In the end Edwin found himself left alone with a youth of his own age, a tall, loose-limbed creature, with an indefinite humorous face, a close crop of curly fair hair and blue eyes. Edwin rather liked the look of him. He was young, and seemed approachable, and though his striped flannel suit was more elegant than Edwin’s and he wore a school tie of knitted silk, Edwin took the risk of addressing him.
“We seem to be the last.”
“Yes. I expect the Dean will keep me last of all, bad cess to him! That’s because I happen to be a sort of cousin of the old devil’s.” He spoke with a soft brogue that had come from the south of Ireland.
“Mr. Ingleby, please.”
Edwin pulled himself together and entered the Dean’s office.
A pleasant room: at one big desk a suave, clean-shaven gentleman with thin sandy hair and gold-rimmed spectacles. At another a little dark man with a bald head and a typewriter in front of him.
“Mr. Ingleby?” said the first. His voice was refined, if a little too precise.
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, Mr. Ingleby, what are you going to do? Ah, yes . . . you are the Astill scholar. Very good. Very good. Are you proposing to take a London degree?”
“No, sir. North Bromwich.”