."

"You ass!" sputtered Rickie, who had taken to laugh at nonsense again.

"No, she isn't," he repeated, blowing a kiss out of the window to
maidens. "Why, we started for Wiltshire on the wet morning!"

"When Stewart found us at Sawston railway station?" He smiled happily.
"I never thought we should pull through."

"Well, we DIDN'T. We never did what we meant. It's nonsense that I
couldn't have managed you alone. I've a notion. Slip out after your
dinner this evening, and we'll get thundering tight together."

"I've a notion I won't."

"It'd do you no end of good. You'll get to know people--shepherds,
carters--" He waved his arms vaguely, indicating democracy. "Then you'll
sing."

"And then?"

"Plop."

"Precisely."

"But I'll catch you," promised Stephen. "We shall carry you up the hill
to bed. In the morning you wake, have your row with old Em'ly, she kicks
you out, we meet--we'll meet at the Rings!" He danced up and down the
carriage. Some one in the next carriage punched at the partition, and
when this happens, all lads with mettle know that they must punch the
partition back.

"Thank you. I've a notion I won't," said Rickie when the noise had
subsided--subsided for a moment only, for the following conversation
took place to an accompaniment of dust and bangs. "Except as regards the
Rings. We will meet there."

"Then I'll get tight by myself."

"No, you won't."

"Yes, I will. I swore to do something special this evening. I feel like
it."

"In that case, I get out at the next station." He was laughing, but
quite determined. Stephen had grown too dictatorial of late. The Ansells
spoilt him. "It's bad enough having you there at all. Having you there
drunk is impossible. I'd sooner not visit my aunt than think, when I sat
with her, that you're down in the village teaching her labourers to be
as beastly as yourself. Go if you will. But not with me."

"Why shouldn't I have a good time while I'm young, if I don't harm any
one?" said Stephen defiantly.

"Need we discuss self."

"Oh, I can stop myself any minute I choose. I just say 'I won't' to you
or any other fool, and I don't."

Rickie knew that the boast was true. He continued, "There is also a
thing called Morality. You may learn in the Bible, and also from the
Greeks, that your body is a temple."

"So you said in your longest letter."

"Probably I wrote like a prig, for the reason that I have never been
tempted in this way; but surely it