“I wasn’t asleep,” he remarked. “I heard every word you fellows were saying.” “Dormouse,” explained Ealing. “Dormouse it is. Give me some more tea, Reggie.” “I call it so jolly sociable to read a book when you come to tea,” remarked Reggie. “So do I. Thanks. And another piece of cake.” “Football’s a beastly game,” said Ealing. “Especially when one is beaten. Here we are out of the Cup ties in the first round, and what one is to do now I don’t know. I can’t think why people ever play football.” “I shall work,” said Ealing. “Have you seen the list of the subjects for the Mays? I think it must be meant for a joke. They have set all the classical authors I ever heard of, and nearly all I haven’t ever heard of.” “I want a clean cup,” quoted Jack. “You want a clean--” began Reggie slowly in a tone of virulent condemnation. But being unable to finish his sentence in an adequately insulting manner, he left Jack’s deficiencies to the imagination. “He wants a clean pipe,” remarked Ealing. “It sounds like a kettle boiling.” Jack shut up his book and yawned. “You fellows are beastly funny,” he said. “I’m going back to Trinity to work. For why? I am dining with the Babe to-night.” “The Babe has got markedly madder and several years younger since last term,” said Ealing. “And he was neither sane nor old to begin with. Tell him so with my love. Or I dare say Reggie and I will come round later.” “Do. It is November the fifth. The Babe observes all feasts, whether civil or ecclesiastical. He says it would be a thousand pities to let these curious old customs lapse into disuse.” “I wish the Babe wouldn’t use such beautiful language,” said Ealing. “He only does it in his less lucid intervals. Good-bye. I’ll tell him you’re coming round about ten.” Jack picked up his hat and stick and went off to his rooms in Trinity, where till half-past seven he drifted helplessly about like a ship-wrecked mariner, to whom no sail breaks the limitless horizon, in Thucydides’s graphic account of the Peloponnesian war. To Jack, however, it appeared that its chief characteristic was its length, rather than its interest, a criticism, the truth of which is rendered more and more probable every year by an enormous mass of perfectly independent, unbiassed critics. But being a short and stout young man, by no means infirm of purpose, he regarded that merely as a reason the more for beginning at once.