--a thing long since established by an
earlier generation; a matter about which no modern could spare time for
thought or effort.

I believe it was on the day following this particular conversation in
the reporters' room that I met Leslie Wheeler by appointment at
Waterloo, and went down to Weybridge with him for the week-end. My
friend was in even gayer spirits than usual, and laughingly told me that
I must "Work up a better Saturday face than that" before we got to
Weybridge.

I had known Leslie Wheeler since our school-days; and I remember lying
awake in the room next his own at Weybridge that night, and wondering
why in the world it was I felt so out of touch with my high-spirited
friend. During that Saturday afternoon and evening I had been pretty
much preoccupied in securing as much as possible of Sylvia's attention.
But the journey down had been made with Leslie alone, and when his
father had gone to bed, we two had spent another half-hour together in
the billiard-room, smoking and sipping whiskey and soda. Leslie was in
the vein most usual with him, of "turning to mirth all things on earth";
and I was conscious, upon my side, of a notable absence of reciprocal
feeling, of friendly rapport. And I could find no explanation for this,
as I lay thinking of it in bed.

Looking backward, I see many causes which probably contributed to my
feeling of lost touch. I had only been about a month in London, but it
had been a busy month, and full of new experiences, of intimate touch
with realities of London life, sordid and otherwise. It was all very
unlike Rugby and Cambridge; very unlike the life of the big luxurious
Weybridge house, and even more unlike lichen-covered Tarn Regis. In
those days I took little stock of such mundane details as bed and board.
But these things count; I had been made to take note of them of late.

I paid 12s. 6d. a week for my garret, and 7s. a week for my breakfast,
1s. for lighting, and 1s. for my bath. That left me with 28s. 6d. a week
for daily lunch and dinner, clothes, boots, tobacco, and the eternal
penny outgoings of London life. The purchase of such a trifle as a box
of sweets for Sylvia made a week's margin look very small. Already I had
begun to note the expensiveness of stamps, laundry work, omnibus fares,
and such matters. My training had not been a hopeful one, so far as
small economies went. Leslie twitted me with neglecting golf, and
failing to attend the Inter-'Varsity cricke