“Really,” he said, “it was scarcely noticeable to anybody else.  You noticed it, because you felt your tongue getting wedged like that between your teeth; but other people would hardly have noticed it at all.  When the Principal asked you if you were going to take Holy Orders yourself, I’m sure he only thought you hadn’t quite made up your mind yet.”

“But I’m sure he did notice something,” poor Emmett bewailed.  “Because he began to hum.”

“Well, but he was always humming,” said Mark.  “He hummed all through dinner while he was reading those book catalogues.”

“It’s very kind of you, Lidderdale,” said Emmett, “to make the best of it for me, but I’m not such a fool as I look, and the Principal certainly hummed six times as loud whenever he asked me a question as he did over those catalogues.  I know what I look like when I get into one of those states.  I once caught sight of myself in a glass by accident, and now whenever my tongue gets caught up like that I’m wondering all the time why everybody doesn’t get up and run out of the room.”

“But I assure you,” Mark persisted, “that little things like that—­”

“Little things like that!” Emmett interrupted furiously.  “It’s all very well for you, Lidderdale, to talk about little things like that.  If you had a tongue like mine which seems to get bigger instead of smaller every year, you’d feel very differently.”

“But people always grow out of stammering,” Mark pointed out.

“Thanks very much,” said Emmett bitterly, “but where shall I be by the time I’ve grown out of it?  You don’t suppose I shall win this scholarship, do you, after they’ve seen me gibbering and mouthing at them like that?  But if only I could manage somehow to get to Oxford I should have a chance of being ordained, and—­” he broke off, perhaps unwilling to embarrass his rival by any more lamentations.

“Do forget about this evening,” Mark begged, “and come up to my room and have a talk before you turn in.”

“No, thanks very much,” said Emmett.  “I must sit up and do some work.  We’ve got that general knowledge paper to-morrow morning.”

“But you won’t be able to acquire much more general knowledge in one evening,” Mark protested.

“I might,” said Emmett darkly.  “I noticed a Whitaker’s almanack in the rooms I have.  My only chance to get this scholarship is to do really well in my papers; and though I know it’s no good and that this is my last chance, I’m not going to neglect anything that could possibly help.  I’ve got a splendid memory for statistics, and if they’ll only ask a few statistics in the general knowledge paper I may have some luck to-morrow.  Good-night, Lidderdale, I’m sorry to have inflicted myself on you like this.”

Emmett hurried away up the staircase leading to his room and left his rival standing on the moonlit grass of the quadrangle.  Mark was turning toward his own staircase when he heard a window open above and Emmett’s voice: