shade less than Stanning hated him, Sheen was under the painful
necessity of choosing between them. He chose Drummond. Whereby he
undoubtedly did wisely.

Sheen sat with his Thucydides over the gas-stove, and tried to interest
himself in the doings of the Athenian expedition at Syracuse. His brain
felt heavy and flabby. He realised dimly that this was because he took
too little exercise, and he made a resolution to diminish his hours of
work per diem by one, and to devote that one to fives. He would mention
it to Drummond when he came in. He would probably come in to tea. The
board was spread in anticipation of a visit from him. Herbert, the
boot-boy, had been despatched to the town earlier in the afternoon, and
had returned with certain food-stuffs which were now stacked in an
appetising heap on the table.

Sheen was just making something more or less like sense out of an
involved passage of Nikias' speech, in which that eminent general
himself seemed to have only a hazy idea of what he was talking about,
when the door opened.

He looked up, expecting to see Drummond, but it was Stanning. He felt
instantly that "warm shooting" sensation from which David Copperfield
suffered in moments of embarrassment. Since the advent of Drummond he
had avoided Stanning, and he could not see him without feeling
uncomfortable. As they were both in the sixth form, and sat within a
couple of yards of one another every day, it will be realised that he
was frequently uncomfortable.

"Great Scott!" said Stanning, "swotting?"