The Mutual Friend really was a trial to Vaughan and Dallas. Only those
whose fate it is or has been to share a study with an uncongenial
companion can appreciate their feelings to the full. Three in a study
is always something of a tight fit, and when the three are in a state
of perpetual warfare, or, at the best, of armed truce, things become
very bad indeed.

'Do you find it necessary to have tea-parties every evening?' enquired
Plunkett, after he had collected his books for the night's work. 'The
smell of burnt meat--'

'Fried sausages,' said Vaughan. 'Perfectly healthy smell. Do you good.'

'It's quite disgusting. Really, the air in here is hardly fit to
breathe.'

'You'll find an excellent brand of air down in the senior study,' said
Dallas, pointedly. 'Don't stay and poison yourself here on _our_
account,' he added. 'Think of your family.'

'I shall work where I choose,' said the Mutual Friend, with dignity.

'Of course, so long as you do work. You mustn't talk. Vaughan and I
have got some Livy to do.'

Plunkett snorted, and the passage of arms ended, as it usually did, in
his retiring with his books to the senior study, leaving Dallas and
Vaughan to discuss his character once more in case there might be any
points of it left upon which they had not touched in previous