s nothing but infernal
hypocrisy. Upon my soul, I'm glad I'm going down this term. I really
couldn't have stood another year, playing with the fringe of existence.
It seems to me, Michael, if you're sincere in this attitude of yours,
you'll have a very dismal waking up from your dream. As for all the
others, I don't count them. I'm sick of this schoolboy cant. Castleton's
worth everybody else in this college put together. He was wonderful with
that hulking fellow who came banging at the door of our digs. I wonder
what you'd have done, if you'd been digging with me."

"Probably just what Castleton did," said Michael coldly. "You evidently
weren't at home. Now I must go and work. So long."

He left Maurice abruptly, angry with him, angry with himself. What could
have induced Maurice to make such a fool of himself in Venner's? Why
hadn't he been able to perceive the difference of his confession from
Venner's legendary narration which, unfettered by the reality of present
emotions, had been taken under the protection of the comic spirit? The
scene in retrospect appeared improbable, just as improbable in one way,
just as shockingly improbable as the arrival of an angry rustic father
at some Varsity digs in Longwall. And why had he made the recollection
worse for himself by letting Maurice enlarge upon his indignation? It
had been bad enough before, but that petulant outbreak had turned an
accidental vulgarity into vulgarity itself most cruelly vocal. Back in
Two Hundred and Two, Michael heard the comments upon Maurice, and as
Grainger and Lonsdale delivered their judgment, he felt they had all
this time tolerated the offender merely for a certain capacity he
possessed for entertainment. They spoke of him now, as one might speak
of a disgraced servant.

"Oh, let Maurice drop," said Michael wearily. "It was one of those
miserable aberrations from tact which can happen to anybody. I've done
the same sort of thing myself. It's an involuntary spasm of
bad-manners, like sneezing over a crowded railway-carriage."

"Well, I suppose one must make allowances," said Grainger. "These
artistic devils are always liable to breaks."

"That's right," said Michael. "Hoist the Union Jack. It's an
extraordinary thing, the calm way in which an Englishman is always ready
to make art responsible for everything."

Next day Maurice overtook Michael on the way to a lecture.

"I say," he began impetuously, "I made an awful fool of myself yester