As Martin had surmised, Dunn found Cameron in his rooms. He was lying upon his bed enjoying the luxury of a cigarette. “Hello! Come right in, old chap!” he cried, in gay welcome. “Have a—no, you won't have a cigarette—have a pipe?”
Dunn gazed at him, conscious of a rising tide of mingled emotions, relief, wrath, pity, disgust. “Well, I'll be hanged!” at last he said slowly. “But you've given us a chase! Where in the world have you been?”
“Been? Oh, here and there, enjoying my emancipation from the thralldom in which doubtless you are still sweating.”
“And what does that mean exactly?”
“Mean? It means that I've cut the thing,—notebooks, lectures, professors, exams, 'the hale hypothick,' as our Nannie would say at home.”
“Oh rot, Cameron! You don't mean it?”
“Circumspice. Do you behold any suggestion of knotted towels and the midnight oil?”
Dunn gazed about the room. It was in a whirl of confusion. Pipes and pouches, a large box of cigarettes, a glass and a half-empty decanter, were upon the table; boots, caps, golf-clubs, coats, lay piled in various corners. “Pardon the confusion, dear sir,” cried Cameron cheerfully, “and lay it not to the charge of my landlady. That estimable woman was determined to make entry this afternoon, but was denied.” Cameron's manner one of gay and nervous bravado.
“Come, Cameron,” said Dunn sadly, “what does this mean? You're not serious; you're not chucking your year?”
“Just that, dear fellow, and nothing less. Might as well as be ploughed.”