onceit about him. He had been in for some
examination or other; and when Howard came in he was describing his
experiences. "What sort of questions?" he was saying. "Oh, you know the
kind--an awful quotation, followed by the question, 'Who said this, and
under what circumstances, and why did they let him?'" He made himself
entirely at home, he talked to Mr. Sandys as if he were welcoming an
old family friend, and he was evidently much attracted by Maud, who
found it remarkably easy to talk to this pleasant and straightforward
boy. He described with much liveliness an interview between Jack and
the Master on the subject of reading the lessons in chapel, and
imitated the suave tones of that courteous old gentleman to the life.
"Far be it from me to deny it was dramatic, Mr. Sandys, but I should
prefer a slightly more devotional tone." He related with great
good-humour how a heavy, well-meaning, and rather censorious
undergraduate had waited behind in his room on an evening when he had
been entertaining the company with some imitations, and had said, "You
are fond of imitating people, Guthrie, and you do it a great deal; but
you ought to say who it is you are imitating, because one can't be
quite sure!"

Mr. Sandys was immensely amused by the young man, and had related some
of his own experiences in elocution--how his clerk on the first
occasion of reading the lesson at Windlow was reported to have said,
"Why, you might think he had been THERE, in a manner of speaking."

Guthrie was not in the least concerned to keep the conversation in his
own hands, and received Mr. Sandys' stories with exactly the right
amount of respectful interest and amusement. But the result of all this
upon Howard was to make him feel extraordinarily heavy and elderly. He
felt that he and Mr. Sandys were the make-weights of the party, and he
was conscious that his own contributions were wanting in liveliness.

Maud was extraordinarily amused by the bits of mimicry that came in,
because it was so well done that it inspired everyone with the feeling
that mimicry was the one art worth practising; and Mr. Sandys himself
launched into dialect stories, in which Somersetshire rustics began by
saying, "Hoots, mon!" and ended by saying, "The ould divil hissilf."

After luncheon it became clear that Jack had given up the afternoon as
a bad job, and suggested that they should all go down to the river. The
rowing man excused himself, and Howard followed his