Ern could have been a leader among his mates, had he chosen to assume authority. His quiet, his distinction, his happy manner, and above all the fact that he was a promising cricketer and had made half a century on the Frying Pan at Lewes for the Sussex Colts against the Canterbury Wanderers, marked him out. But Ern would not lead. He spent his evenings in the main at home rather than in the lighted streets, and was at his happiest sitting in the study opposite his father. On these occasions the two rarely spoke, but they enjoyed a silent communion that was eminently satisfying to them both. Just sometimes the father would touch the revolving book-case on his right; take out one of the little blue poetry books Ern knew so well, and read The Scholar Gypsy or The Happy Warrior.
Ern loved that, but he was far too indolent to pursue the readings himself. When his father had finished, he would return the book to its place and say,
"You should read a bit yourself, Boy-lad," and Ern's invariable reply would be,
"I will, dad, when I got the time."
But Ern was one of those who never had the time and never would have.
Then the two would relapse into smoke and silence and vague dreams, out of which Edward Caspar's voice would emerge,
"Where's Alfred?"
To which Ern would answer with a faint smirk,
"Studyin in the kitchen."
Ern's tendency to be a masher, as the phrase of the day went, delighted Mr. Pigott. He looked on it as the best sign he had yet detected in the boy.