CONSCIENCE (_reprovingly_):???!!??!
SMITH: Well, perhaps, not quite so much as I might have done. Such a
lot of things to do this term. Cricket, for instance.
MEPH.: Rather. Talking of cricket, you seemed to be shaping rather well
last Saturday. I had just run up on business, and someone told me you
made eighty not out. Get your century all right?
SMITH (_brightening at the recollection_): Just a bit--117 not
out. I hit--but perhaps you've heard?
MEPH.: Not at all, not at all. Let's hear all about it.
_CONSCIENCE seeks to interpose, but is prevented by MEPH., who eggs
SMITH on to talk cricket for over an hour._
CONSCIENCE _(at last; in an acid voice)_: That is a history of the
Peloponnesian War by Thucydides on the table in front of you. I thought
I would mention it, in case you had forgotten.
SMITH: Great Scott, yes! Here, I say, I must start.
CONSCIENCE: Hear! Hear!
MEPH. _(insinuatingly)_: One moment. Did you say you _had_
prepared this book during the term? Afraid I'm a little hard of
hearing. Eh, what?
SMITH: Well--er--no, I have not. Have you ever played billiards with a
walking-stick and five balls?
MEPH.: Quite so, quite so. I quite understand. Don't you distress
yourself, old chap. You obviously can't get through a whole book of
Thucydides in under two hours, can you?
CONSCIENCE _(severely)_: He might, by attentive application to
study, master a considerable portion of the historian's _chef
d'oeuvre_ in that time.
MEPH.: Yes, and find that not one of the passages he had prepared was
set in the paper.
CONSCIENCE: At the least, he would, if he were to pursue the course
which I have indicated, greatly benefit his mind.