'Why the Mutual?'

'Mutual Friend, Vaughan's and mine. Shares this study with us. I call
him dear partly because he's head of the House, and therefore, of
course, we respect and admire him.'

'And partly,' put in Vaughan, beaming at the Babe over a frying-pan
full of sausages, 'partly because we love him so. Oh, he's a beauty.'

'No, but rotting apart,' said the Babe, 'what sort of a chap is he? I
hardly know him by sight, even.'

'Should describe him roughly,' said Dallas, 'as a hopeless, forsaken
unspeakable worm.'

'Understates it considerably,' remarked Vaughan. 'His manners are
patronizing, and his customs beastly.'

'He wears spectacles, and reads Herodotus in the original Greek for
pleasure.'

'He sneers at footer, and jeers at cricket. Croquet is his form, I
should say. Should doubt, though, if he even plays that.'

'But why on earth,' said the Babe, 'do you have him in your study?'

Vaughan looked wildly and speechlessly at Dallas, who looked helplessly
back at Vaughan.