t 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 Desmond courteously, and
gave him his "fez" after the first house-game. Both boys now were
members of the Manor cricket and football Elevens, and, as such, persons
of distinction in their small world. Scaife, moreover, began to play
football with such extraordinary dash and brilliancy, that it seemed to
be quite on the cards that he might get his School Flannels. This
possibility, and the Greek in the Fifth, absorbed his energies for the
first six weeks of the winter quarter. John had come back to Scaife's
room to prepare work. Desmond felt that Scaife had been generous in