"Not quite so good as you, eh?"

"A hundred times better, sir."

Stormer smiled. Ironic beast!

"Lennan," he said, "distrust hyperbole."

"Of course, I know I'm no good at climbing," the boy broke out again;
"but--but--I thought where she was allowed to risk her life, I ought to
be!"

"Good! I like that." It was said so entirely without irony for once,
that the boy was disconcerted.

"You are young, Brother Lennan," his tutor went on. "Now, at what age
do you consider men develop discretion? Because, there is just one
thing always worth remembering--women have none of that better part of
valour."

"I think women are the best things in the world," the boy blurted out.

"May you long have that opinion!" His tutor had risen, and was
ironically surveying his knees. "A bit stiff!" he said. "Let me know
when you change your views!"

"I never shall, sir."

"Ah, ah! Never is a long word, Lennan. I am going to have some tea;"