Years of Plenty

by Ivor John Carnegie Brown

"I've got a ripping photo of Sally Savoy," said Cullen.

"She's a bit of fluff for you," answered Neave.

"Yes, by gum. My brother at Sandhurst told me a grand story about her."

"What was it?"

"It's jolly hot stuff."

"All the better. Let's have it."

Then Cullen launched out. Martin, who could not help overhearing every word, understood the beginning of the tale, but just when Neave's exclamation betrayed the listener's thrill, he found it unintelligible. And later on there was the recitation of a Limerick which he could not at all understand. It was not that anything deeply wicked was related, but Martin had been a day boy at his private school and had only received a vague impression of the ways of nature and of man. Never before had it struck him how confused and ignorant he was.

Then a mighty voice roared: "What the deuce are you all playing at?" Numerous forms in more or less advanced stages of nudity started like rabbits to their proper cubicles, while Moore bellowed in the doorway. If it had been anyone but Moore there would have been a row: but Moore was an angel and never did anything but shout. The lights were turned down and the voices died away.

Cullen took one lingering glance at Sally before he put her away and said his prayers: Neave, having ended his supplications, lay chuckling quietly in bed. Martin began to feel acutely miserable. In spite of all his hopes that the dormitory would bring him peace, he had only come across another door which had to be opened. There was no escape: he would have to find out, for he might be expected to join in one of these conversations and then he would be shown up. He would have to discover some decent new boy and question him tactfully. It would be embarrassing: it would be perfect hell: but it would be inevitable. He began to wish he was back in Devonshire, at home. God, how he loathed Life and Elfrey and Sally Savoy: he wanted ... but just when, in spite of the promptings of conscience, he was yielding to the soft embrace of sentiment and memory, sleep saved the situation.