ccupied with the perfection of new
leg-breaks. And what would he do after his degree, his third in greats?
A third was the utmost Michael mentally allowed him in the Final
Schools.

"I suppose you'll ultimately try for the Indian Civil?" Michael asked.
"Do you remember when we used to lie awake talking in bed at Carlington
Road? It was always going to be me who did everything intellectual; you
were always the sportsman."

"I am still. Michael, I think I've got a chance of my blue this year. If
I can keep that leg-break," he added fervidly. "There's no slow
right-hander of much class in the Varsity. I worked like a navvy at that
leg-break last vac."

"I thought you were grinding for Mods," Michael reminded him, with a
smile.

"I worked like a navvy at Mods," said Alan.

"You'll be a proconsul, I really believe." Michael looked admiringly at
his friend. "And do you know, Alan, in appearance you're turning into a
regular viking."

"I meant to have my hair cut yesterday," said Alan, in grave and
reflective self-reproof.

"It's not your hair," cried Michael. "It's your whole personality. I
never appreciated you until this moment."

"I think you talk more rot nowadays than you used to talk even," said
Alan. "So long, I must go back and work."

The tall figure with the dull gold hair curling out from the green cap
of Harris tweed faded away in the November fog that was traveling in
swift and smoky undulations through the Oxford streets. What a strangely
attractive walk Alan had always had, and now it had gained something of
determination, whether from leg-breaks or logic Michael did not know.
But the result was a truer grace in the poise of his neck; a longer and
more supple swing from his tapering flanks.

Michael went on up the High and stood for a moment, watching the
confusion caused by the fog at Carfax, listening to the fretful tinkles
of the numerous bicycles and the jangling of the trams and the shouts of
the paper-boys. Then he walked down Cornmarket Street past the shops
splashing through the humid coils of vapor their lights upon the
townspeople, loiterers and purchasers who thronged the pavements.
Undergraduates strolled along, linked arm in arm and perpetually
staring. How faithfully each group resembled its forerunners and
successors. All had the same fresh complexions, the same ample green
coats of Harris tweed, the same gray flannel trousers. Only in the
casual acknowledgments of his greeting when