"What's he afraid of?" said I.
"God knows!" exploded Hatherleigh and stared at the fire.
"LIFE!" said Esmeer. "And so in a way are we," he added, and made a thoughtful silence for a time.
"I say," began Carter, who was doing the Natural Science Tripos, "what is the adult form of the Pinky Dinky?"
But there we were checked by our ignorance of the world.
"What is the adult form of any of us?" asked Benton, voicing the thought that had arrested our flow.
I do not remember that we ever lifted our criticism to the dons and the organisation of the University. I think we took them for granted. When I look back at my youth I am always astonished by the multitude of things that we took for granted. It seemed to us that Cambridge was in the order of things, for all the world like having eyebrows or a vermiform appendix. Now with the larger scepticism of middle age I can entertain very fundamental doubts about these old universities. Indeed I had a scheme--
