“Who is this Bach? I have not so much as heard of the man. E. V.” runs across the bedroom door in an unsteady band of red chalk, “UT EXULTAT IN COITU ELEPHAS, SIC RICARDUS,” surmounting an able drawing of the benign Basingstoke.

A large composition of the Birth of Queen Victoria can be traced over the fireplace. There are broken bottles and dirty glasses and uncorrected galley proofs on the table; on the corner of the chimneypiece a beautiful decanter, the broken stopper of which has been replaced by a cork. Ernest is sitting in the broken wicker chair mending the feathers of some darts with unexpected dexterity. He is a short, sturdy young man, with fierce little eyes and a well-formed forehead. His tweeds, stained with drink and paint, have once been well-made, and still preserve a certain distinction. Women undergraduates, on the rare occasions of his appearance at lectures, not infrequently fall in love with him.

“Bolshevist.” It is a reasonable mistake, but a mistake. Until his expulsion for overdue subscriptions, Ernest was a prominent member of the Canning.

Adam goes through the gateway into Ernest’s College where two or three youths are standing about staring vacantly at the notice-boards. As Adam goes by, they turn round and scowl at him.

“Another of Vaughan’s friends.”

Their eyes follow him across the quad, to Ernest’s rooms.

Ernest is somewhat surprised at Adam’s visit, who, indeed, has never shown any very warm affection for him. However, he pours out whisky.

HALF AN HOUR LATER.

It has begun to rain again. Dinner is about to be served in Ernest’s College and the porch is crowded by a shabby array of gowned young men vacantly staring at the notice-boards. Here and there a glaring suit of “plus fours” proclaims the generosity of the Rhodes Trust. Adam and Ernest make their way through the cluster of men who mutter their disapproval like peasants at the passage of some black magician.