imately
honour with their patronage. The respective merits of the Humber, the
Rover, the Premier, the Quadrant, the Swift and the Sunbeam created a
battleground for various opinions, and as for the tyres, it seemed
impossible to decide between Palmers, Clinchers and Dunlops. In the
middle of the discussion the clock in the passage would strike ten, at
which Michael and Alan would yawn and dawdle their way upstairs. Perhaps
the bicycle problem had a wearing effect, for Mrs. Fane would remark on
their jaded appearance and hope they were not working too hard. Michael
and Alan would look particularly conscious of their virtue and admit
they had had a very tiring week, what with football and Cicero and
Quadratic Equations; and so after affectionate good nights they would
saunter up to bed. Upstairs, they would lean out of the bedroom window
and watch the golden trains go by, and ponder the changing emeralds and
rubies of the signal-box farther along the line: then after trying to
soak a shadowy tomcat down below with water from the toilet-jug Michael
and Alan would undress.

In the darkness Michael and Alan would lie side by side secure in a
companionship of dreams. They murmured now their truly intimate
thoughts: they spoke of their hopes and ambitions, of the Army with its
glories of rank and adventure, of the Woods and Forests of India, of
treasure on coral islands and fortunes in the canyons of the West. They
spoke of the School Fifteen and of Alan's probable captaincy of it one
day: they discussed the Upper Sixth with its legend of profound
erudition: they wondered if it would be worth while for Michael to swat
and be Captain of the School. They talked again of bicycles and decided
to make an united effort to secure them this ensuing Christmas by
compounding for one great gift any claims they possessed on birthday
presents later in the year. They talked of love, and of the fools they
had been to waste their enthusiasm on Dora and Winnie. They made up
their minds to forswear the love of women with all its humiliations and
disappointments and futilities. Through life each would be to the other
enough. Girls would be for ever an intrusion between such deathless and
endeared friends as they were. Michael pointed out how awkward it would
be if he and Alan both loved the same girl and showed how it would ruin
their twin lives and wreck their joint endeavour; while Alan agreed it
would be mad to risk a separation for such frot