Have a drink, won't you?" The words were harmless; the drawling voice was obviously meant to tell his companions that, though of course he had to seem friendly to this wretched outsider with whom he had somehow got himself entangled, he deplored the intrusion. "No, thanks," I said, and turned to go. With my hand on the door-knob, I heard Victor's voice again, but this time its tone was altered. In a couple of seconds, apparently, his temper had changed from bleak east wind to bright warm sunlight. "Harry, don't go, please!" He had risen; and as I turned, he took me gently by the arm, to lead me into the room. "I want to make a public apology," he said, "for being offensive to you, Harry, and for saying false and spiteful things about you before you came in." Turning to the others, he added, "I'm sorry to be so inconsistent, but before, I was not myself." A glance passed between Biglands and Moulton, signifying that Cadogan-Smith was evidently still crazy. Biglands rose with a bored look. Moulton sat tight, and said, "Very well, C.S., give us some more beer and we'll have Tomlinson in the game." Victor looked at the mess on the table for a moment. "No!" he said. "If you don't mind, I think perhaps we had better stop." Victor was looking extremely uncomfortable. He flashed an appeasing smile at the couple. "I enjoyed the game," he said, "but now, in a new light, it looks a bit silly. I mean, for people who are no longer kids. Oh, well! Sorry, you two! Maybe we'll have a return match some time. But I really must talk to Harry Tomlinson just now." He picked up a few pellets and looked at them with an awkward little snigger. In a voice that developed into a rapt recitative, he said, "People in America or somewhere tilled the ground and sowed the seed. Rain, sun, wind. A waving sea of corn to the horizon. People come with reaping machines, working from dawn to dark. Stooks everywhere. Threshing machines. Grain in railway trucks, and in elevators; poured into ships' holds. Wild Atlantic weather. The look-out freezing and the stokers sweating. Docking the ship. (Ticklish work. Like coaxing a shy horse.) More trains. Mill hands hard at it in the mills. The corn becomes flour. Some reaches the baker who serves this College.