thinking hard. A sort of Intelligentsia that is BLOODED. . . . I
shall, of course, come as far as I can with you."



13


In one of the bureau drawers that White in this capacity of literary
executor was examining, there were two documents that carried back
right to these early days. They were both products of this long
wide undergraduate argumentation that had played so large a part in
the making of Benham. One recorded the phase of maximum opposition,
and one was the outcome of the concluding approach of the
antagonists. They were debating club essays. One had been read to
a club in Pembroke, a club called the ENQUIRERS, of which White also
had been a member, and as he turned it over he found the
circumstances of its reading coming back to his memory. He had been
present, and Carnac's share in the discussion with his shrill voice
and stumpy gestures would alone have sufficed to have made it a
memorable occasion. The later one had been read to the daughter
club of the ENQUIRERS, the SOCIAL ENQUIRERS, in the year after White
had gone down, and it was new to him.

Both these papers were folded flat and neatly docketed; they were
rather yellow and a little dog-eared, and with the outer sheet
pencilled over with puzzling or illegible scribblings, Benham's
memoranda for his reply. White took the earlier essay in his hand.
At the head of the first page was written in large letters, "Go
slowly, speak to the man at the back." It brought up memories of