ng them till I was
sixty-three. Of course I think it is awfully good of you to do it, but
I can't think why or how you do it."

"I suppose I don't care about real things," said Howard.

"No, I can't quite make you out," said Jack with a smiling air,
"because of course you are quite different from the other dons--nobody
would suppose you were a don--everyone says that."

"It's very kind of you to say so," said Howard, "but I am not sure that
it is a compliment--a tradesman ought to be a tradesman, and not to be
ashamed of it. I'm a sophist, of course."

"What's a sophist?" said Jack. "Oh, I know. You lectured about the
sophists last term. I don't remember what they were exactly, but I
thought the lecture awfully good--quite amusing! They were a sort of
parsons, weren't they?"

"You are a wonderful person, Jack!" said Howard, laughing. "I declare I
have never had such extraordinary things said to me as you have said in
the last half-hour."

"Well, I want to know about people," said Jack, "and I think it pays to
ask them. You don't mind, do you? That's the best thing about you, that
I can say what I think to you without putting my foot in it. But you
said you were going to lecture me about my sins--come on!"

"No," said Howard, "I won't. You are not serious enough to-day, and I
am not vexed enough. You know quite well what I think. There isn't any
harm in you; but you are idle, and you are inquisitive. I don't want
you to be very different, on the whole, if only you would work a little
more and take more interest in things."

"Well," said Jack, "I do take interest--that's the mischief; there
isn't time to work--that's the truth! I shall scrape through the Trip,
and then I shall have done with all this nonsense about the classics;
it really is humbug, isn't it? Such a fuss about nothing. The books I
like are those in which people say what they might say, not those in
which they say what they have had days to invent. I don't see the good
of that. Why should I work, when I don't feel interested?"

"Because whatever you do, you will have to do things in which you are
not interested," said Howard.

"Well, I think I will wait and see," said Jack. "And now I must be off.
I really have said some awful things to you to-day, and I must
apologise; but I can't help it when I am with you; I feel I must say
just what comes into my head; I must fly; thank you for lunch; and I
truly will do better, but mind only for YOU, and n