Reggie Bristow and Ealing sat on for an hour or so by the fire. They were old friends, and so they did not need to talk much. Reggie was a year the younger of the two, and he was now half-way through his first term at King’s. They had been at Eton five years together, where they had both extracted a good deal of amusement out of life, and perhaps a little profit. They were both exceedingly healthy, to judge by the superficial standards of examinations, rather stupid, and, in the opinion of those who knew them, on a much more important matter, very liveable-with. Furthermore, they both played games rather well, and, as was right, neither of them ever troubled his head about abstract questions of any sort or kind. Living was pleasant, and they proceeded to live. Reggie had been performing this precarious feat with admirable steadiness for just nineteen years. Nature had gifted him with a pleasant face, and a healthy appetite had enabled him to show it to eminent advantage on the top of a tall body. He preferred talking to working, cricket to football, and lying in bed to “signing in” at 8 A.M. in the morning. He smoked a good many pipes every day, and blew smoke rings creditably. He played the piano a little, but his friends did not encourage him to take the necessary practice whereby he might play it any better. He was in fact perfectly normal, which is always the best thing to be. “It’s a great bore, our being beaten,” he said, after a long pause, during which he had succeeded in blowing one smoke ring through another. “We were the best side really.” “Of course we were, although we are blessed with a goal-keeper who hides behind the goal-posts, until a man has had his shot.” “He stopped rather a hot one to-day.” “Purely by accident. He peeped out from the goal-post too soon, and it struck him in the stomach. I hate being beaten by Pemmer, though I shouldn’t have minded if we’d lost to Trinity. The ground was in a filthy state too. One couldn’t get off.” Reggie sighed. “I’ve got to write to my father to-morrow,” he said, “and tell him my impressions of Cambridge. It will be a little difficult, because I haven’t got any.” “Of course you haven’t. Only people in books have impressions. Describe the match to-day.” “I’m afraid it wouldn’t interest him.” “Well, describe King’s Chapel.” “I might do that; perhaps he’s forgotten what it is like. Oh, yes, and I might describe some of the dons. I’m expected to be very earnest, you know, and the worst of it is I don’t know how.” “Do you suppose one will ever become a responsible being?” asked Ealing. “No, never,” said Reggie emphatically. “I grow sillier and sillier every day.” “Well, you can’t get much sillier.” Reggie shook his head. “You wait a year or two,” he said. “I don’t suppose you can form the slightest impression of how foolish I can be if I like.” “What are you going to do when you go down?”