"Secrets."
[Edinburgh student lodgings of usual type. ROGER CHIRNSIDE, M.A.; with many books about him, seated at table. JO BENTLEY and "TAD" ANDERSON squabbling by the fireplace.]
Loquitur ROGER CHIRNSIDE.
Look here, you fellows, if you can't be quiet, I'll kick you out of this! How on earth is a fellow to get up "headaches" for his final, if you keep making such a mischief of a row? By giving me a fine one for a sample, do you say? I'll take less of your sauce, Master Tad, or you'll get shown out of here mighty quick. Now, not another word out of the heads of you!
[Chirnside attacks his books again, murmuring intermittently as the others subside for the time.
CHIRNSIDE. Migraine—artery—decussate—wonder what this other fool says (rustling leaves). They all contradict one another, and old Rutherland will never believe you when you tell him so.
[A new quarrel arises at the upper end of the room between Jo Bentley and Tad.
CHIRNSIDE (starting to his feet). Lay down that book, Bentley! Do you hear? I know Tad is a fool, and needs his calf's head broken. But do it with another book—Calderhead's Mind and Matter, or T. and T.—anything but that. Take the poker or anything! But lay down that book. Do you hear me, Bentley?
[The book is laid down.
CHIRNSIDE (continuing). What am I in such a funk about? No, it's not because it is a Bible, though a Bible never makes a good missile. I always keep an Oliver and Boyd on purpose—one of the old leather-backed kind that never wears out, even when half the leaves are ripped out for pipe-lights.