.. at least in a police force ... I
got wounded, had to go into hospital--necrosis of the jaw ... I came
home when I got well..."

_Blackbeard_: _"Necrosis of the jaw!_ That was a bad thing. But you
seem to have got over it very well. I can't see any scar from where
I am..."

_David_: "Oh no. It was only a _slight_ touch and I dare say I
exaggerate ... I've left the Army however and now I'm reading
Law..."

Blackbeard thinks at this point that he has gone far enough in
cross-examination and returns to his periodicals and pamphlets. But
there's something he likes--a wistfulness--in the young man's face,
and he can't quite detach his mind to the presence of palaeolithic
man in South Wales. At Swindon they both get out--there was still
lingering the practice of taking lunch there--have a hasty lunch
together and more talk, and share a bottle of claret.

On returning to their compartment, Rossiter offers David a cigar but
the young man prefers smoking a cigarette. By this time they have
exchanged names. D.V.W. however is reticent about the South African
War--says it was all too horrible for words, and should never have
taken place and he can't bear to think about it and was knocked out
quite early in the day. Now all he asks is peace and quiet and the
opportunity of studying law in London so that he may become some day
a barrister. Rossiter says--after more talk, "Pity you're going in
for the Bar--we've too many lawyers already. You should take up
Science"--and as far as the Severn Tunnel discourses illuminatingly
on biology, mineralogy, astronomy, chemistry as David-Vivien had
never heard them treated previously. In the Severn Tunnel the noise
of the train silences both professor and listener, who willingly
takes up the position of pupil. Between Newport and Neath, David
thinks he has never met any one so interesting. It has been his
first real induction into the greatest of all books: the Book of the
Earth itself. Rossiter on his part feels indefinably attracted by
this young expatriated Welshman. David does not say much, but what
he does contribute to the conversation shows him a quick thinker and
a person of trained intelligence. Yet somehow the professor of
Biology in the University of London--and many other things
beside--F.R.S., F.Z.S., F.L.S., Gold Medallist of this and that
Academy and University abroad--does not "see" him as a soldier or a
non-commissioned officer in the British Army: law-student is a more