eved that a sufficient amount of conceit and
self-possession would carry anyone through. About half-way through his
speech he was interrupted by the approach of a whirlwind. There was a
sound of feet on the stone passage, something crashed against the door,
and in rolled Ferrers in a most untidy blue suit, a soft collar, an
immense woollen waistcoat, and three books under his arm. These he
slammed on the table, in company with his cap.

"Awfully sorry, Christy, old fellow ... been kept ... new lot of books
from Methuen's ... had to take one up to my wife ... rather ill, you
know.... Fire away, Burgess."

All his remarks were flung off in jerks at a terrific rate. The abashed
orator concluded rather prematurely and rather wildly; such an incursion
was most irregular and very perplexing.

"I will now call on Mr Ferrers to speak."

Up leapt Ferrers and began at once firing off his speech at the pace of
a cinematograph. He was full of mannerisms. He would clap his hand over
his eyes when he wanted to think of something, and would then spread it
out straight before him. It was rather dangerous to get close. He would
pick up one of his books and shake it in the face of Christy.

"This is what Mackenzie says ... in _Sinister Street_ ... fine book ...
smashes up everything, shows the shallowness of our education ... this
is what he says...."

After he had read a few words, he would bang the book down on the table
and continue pouring forth inextricable anacolutha. Everyone was
listening; they had never heard anything like this before. It was a
revelation. Christy chewed his finger-nails. Burgess assumed an air of
Olympian content. The flood of rhetoric rolled on:

"It is like this, you see; the classical education makes you imitate all
the time ... Greek Prose like Sophocles ... Latin Verse like
Petronius.... I don't know if I have got the names right ... probably
not ... never could stick doing it. There is no free thought. Classics
men do very well in the Foreign Offices, but they can't think.... What
do classics do in the literary world? Nothing. Bennett, Lloyd George,
Wells--the best men never went to a Public School.... We want
originality; and the classics don't give it. They are all right for a
year or so to give a grounding of taste ... though they don't give that
to the average boy ... but no more. What did I learn from
classics?--only to devise a new way of bringing a crib into form.... Is
that an education? N