Edwin got his six, having been bent double over the end of his own bed by the other seekers after truth. It was worth it. When the lights were out and he was comfortably settled in bed he decided that that sort of thing oughtn’t to make any difference. “My mind to me a kingdom is,” he said to himself; and in his mind the great guts question had been settled for ever. As for the lamming. . . . Well, it might have been a gym shoe. . . . While he lay thinking of these things he was surprised to hear the voice of Widdup, who slept next to him, speaking in a whisper. “I say,” he said, “did you really go to the Birches, or were you pulling my leg?” “Of course I did,” he replied. It gave him a little shock to find that so slight a thing as a display of physical violence had shaken Widdup’s faith. “I’m glad of that,” came Widdup’s apologetic whisper. A long silence. “You’ve won the sweep, anyway,” said Widdup. “Thirty-eight and sixpence.” Edwin grunted. “If you reckon that you’ll be here four more years, taking into account the number of men—average, you know—who go in for the house sweep every year, you could calculate the exact chances against your ever—” He was asleep. II And while he slept after that day of unusual excitement and fierce colour, he had a curious dream. In the beginning it reflected a little of the anxieties of the afternoon, for he found himself hurrying in the middle of a huge and sweaty crowd which made no way for him. He did not know why he was running so violently; but of one thing he was certain, and this was that he was going to be late. At first he had in front of him the little man in the rusty coat who had been his companion on the Downs: the same queer creature now endowed with an aspect even more grotesque and an agility more elfish, so that Edwin knew from the first that this time he was sure to lose him and never to catch him up again. All the masses of people through whom he pressed were moving even faster than himself and in the same direction, so that it seemed as if he could never gain ground at all, but must go on running for ever with no sight of his goal, nor any hope of getting nearer to it. At last his breath gave out, and he stopped. It wasn’t a bit of good; for the moving crowd wouldn’t stop with him, and he was pushed forward by this multitude of tall people, knowing that if he faltered for a moment or fell (as in the end he must), he would certainly be trampled to death by the feet of those who followed.