talk quite fluently to the barmaid. I remember so well trying to see whether I could. I couldn’t: I knew I couldn’t all the time. I have never felt so hopelessly bored in so few minutes. They think it’s wicked; and they think that they rag their tutors. The poor tutors are men of no perception, for they haven’t the least idea they are being ragged. There they all come again. Their faces shine with deviltry. Did you hear them talk about Mrs. Pat? They meant Mrs. Patrick Campbell you know--” “You’re no better, Babe,” said Reggie, “you used to want people to think you wicked.” “Oh, but that’s quite different. You can’t say that I was ever the least like a Johnny. I never had the courage. Fancy being as brave as they are, and oh, fancy deliberately sitting down and taking all the stuffing out of your cap in order to be a blood!” “I’ll take yours out, if you’ll take mine, Babe. There’s the bell. We must go in again.” The Babe went to see Stewart when he went back to Trinity. The latter thoroughly approved of his holiday. “You are giving yourself a little space,” he said, “in which it may be hoped you will forget, or rather assimilate, a few of the useless and ugly things which our system of examinations has compelled you to learn. A historian is not a person who knows masses of facts and dates, but a man who has built a structure upon them. The facts are the scaffold, which disappears when the house is built. And the tripos turns out a quantity of promising young men who can only build scaffolds. I wish I was examining. There should be no questions with dates in them, and they should all begin “Trace the tendency,” or “Indicate in a great many words the influence.” “I wish I felt more certain about my scaffold.”