Next day the classical papers were distributed and Edwin, who found them easy, could see that his pen-chewing friend was in a bad way. All the passages set for translation were familiar: the grammatical questions consisted of old catches that had been drilled into him by Mr. Leeming in the Upper Fourth. As far as he was concerned, it was a walk over. He had time to take in more of his surroundings and to watch the silent coloured stream of traffic filtering through the narrows where the bulk of the Town Hall constricted the street. At the end of each day he found his father anxiously awaiting him. He was eager to see and handle the examination papers for himself. He seemed impressed by their difficulty, and Edwin found it hard to reassure him without appearing objectionably superior. He seemed rather surprised that Edwin, on the eve of such a formidable ordeal, should choose to take out his bicycle and ride towards the hills, so surprised that it became a matter for serious debate with Edwin whether he should do as he wanted to do and appear priggish, or affect an anxiety that didn’t exist merely to please his father. In the end he decided to be honest at all costs. The part of the examination that he enjoyed most was the _viva-voce_ in Classics. For this trial he was led up many flights of stone steps to a room full of books in which the Dean of the Faculty of Arts awaited him: a kindly, nervous old man with a grey beard, with whom Edwin immediately felt at home. His nervousness seemed to Edwin appropriate: it implied the indubitable fact that in North Bromwich Arts was a sideshow that counted for nothing, and that the professor’s dignity, as Dean of a learned Faculty, was a precarious and unsubstantial thing. “Your papers were excellent, . . . excellent,” he said to begin with. “Now, I should like you to read me something.” He pointed to a bookshelf. “Let us start with some Greek.” “What would you like, sir?” “Oh, it’s not what I should like. What would you like to read? Something that really appeals to you.” Edwin felt that the dean was watching him, like a cat stalking a bird, as his fingers approached the bookshelf. It was a curious responsibility, for it would be an awful shame if he chose something that the old man didn’t approve of. Sophocles. . . . Why not Sophocles? He picked out the Antigone, and chose the great chorus:— Ἔρως ἀνίκατε μάχαν, Ἔρως, ὁς ἐν κτήμασι πίπτεις, . . . “Let’s have it in Greek first.” Edwin read it in the level voice which the Head of St. Luke’s had always used for the recitation of Greek poetry. When he had finished the first strophe he looked up and saw that the Dean’s weak eyes, beneath their tortoiseshell spectacles, were brimming with tears. “That will do,” he said, “unless you’d prefer to go on . . .” Edwin read the antistrophe.