there's a cow in the field.... But, I spare you the
viler details.... And it's that makes me hate fine people and try so
earnestly to persuade myself that any man is as good as any man, if not
a trifle better. Because I know it isn't so...."

"Billy," said Benham, "you've the boldest mind that ever I met."

Prothero's face lit with satisfaction. Then his countenance fell again.
"I know I'm better there," he said, "and yet, see how I let in a whole
system of lies to cover my secret humiliations. There, at least, I will
cling to pride. I will at least THINK free and clean and high. But you
can climb higher than I can. You've got the grit to try and LIVE high.
There you are, Benham."

Benham stuck one leg over the arm of his chair. "Billy," he said, "come
and be--equestrian and stop this nonsense."

"No."

"Damn it--you DIVE!"

"You'd go in before me if a woman was drowning."

"Nonsense. I'm going to ride. Come and ride too. You've a cleverer way
with animals than I have. Why! that horse I was driving the other day
would have gone better alone. I didn't drive it. I just fussed it. I
interfered. If I ride for ever, I shall never have decent hands, I shall
always hang on my horse's mouth at a gallop, I shall never be sure at a
jump. But at any rate I shall get hard. Come and get hard too."

"You can," said Billy, "you can. But not I! Heavens, the TROUBLE of it!
The riding-school! The getting up early! No!--for me the Trumpington
Road on foot in the afternoon. Four miles an hour and panting. And my
fellowship and the combination-room port. And, besides, Benham, there's
the expense. I can't afford the equestrian order."

"It's not so great."

"Not so great! I don't mean the essential expense. But--the incidentals.
I don't know whether any one can realize how a poor man is hampered by
the dread of minor catastrophes. It isn't so much that he is afraid of
breaking his neck, Benham, as that he is afraid of breaking something he
will have to pay for. For instance--. Benham! how much did your little
expedition the other day--?"

He stopped short and regarded his friend with round eyes and raised
eyebrows.

A reluctant grin overspread Benham's face. He was beginning to see the
humour of the affair.

"The claim for the motor-bicycle isn't sent in yet. The repair of
the mudguards of the car is in dispute. Trinity Hall's crockery, the
plate-glass window, the whip-lash and wheel and so forth, the hire of
the horse and