'And you don't have to do any work.'     

       'No.'     

       'Well, then, it seems to me you're having a jolly good time. What don't you like about it?'     

       'It's so slow, being alone all day.'     

       'Makes you appreciate intellectual conversation all the more when you get it. Mine, for instance.'     

       'I want something to read.'     

       'I'll bring you a Sidgwick's Greek Prose Composition, if you like. Full of racy stories.'     

       'I've read 'em, thanks.'     

       'How about Jebb's Homer? You'd like that. Awfully interesting. Proves that there never was such a man as Homer, you know, and that the Iliad and the Odyssey were produced by evolution. General style, quietly funny. Make you roar.'     

       'Don't be an idiot. I'm simply starving for something to read. Haven't you got anything?'     

       'You've read all mine.'     

       'Hasn't Welch got any books?'     

       'Not one. He bags mine when he wants to read. I'll tell you what I will do if you like.'     

       'What?'     

       'Go into Stapleton, and borrow something from Adamson.' Adamson was the College doctor.     

       'By Jove, that's not a bad idea.'     

       'It's a dashed good idea, which wouldn't have occurred to anybody but a genius. I've been quite a pal of Adamson's ever since I had the flu. I go to tea with him occasionally, and we talk medical shop. Have you ever tried talking medical shop during tea? Nothing like it for giving you an appetite.'     

       'Has he got anything readable?'     

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