Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/250



AURICE PENTREATH took life far too seriously. Both he and Sorrell "kept" on the same staircase in the Great Court at Trinity and on the night before the Science Tripos opened, Kit, who had not touched a book for the last three days, and had spent his time play ing tennis and loafing on the river, found Pentreath reading at eleven o'clock at night.

"I should chuck it, Maurice."

Pentreath's eyes looked blurred and sunken.

"It's so final, so very final. One's chances don't recur."

Kit took Pentreath's book away; it was Jukes Browne's Geology.

"Go to bed, old thing. You'll be all muzzy in the morning. Look here, after the papers to-morrow, I'm going to make you play tennis."

Pentreath walked about the room like a restless dog.

"It's my memory, Sorrell. I wish I had your memory. It's maddening. There are times when I can't fix facts. I never can be sure, oligocene or eocene, the right order, I mean. My memory plays tricks."

"Go to bed, old chap," said Kit.

Christopher enjoyed the Tripos, for he felt like a well-trained boxer, confident and strong, and he had no panic moods and no fear of the clock. He would walk in, sit down, calmly read the paper through, and then punch his answers out with deliberate steadiness. Pentreath sat opposite him and away on the right, and Pentreath's face made him think of a frightened swimmer who doubted whether he would reach the shore. Maurice was always looking fearfully at the clock.

Christopher carried off a first class, Pentreath a third. Kit saw the lists, went off to wire to his father, and walked back to Trinity to face his friend. Pentreath's breakfast