He imbibed the intensely male atmosphere of 'The Tiger' with a good deal of satisfaction; but surging up into the forefront of his mind came every moment the truth concerning himself and his future. It made him bitter. For some reason he could not guess, he found himself playing billiards very much above his form. Neddy was full of admiration.
"By Jove, you've come on thirty in a hundred," he said. "If you only gave a fair amount of time to it, you'd soon beat anybody here but Waldron."
"My sporting days are practically over," answered Raymond. "I've got to face real life now, and as soon as you begin to do that, you find sport sinks under the horizon a bit. I thought I should miss it a lot, but I shan't."
"If anybody else said that, I should think it was the fox who had lost his brush talking," replied Neddy; "but I suppose you mean it. Only you'll find, if you chuck sport, you'll soon be no good. Even as it is, going into the works has put you back a lot. I doubt if you could do a hundred in eleven seconds now."
"There are more important things than doing a hundred in eleven seconds—or even time, either, for that matter."
"You won't chuck football, anyway? You'll be fast enough for outside right for year's yet if you watch yourself."
"Damned easy to say 'watch yourself.' Yes, I shall play footer a bit longer if they want me, I suppose."
Arthur Waldron dropped in a few minutes later.
He was glad to see Raymond.
"Good," he said. "I thought you were putting in a blameless evening with your people."