“Mr.?” queried the Senior Tutor. “Oh, yes, Mr. Fane. St. James’. Your tutor will be the Dean—please sit down—the Dean, Mr. Ambrose. What school are you proposing to read?”
“History, I imagine,” said Michael. “History!” he repeated, as Mr. Ardle blinked at him.
“Yes,” said the Senior Tutor in accents of patient boredom. “But we have to consider the immediate future. I suggest Honor Moderations and Literæ Humaniores.”
“I explained to you that I wanted to read History,” said Michael, echoing himself involuntarily the don’s tone of patient boredom.
“I have you down as coming from St. James’,” snapped the Senior Tutor. “A school reputed to send out good classical scholars, I believe.”
“I’m not a scholar,” Michael interrupted. “And I don’t intend to take Honor Mods.”
“That will be for the college to decide.”
“Supposing the college decided I was to read Chinese?” Michael inquired.
“There is no need for impertinence. Well, well, for the present I have put you down for the lectures on Pass Moderations. You will attend my lectures on Cicero, Mr. Churton on the Apologia, Mr. Carder on Logic, and Mr. Vereker for Latin Prose. The weekly essay set by the Warden for freshmen you will read to your tutor Mr. Ambrose.”
Then he went on to give instructions about chapels and roll-calls and dining in hall and the various regulations of the college, while the Swiss mountains stared bleakly down at the chilly interview.
“Now you’d better go and see Mr. Ambrose,” said the Senior Tutor, and Michael left him. On the staircase he passed Lonsdale going up.
“Good work,” said Lonsdale cheerfully. “Because I’ve just bought a dog.” And he whistled his way upstairs.
Michael wondered what the purchase of a dog had got to do with the Senior Tutor, but relinquished the problem on perceiving Mr. Ambrose’s name on the floor below.
The Dean’s room was very much like the Senior Tutor’s, and the interview, save that it was made slightly more tolerable by the help of a cigarette, was of much the same chilliness owing to Michael’s reiterated refusal to read Honor Moderations.
“I expected a little keenness,” said Mr. Ambrose.
“I shall be keen enough when I’ve finished with Pass Mods,” said Michael. “Though what good it will be for me to read the Pro Milone and the Apology all over again, when I read them at fifteen, I don’t know.”