‘I don’t particularly like him myself,’ I said.

‘Well, he’s always hanging round here, and the stiffer element in college don’t like it. They can’t stand him at the House. He was in Mercury again last night. None of these people you go about with pull any weight in their own colleges, and that’s the real test. They think because they’ve got a lot of money to throw about, they can do anything.

‘And that’s another thing. I don’t know what allowance my uncle makes you, but I don’t mind betting you’re spending double. All this,’ he said, including in a wide sweep of his hand the evidence of profligacy about him. It was true; my room had cast its austere winter garments, and, by not very slow stages, assumed a richer wardrobe. ‘Is that paid for?’ (the box of a hundred cabinet Partagas on the sideboard) ‘or those?’ (a dozen frivolous, new books on the table) ‘or those?’ (a Lalique decanter and glasses) ‘or that peculiarly noisome object?’ (a human skull lately purchased from the School of Medicine, which, resting in a bowl of roses, formed, at the moment, the chief decoration of my table. It bore the motto ‘Et in Arcadia ego’ inscribed on its forehead.)

‘Yes,’ I said, glad to be clear of one charge. ‘I had to pay cash for the skull.’

‘You can’t be doing any work. Not that that matters, particularly if you’re making something of your career elsewhere – but are you? Have you spoken at the Union or at any of the clubs? Are you connected with any of the magazines? Are you even making a position in the O.U.D.S.? And your clothes!’ continued my cousin. ‘When you came up I remember advising you to dress as you would in a country house. Your present get-up seems an unhappy compromise between the correct wear for a theatrical party at Maidenhead and a glee-singing competition in a garden suburb.

‘And drink – no one minds a man getting tight once or twice a term. In fact, he ought to, on certain occasions. But I hear you’re constantly seen drunk in the middle of the afternoon.’

He paused, his duty discharged. Already the perplexities of the examination school were beginning to reassert themselves in his mind.

‘I’m sorry, Jasper,’ I said. ‘I know it must be embarrassing for you, but I happen to like this bad set. I like getting drunk at luncheon, and though I haven’t yet spent quite double my allowance, I undoubtedly shall before the end of term. I usually have a glass of champagne about this time. Will you join me?’

So my cousin Jasper despaired and, I learned later, wrote to his father on the subject of my excesses who, in his turn, wrote to my father, who took no action or particular thought in the matter, partly because he had disliked my uncle for nearly sixty years and partly because, as Jasper had said, he lived in his own world now, since my mother’s death.