“You’re quite mashed on her, old chappie. But she’s not a patch on Mrs. Pat.”
“Johnny can’t think of anything but Mrs. Pat. I say, let’s go and have a drink.”
“All right. Johnny stands drinks. The gurl at the bar’s an awful clipper.”
“Johnny will drop his pipe and get her to pick it up for him.”
“Well, come on, you Johnnies. There’s only ten minutes. Keep an eye on Johnny.”
The Babe’s eye followed them as they walked off to the bar, with rapturous enjoyment.
“Aren’t they heavenly?” said he to Reggie. “Oh, I wish I was like that! It must be so nice to feel that one is the light and leading of the whole place and really knows what life is. I wish I knew what life was. I wonder how they get their hair to stick out like that. How I have wasted my time! I too might have been a Johnny by now, if I’d cultivated them. Reggie, do come to the bar: I want to gaze and gaze on them.”
But Reggie refused: he said they made him sick, and the Babe told him that he regarded things from the wrong standpoint.
“You know,” said the Babe, “they’ve persuaded each other that they are the very devils of fellows. They really believe it. What a thing it is to have faith. They will talk quite fluently to the barmaid. I remember so well trying to see whether I could. I couldn’t: I knew I couldn’t all the time. I have never felt so hopelessly bored in so few minutes. They think it’s wicked; and they think that they rag their tutors. The poor tutors are men of no perception, for they haven’t the least idea they are being ragged. There they all come again. Their faces shine with deviltry. Did you hear them talk about Mrs. Pat? They meant Mrs. Patrick Campbell you know—”
“You’re no better, Babe,” said Reggie, “you used to want people to think you wicked.”