"Phew! Was that five minutes? Seemed short," he said. "Just a breather before we transcribe." He lighted a cigarette. "I say, Jeff: do you know any dealer who gives a decent price for second-hand clothes? I've heaps here I sha'n't want any more."
I had small use for such a dealer. "You might try Lamb's Conduit Street," I said. "I've bought clothes there."
"Silly ass—— I didn't mean that!" He was now monstrously careful of my feelings.
"Say when you're ready to transcribe," I said, pushing across a wad of paper.
"All right, let's get it over. I'll race you! Ready?"
We plunged into our longhand transcription.
"Ah!" I said, twenty minutes later. "Beat you, Archie!"
He was racing through his last paragraph. "Not by much, you haven't," he said, and then, following our practice with exercises at the college, "No you haven't—you haven't signed—hooray!" he cried, dashing in his signature and looking at his watch. "Thirty-two minutes—pretty smart, what?"
An hour later I left, with his exercise as well as my own slipped between the leaves of Smillie's "Balance of Trade"—one of the text-books he had given me.
My hypothetical case was now completely prepared.