Of the architects and other students we saw very little. Occasionally a linguist would drift in with a conversation grammar and a notebook, and sometimes a financier would draw up tables of expenditure and loss, but on the whole the Alcove was the property of “Wordsmiths.” There were about five of us in all, and as soon as _appel_ was over we used to proceed towards the billiard-room laden with pens and paper. At this early hour there were usually not more than three of us, as Tarrant and Stone preferred to take breakfast at a later hour; but Milton Hayes was invariably to be found there, embellishing lyrics, or putting the final touches to his musical comedy, and in the intervals of production expounding his latest æsthetic theories. A vivid contrast was presented by Tarrant and Stone. With popular taste they were both equally unconcerned. Relative merit interested them not at all; their standards were deep-laid and inelastic. Tarrant usually appeared in the Alcove at about one o’clock, and observed a ritual that would with any one else have savoured of affectation, but was with him perfectly natural. Nature had endowed him with generous proportions, more built for comfort than for speed; and he accentuated the natural roll of his gait by his strange footwear. A pair of field boots had been abbreviated into shoes by the camp cobbler in such a way as to admit of the insertion of two fingers between the leather and the instep. To keep them on his feet as he walked, Tarrant had to resort to a straddle that was one of the features of camp life. And as he entered he bulked largely in the door of the Alcove, marvellously shod, carrying under one arm a dictionary, a notebook and a Thesaurus, and over the other a cardigan waistcoat and a green velvet scarf. He flung his books noisily on the table and then proceeded to array himself for the ardours of composition. He first of all divested himself of his collar and tie, and wrapped round his throat the green velvet scarf, that would have lain more appropriately as a stole on the shoulders of an ecclesiastic than it did as a muffler on those of a _Gefangener_, engaged on a psychological study of seduction. Tarrant then removed his tunic, disclosing a woollen waistcoat, over which he proceeded to draw the second woollen coat that he had brought with him. He explained that they brought him physical ease. “You see, old man,” he said, “it’s not much use my mind being free, if my limbs are encased in even the loosest of military tunics.” He then proceeded to work. Every writer, of course, has his own particular foible, and Tarrant’s was an appalling accuracy in gauging the exact number of words that he had written. Most writers are quite content to add up the number of lines in a page, then find the average number of words in a line and multiply. But Tarrant would have none of these slipshod methods.