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