d Ninian. "Come on, here's the train in!"

4

They climbed into their carriage a few seconds before the train steamed
out of the station again, and jammed themselves in the window to look
out. Ninian was full of instructions to Widger about his terrier and his
ferrets and a blind mouse that was supposed to recognise him with
miraculous ease. There was also some point about the fox-hunt which
required explanation....

"Good-bye, Mary!" Henry said, taking hold of her hand and pressing it.
"I suppose," he whispered, "I ought to give you a ring or something.
Chaps always do that!..."

Mary shook her head. "I don't think mother would like that," she
replied.

"Well, anyhow, we're engaged, aren't we?"

"Oh, of course, Quinny!"

"It's most awf'lly nice of you to have me, Mary!"

"But I like you!"

"Do you really?"

The guard blew his whistle and waved his flag and the train began to
move out of the station. He stood at the window looking back at Mary
standing on the platform, waving her hands to him, until he could see
her no longer.

"What are you looking at?" Ninian asked, taking down the basket of fish
which Jim Rattenbury had given him and preparing to open it.

"I'm looking at Mary," he answered.

"Sloppy ass!" said Ninian, and then he added excitedly, "Oh, I say,
plaice and dabs and a lobster ... a whopping big lobster! It's berried,
too!" He pointed to the red seeds in the lobster's body. "My Heavenly
Father, Quinny!" he exclaimed, "what a tuck-in we'll have to-night!"

"Eh?" Henry replied vaguely.

THE FOURTH CHAPTER

1

Gilbert summoned Roger and Henry and Ninian to a solemn council. "Look
here," he said, "I've made up my mind about myself!"

"Oh!" they exclaimed.

"Yes. I'm going to be a dramatist and write plays!"

"Why?" Ninian asked.

"I dunno! I went to see a play in the hols, and I thought I'd like to
write one, too. It seems easy enough. You just make up a lot of talk,
and then you get some actors to say it...."

"I see," said Ninian.

"And when I was a kid," Gilbert continued, "I used to make up plays for
parties. Jolly good, they were ... at least I thought so!"

Gilbert, having settled what his own career was to be, was eager that
his friends should settle what their careers were to be. "Roger, of
course," he said, "has made up his mind to be a barrister, so that's
him, but what about you, Ninian, and what about Quinny?"

Ninian said that he did not know what he s