Nubby was a corker at singing. He had all the solos in the chapel to himself, and people came miles to hear him. “You won’t die,” said Mathers. “You don’t give your money away to the poor, or help blind people across roads, and all that. Your voice’ll crack, and you’ll live.” “I wish it would,” said Nubby; “I should feel a lot safer.” “Mine,” continued Mathers, “cracked when my mustache came.” We looked at him as he patted it. Mathers was going next term. He had more mustache than, at least, two of the under-masters, and once he let Nubby stroke it, and Nubby said he could feel it distinctly under the hand. “That’s what’s done it with M.,” said Nubby, looking at Mathers and opening another gloomy subject. Mathers got redder, and began peeling a chestnut. “I wish I was as certain as you,” he said. “None of us can be certain,” I said; “but if your voice did go, Nubbs, you’d be out of the hunt for one.” “I am,” declared Nubby. “Last time I had a cold in the throat she sent me a little bunch of grapes by Jane, and a packet of black currant lozenges; but this time, though the attack is on my chest, and I may die, she hasn’t sent a thing.” “Perhaps she doesn’t know.” “She does. I met her going into the library yesterday, and I doubled up and barked like a dog, and she never even said she was sorry. It lies between you two chaps now.” “I believe you are going strongest just at present,” said Mathers, critically, to me. “You came off last Wednesday and kicked two goals on your own, and she said afterwards to Browne that she never saw you play a bigger game. Then that little beast--Browne, I mean--sniggered, and made that noise in his throat, like a sprung bat, and said he was quite glad he hadn’t kept you in. That’s how he shows M. what a gulf there is even between the Fifth and masters.” “The bigger the gulf the better,” I said. “It would be rough on a decent worm to put it second to Browne. In my opinion even a Double-First would be nothing if he wore salmon-colored ties and elastic-sided boots; and Browne isn’t a Double-First by long chalks. He can only teach the kids, and his desk is well known to be crammed with cribs of every kind.”