“You can,” said Billy, “you can. But not I! Heavens, the TROUBLE of it! The riding-school! The getting up early! No!--for me the Trumpington Road on foot in the afternoon. Four miles an hour and panting. And my fellowship and the combination-room port. And, besides, Benham, there's the expense. I can't afford the equestrian order.” “It's not so great.” “Not so great! I don't mean the essential expense. But--the incidentals. I don't know whether any one can realize how a poor man is hampered by the dread of minor catastrophes. It isn't so much that he is afraid of breaking his neck, Benham, as that he is afraid of breaking something he will have to pay for. For instance--. Benham! how much did your little expedition the other day--?” He stopped short and regarded his friend with round eyes and raised eyebrows. A reluctant grin overspread Benham's face. He was beginning to see the humour of the affair. “The claim for the motor-bicycle isn't sent in yet. The repair of the mudguards of the car is in dispute. Trinity Hall's crockery, the plate-glass window, the whip-lash and wheel and so forth, the hire of the horse and trap, sundry gratuities.... I doubt if the total will come very much under fifty pounds. And I seem to have lost a hat somewhere.” Billy regarded his toes and cleared his throat. “Depending as I do on a widowed mother in Brixton for all the expenditure that isn't covered by my pot-hunting--” “Of course,” said Benham, “it wasn't a fair sample afternoon.” “Still--” “There's footer,” said Benham, “we might both play footer.” “Or boxing.” “And, anyhow, you must come with me when I drive again. I'm going to start a trotter.” “If I miss another drive may I be--lost for ever,” said Billy, with the utmost sincerity. “Never more will I get down, Benham, wherever you may take me. Short of muffing my fellowship I'm with you always.... Will it be an American trotter?” “It will be the rawest, gauntest, ungainliest brute that ever scared the motor-bicycles on the Northampton Road. It will have the legs and stride of an ostrich. It will throw its feet out like dealing cards. It will lift its head and look the sun in the eye like a vulture. It will have teeth like the English spinster in a French comic paper.... And we will fly....” “I shall enjoy it very much,” said Prothero in a small voice after an interval for reflection. “I wonder where we shall fly. It will do us both a lot of good. And I shall insure my life for a small amount in my mother's interest.... Benham, I think I will, after all, take a whiskey.... Life is short....” He did so and Benham strolled to the window and stood looking out upon the great court. “We might do something this afternoon,” said Benham. “Splendid idea,” reflected Billy over his whiskey. “Living hard and thinking hard. A sort of Intelligentsia that is BLOODED.... I shall, of course, come as far as I can with you.” 13