e for?" asked the novice. "What am _I_ here for?"

"We don't know," replied the History Sixth in unison; and the vendetta
that followed the complaint of their behaviour to Mr. Kirkham made the
novice's mastership a burden to him during Mr. Gaskell's illness.
Enraged conservatism called for reprisals, until Mr. Kirkham pointed out
with a felicity acquired from long perusal of Parliamentary humour, "You
are Jacobeans, not Jacobins," and with this mild joke quenched the feud.

The effect of his transference to the History Sixth made Michael more
decadent than ever, for the atmosphere of his new class encouraged him
along the orchidaceous path pointed out by Arthur Wilmot. He was not now
decadent from any feeling of opposition to established things, but he
was decadent from conviction of the inherent rightness of such a state.
At first the phase had manifested itself in outward signs, a little
absurdly; now his actual point of view was veering into accord with the
externals.

Sunday was a day at Edwardes Square from which Michael returned almost
phosphorescent with decay. Sunday was the day on which Mr. Wilmot
gathered from all over London specimens of corruption that fascinated
Michael with their exotic and elaborate behaviour. Nothing seemed worth
while in such an assembly except a novel affectation. Everything was a
pose. It was a pose to be effeminate in speech and gesture; it was a
pose to drink absinthe; it was a pose to worship the devil; it was a
pose to buy attenuated volumes of verse at an unnatural price, for the
sake of owning a sonnet that was left out in the ordinary edition; it
was a pose to admire pictures that to Michael at first were more like
wall-papers than pictures; it was really a pose to live at all.
Conversation at these delicate entertainments was like the conversations
overheard in the anterooms of private asylums. Everyone was very willowy
in his movements, whether he were smoking or drinking or looking for a
box of matches. Michael attempted to be willowy at school once, but gave
it up on being asked if he had fleas.

One of the main charms at first of these Sunday afternoon gatherings was
the way in which, one after another, every one of the guests would take
Michael aside and explain how different he (the guest) was from all the
rest of humanity. Michael was flattered, and used to become very intense
and look very soul-searching, and interject sympathetic exclamations
until he discovered th