Watersprings | Page 7

a dozen photographs stood on the mantelpiece, and there was practically nothing else in the room but carpets and curtains. Jack lit a cigarette, sank into a chair, and presently said, "You must get awfully sick of the undergraduates, I should think, day after day?"
"No, I don't," said Howard; "in fact I must confess that I like work and feel dull without it--but that shows that I am an elderly man."
"Yes, I don't care about my work," said Jack, "and I think I shall get rather tired of being up here before I have done with it. It's rather pointless, I think. Of course it's quite amusing; but I want to do something real, make some real money, and talk about business. I shall go into the city, I think."
"I don't believe you care about anything but money," said Howard; "you are a barbarian!"
"No, I don't care about money," said Jack; "only one must have enough--what I like are REAL things. I couldn't go on just learning things up till I was twenty-three, and then teaching 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 not because I think it's any good." He put down the cat with a kiss. "Good-bye, Mimi," he said; "remember me, I beseech you!" and he hurried away.
Howard sat still for a minute or two, looking at the fire; then he gave a laugh, got up, stretched himself, and went out for a walk.
Even so quiet a thing as a walk was not unattended by a certain amount of ceremonial. Howard passed some six or seven men of his acquaintance, some of whom presented a stick or raised a stiff hand without a smile or indeed any sign of recognition; one went so far as to say, "Hullo, Kennedy!" and one eager conversationalist went so far as to say, "Out for a walk?" Howard pushed on, walking lightly and rapidly, and found himself at last at Barton, one of those entirely delightful pastoral villages that push up so close to Cambridge on every side; a vague collection of quaint irregular cottages, whitewashed