"Oh, you are talking rot," burst out Gordon angrily; "the English race is the finest in the whole world and has been bred on footer and cricket. I own the Public School system has its faults; but not because of games. It stamps out personality, tries to make types of us all, refuses to allow us to think for ourselves. We have to read and pretend to like what our masters tell us to. No freedom. But games are all right. We all have our own interests. Poetry is my chief one at present. But that doesn't blind me to the fact that games are what count. Where should we be without them? And I damn well hope the House is not going to get into a finicky, affected state of mind, despising them because they are too slack to play them. That's why you hate them, Betteridge, because you are no good at them. My great ambition is to be captain of this House and win the Three Cock. Of course the worship of sport is all right. Our fathers worshipped it, and damned good fellows they were, too. I can't stand you when you talk like this. I am going to find Lovelace; he has got a bit of sense." The door slammed noisily behind him. "He is very young," said Betteridge. "Yes; and full of hopes," murmured Tester. "It is a pity to think he will have to be so soon disillusioned. Very little remains the same for long. Pleasure is very evanescent." Betteridge looked at him a little curiously. "I should not have thought you would have found that out," he said. Tester shrugged. "Oh, well, you know, even the fastest of us get tired of our licence at times. Byron would have become a Benedictine monk if he had lived to be fifty." Betteridge smiled, and picking up a Browning from the table sank into an easy-chair to read. Tester remained looking into the fire. What a fool he had been to give himself away just then. It was his great object never to let anyone see into his soul. He had once shown Caruthers what he was, because he could not bear to see a person of ability wasting himself for want of high ideals. He had tried to show him that there was something above the commonplace routine of life. And in a way he had succeeded. Caruthers often came in in the evenings to discuss poetry with him, and those were some of the happiest moments of his life. He was not sorry that he had poured out his heart to him. Of course Caruthers was still young, was still under the influence of environment. But in time he was sure to realise that athletics were not the aim of life, but only a tavern on the wayside, where we may rest for a little, or which we may pass by, just as our fancy takes us. If Caruthers saw this at last, he would then have done at least something not altogether vain.