Their friendship survived the passing of terms and the sharpening of the almost comic contrast between them. Edward was going to take life by storm. He admitted no final obstacle, no barriers. He could do anything. He would do everything. He was jealous of the whole world. All that he read, either of heroism or of success, he applied at once to himself. Could I do that? Of course. And, what’s more, I will. At school, he appointed definite objects for his ambition. He’d get into the cricket eleven. He had. He’d get into the football team. He hadn’t, but that was, partly at any rate, because he’d sprained his ankle. He’d get into the Upper Sixth. He’d only reached the Lower—having decided on the way that work was a waste of time and that all the masters were incompetent fools. Everywhere he saw a challenge. His schoolfellows delighted in baiting him, encouraging him to break bounds, to go to the Green Man for beer, to let loose a guinea-pig in form, to put a chamber-pot on the arch of the school bell. How well they had understood him. He dared not refuse. He dared refuse no adventure—horribly frightened as he often was. He would have fought any boy in the school, would have got himself expelled for any offence, rather than admit to being afraid.

He was never popular. His violent, ill-balanced temper kept people at a distance. His jokes, overstrained and malicious, seldom raised a laugh. He was accused of playing games selfishly. When he worked hard in form he was called a sweatpot; when he slacked, the masters wrote scathing reports. The little group of Sixth Form intellectuals might have welcomed him, but he openly spurned them. The rest of the House found him over-subtle. He had started his school career by hating the school; he ended by despising it. And throughout he had no close friend but Richard.

Everybody liked Vernon. As he grew older he was universally known as Uncle Dick. He played cricket adequately, was a useful full-back for the House, did a sufficient amount of work to satisfy, if not to please, his form master. His laziness, of which he now made no secret, was a perpetual joke. Unnecessary exertion he frankly avoided. While Edward never missed an afternoon’s exercise—when games were not compulsory he played fives or went for runs—Richard preferred his study fire. The Spartan element in the House was inclined to be shocked, but, somehow, Vernon was never severely criticised. He had his own special position and it was respected.