TT 19 - Hubert Rowan is stimulated.

"It's filled with lacunae." says Professor James, tersely tapping the end of her fountain pen on the doctoral thesis opened before her on the desk.
"Lacunae?" says Michael Glebe, avoiding Professor James' eye and looking instead to Hubert Rowan for support.
Professor Rowan is slumped silently in his leather chair, an imploded package of tweed and stale pipe-slag. "Ye-es" he says thoughtfully, "I felt it was..." he clears his throat and cants untidily sideways to engage more intimately with his colleague, "...quite thoroughly riddled with lacunae."
"Huge lacunae." qualifies Professor James helpfully, and as she says this a fleck of spit falls from her mouth and onto the sleeve of her plum wool suit. "I found it.." she pauses to find the right phrase, "...oddly unconvicining."

Michael is horrified yet strangely compelled by the fizzy droplet that quivers but refuses to be dislodged from Professor James' sleeve.
"Yes! Curiously unconvincing" continues Hubert Rowan, picking up. "I was almost quite intrigued by the ultimate lack of coherence." He swivels his chair round to face his colleague more comfortably. "Indeed..." a sardonic smile ripens his voice, "I found it quite...stimulating...in a funny sort of way."
"Yes. Yes." Says Professor James, nodding her serious grey head in vigorous assent. "I must admit , I rather had fun indentifying, in more precise terms, how it managed to fail to convice at any point."

There is a pause as they reflect pleasurably on their own intellectual rigour. Professor James replaces her glasses, miraculously leaving the dob of spittle unmoved. She flips through her notes. You cite my Divine Judgement in the Middle Ages in your introduction.
"Yes." Michael opens his copy of 'Justice and the (Un)just in Dante's Divine Comedy.' and suppresses a sigh.
"I strongly recommend that you go back and re-read the section on Aquinas more attentively. I think it will help you untangle some of the conceptual difficulties you had in Chapter 5.
"Right.."
"And you should read the exchange of opinions that took place between myself and Mandylion Trahobe in The Medieval Journal." She looks at Michael over her glasses. "This should help bring you up to speed with more recent debate."
"Yes of course." Says Michael, earnestly, but inside he is folding his last ditch hopes into little boat shapes and letting them slip away on the ebb tide of his self-esteem.
"I'm afraid we don't feel able to recommend a pass as your thesis stands. "Professor James announces. "We're going to suggest a six month referral."
"Right" says Michael, staring folornly at the last little dot of fronthy irridescence on his examiner's sleeve. "Right."