ship
and pulling together between masters and boys, I never did believe in
it, and never shall. My hand is against the masters, so long as they
interfere with anything I want to do. I like bridge, and I mean to
play it. And I'll take jolly good care that I'm not nailed. That's
part of the fun, as the drinking used to be. I chucked that because it
wasn't good enough; but bridge is ripping, and, take my word for it,
you'll be keener than I when you begin."

"Perhaps. But I'm not going to begin here."

"Right--oh!"

Scaife turned aside, whistling, but out of the corner of his shrewd eye
he marked the expression of Desmond's face, the colour ebbing and
flowing in the round boyish cheeks, the perplexity on the brow. Then
he spoke in a different voice.

"Don't worry, old chap. You've stuck to me through thick and thin, and
I'm grateful, really and truly. You're right, and I'm wrong; I always
am wrong. I was looking forward to larks. If you count 'em purple
sins, I don't blame you for letting me go to the devil by myself."

"I never said bridge was a purple sin."

"Warde thinks it is. If you're going to look at life here with his
eyes, you'll have to rename things. Babies play Beggar my Neighbour
for chocolates; why shouldn't we play bridge for a bob a hundred? The
game is splendid for the brain; ten thousand times better than
translating Greek choruses."

"But it is--gambling, Demon; you can't get away from that."

"Pooh! It's gambling if I bet you a 'dringer' that you won't make ten
runs in a house-match; it's gambling if I raffle a picture and you take
a sixpenny ticket. Are you going to give up that sort of gambling?"

"No; but----"

"What would Warde say to our co-operative system of work--eh? You're
not prepared to go the whole hog? You want to pick and choose. Good!
But give me the same right, that's all. Play bridge with your old
pals, or don't play, just as you please."

No more was said. Scaife's manner rather than his matter confounded
the younger and less experienced boy. Scaife, too, tackled problems
which many men prefer to leave alone. Here heredity cropped up.
Scaife's sire and grandsire were earning their bread before they were
sixteen. Of necessity they faced and overcame obstacles which the
ordinary Public School-boy never meets till he leaves the University.

For some time after this bridge was not mentioned. Lovell, acting,
possibly, under advice from Scaife, treated