"I can't," Stonehouse said. "Who's Whistler?"
Cosgrave laughed in anticipation of his little joke. "Nobody, old fellow. At least, he never discovered any bugs."
The wind snatched up his forgotten hat and it sailed off up river into the darkness like a large unwieldy bird. He looked after it ruefully.
"That was a new hat. I'll have to go home without one, and the Pater will think I've been in a drunken brawl, and there'll be a beastly row."
"That's the one thing he'll never believe. Well, I don't care. It'll be over soon. If I've passed that exam. I'll get away and he won't be able to nag me any more. And you, do think I've passed, don't you, Stonehouse?"
"If you didn't imagine your answers afterwards."
"Honour bright, I didn't. I believe I did a lot better, really. You know, I'm so awfully happy to-night I'd believe anything. It's queer how this old river fits in with one's moods, isn't it? Last time we were here I wanted to drown myself, and there it was ready to hand, as it were—offering eternal oblivion—and all that. I thought of all the other fellows who had drowned themselves, and felt no end cheered up. And now it makes me think of escape—of getting away from everything—sailing to strange, new countries——"
"The last time you were here," Stonehouse said, "you'd just come out of the exam. If you really answered as you say you did, there was no reason for your wanting to drown yourself."
"But I did. You're such a distrustful beggar. You think I just imagine things. No, I'll tell you what it was—I didn't care. There I was—I'd swotted and swotted. I'd thought that if only I could squeeze through I'd be the happiest man on earth. And then, when it was all over I began to think: 'What's it all for, what's it all about? What's the good?' Suppose I have passed, I'll get some beastly little job in some stuffy Government office, 200 pounds a year, if I'm lucky. And then if I'm good and not too bright they'll raise me to 250 pounds in a couple of years' time, and so it'll go on—nothing but fug, and dinge, and skimping, and planning—with a fortnight at the seaside once a year or a run over to Paris. I suppose it was good enough for our grandfathers, Stonehouse—this just keeping alive? But it didn't seem good enough to me. Don't you feel like that sometimes—when you think of the time when you'll be able to stick M.D., or whatever it is, after your name—as though, after all, it didn't matter a brace of shakes?"
Robert Stonehouse roused himself from his lounging attitude and thrust his hands deep into his trousers pockets. There was a nip in the wind, and he had no overcoat.