nd very conversational, as they told Mrs. Fane
how they rotted old Caryll or ragged young Levy or scored two tries that
afternoon. Mrs. Fane would seem to be much interested and make the most
amusing mistakes and keep her son and her guest in an ecstatic
risibility. After dinner they would sit for a while in the perfumed
drawing-room, making themselves agreeable and useful by fetching Mrs.
Fane's novel or blotting-pad or correspondence, or by pulling up an
arm-chair or by extricating a footstool and drawing close the curtains.
Then Michael and Alan would be inclined to fidget, until Michael
announced it was time to go and swat. Mrs. Fane would smile exquisitely
and say how glad she was they did not avoid their home work and remind
them to come and say good night at ten o'clock sharp. Encouraged by Mrs.
Fane's gracious dismissal, Michael and Alan would plunge into the
basement and gain the sanctity of Michael's own room. They would
elaborately lay the table for work, spreading out foolscap and notebooks
and Cicero Pro Milone and Cicero In Catilinam and Thucydides IV and the
green-backed Ion of Euripides. They would make exhaustive researches
into the amount of work set to be shown up on Monday morning, and with a
sigh they would seat themselves to begin. First of all the Greek
Testament would be postponed until Sunday as a more appropriate day, and
then Michael would feel an overpowering desire to smoke one cigarette
before they began. This cigarette had to be smoked close to the open
window, so that the smoke could be puffed outside into the raw autumnal
air, while Alan kept 'cave,' rushing to the door to listen at the
slightest rumour of disturbance. When the cigarette was finished they
would contemplate for a long time the work in front of them, and then
Michael would say he thought it rather stupid to swat on Friday night
with all Saturday and Sunday before them, and who did Alan think was the
better Half-back--Rawson or Wilding? This question led to a long
argument before Rawson was adjudged to be the better of the two. Then
Alan would bet Michael he could not write down from memory the
Nottinghamshire cricket team, and Michael would express his firm
conviction that Alan could not possibly name the winners of the Oxford
and Cambridge quarter-mile for the last three years. Finally they would
both recur to the problem ever present, the best way to obtain two
bicycles and, what was more important, the firm they would ult