“Simpkins!” repeated Fazz, with a dubious drawl. “Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t like Simpkins, it sounds so minuscular. What are you taking?” “I won’t take anything, sir, thank you,” replied Simpkins. “I mean, what schools are you taking?” “Oh, no school at all.” Fazz was mystified: “What college are you?” “I’m not at a college,” confessed the other. “I came to see Mr. Evans-Antrobus with a note. I’m waiting for an answer.” “Where do you come from?” “From Bagshot and Buffle’s.” After a silence he added: “Bespoke boots.” “Hump, you are very young to make bespoke boots, aren’t you, Simpkins, surely? Are you an Agnostic? Have a cigar? You must, you’ve been very good, and I am so interested in your career; but tell me now what it exactly is that you are sitting in my room for?” Simpkins told him all he could. “It’s interesting, most fascinating,” declared Fazz, “but it is a little beyond me all the same. I am afraid, Simpkins, that you have been deposited with me as if I were a bank and you were something not negotiable, as you really are, I fear. But you mustn’t tell the Dean about Evans-Antrobus, no, you mustn’t, it’s never done. Tell me, why do you make bespoke boots? It’s an unusual taste to display. Wouldn’t you rather come to college, for instance, and study ... er ... anthropology—nothing at all about boots in anthropology?” “No,” said Simpkins. He shuffled in his chair and felt uneasy. “I’d be out of my depth.” Fazz glared at him, and Simpkins repeated: “Out of my depth, that would be, sure.” “This is very shameful,” commented the other, “but it’s interesting, most fascinating. You brazenly maintain that you would rather study boots than ... than books and brains!” “A cobbler must stick to his last,” replied Simpkins, recalling a phrase of his father’s. “Bravo!” cried Fazz, “but not to an everlasting last!” “And I don’t know anything about all this; there’s nothing about it I’d want to know, it wouldn’t be any good to me. It’s no use mixing things, and there’s a lot to be learnt about boots—you’d be surprised. You got to keep yourself to yourself and not get out of your depth—take a steady line and stick to it, and not get out of your depth.” “But, dearie, you don’t sleep with a lifebelt girt about your loins, do you now? I’m not out of my depth; I shouldn’t be even if I started to make boots....” “Oh, wouldn’t you?” shouted Simpkins. “I should find it rather a shallow occupation; mere business is the very devil of a business; business would be a funny sort of life.” “Life’s a funny business; you look after your business and that will look after you.” “But what in the world are we in the world at all for, Simpkins? Isn’t it surely to do just the things we most intensely want to do? And you do boots and boots and boots. Don’t you ever get out and about?—theatres—girls—sport—or do you insist on boot, the whole boot, and nothing but boot?”