For the rest of the evening Gordon and Tester cursed and swore at everyone and everything, and on the whole felt better for having got it off their chests. At any rate, next day Gordon was plotting a rag on an enormous scale with Archie Fletcher; and in a House game assisted in the severe routing of Rogers' house by seventy-eight points to nil. It takes a good deal to upset a boy of fifteen for very long. And the long evenings were a supreme happiness. * * * * * It must be owned that during hall Lovelace was rather unsociable. It was not that he studied Greek or Latin; he had a healthy contempt for scholastic triumphs; horse-racing was the real interest of his life. "This is my work," he used to scoff, brandishing _The Sportsman_ in Gordon's face. "I am not going to be a classic scholar, and I sha'n't discover any new element, or such stuff as that. I am going on the turf. This is my work." For an hour every evening he laboured perseveringly at "his work" with form books, _The Sportsman_, and huge account books. For every single race he chose the runners, and laid imaginary bets; each night he made out how much he had lost or made; and it must be confessed that if he had really laid money on the horses, he would most certainly have done a good term's work. By Christmas he was one hundred and seventeen pounds up. This pursuit, of course, rather militated against his activities in the class-room; but, as he said, "It was only Claremont, the old Methuselah--and they had a damned good crib." Lovelace did his work from seven to eight, and during this time Caruthers, who seemed to be in the happy condition of never having any work to do at all, wandered round the studies. And during his peregrinations many who had been to him before merely units in a vast organisation detached themselves from the rest, and became to him living characters; especially was this so with Foster. He had played with Foster for two years in the Colts and in A-K sides, but there had never been anything in common between them; their interests had been far apart; neither stood for anything to the other. But now, when Gordon found himself frequently dropping into Foster's study for half-an-hour or so, he realised how many qualities Foster had. Foster was strong-willed, obstinate almost, quite regardless of tradition, in his own way slightly a rebel, and a past master in the art of deceiving masters. There are two ways of making a master look a fool: one is by introducing processions and coloured mice; the other by bowing before him, making him think you are hard-working and industrious, and all the while laughing at him behind his back. Gordon preferred the former, because he had the love of battle; but Foster held to the second method, in its way equally effective, and anyone who shook a spear against authority was sure of sympathy from Gordon.