CHAPTER XIX

THE WARDEN AND THE BRADDER

Of all penalties, sending a man down from the 'Varsity for a short time seems to me the most unfair. For some people treat the culprit as if he was almost a criminal, while others are glad to see him and aren't in the least annoyed. Had I been sent down from Oxford I am sure my father would have stormed and told me that I was going to that universal rubbish-heap, called "The dogs," while my mother would have been very hurt and very kind; but I know one man who went home unexpectedly and was told by his father that if he had not been sent down he would have missed the best "shoot" of the year. In some cases the penalty is nothing, and in other cases it is far too heavy.

From the little I knew of Jack's people I did not expect that they would be as unpleasant as they were, for as far as I could see he had not done anything which was much of a disgrace to anybody. Unfortunately, however, he went home at an unlucky moment, for his father was mixed up with the Stock Exchange, and there was a slump or something equally disagreeable in the City. Jack wrote to me: "I have often seen my father in a bad temper, but I have never seen him keep it up for so long before. There is a large bear syndicate formed in the City, and my father is a bull, and fumes like one. I am very useful if he would only see it, because he can work his rage off on me, and that is a great relief to everybody else. But it is no use thinking of what is to happen next; he has told me that I am going to start to Canada in a month, and Australia in a fortnight, but wherever I go I am to have only L10 besides my passage-money—he does the thing thoroughly. The last scheme, announced at breakfast this morning, is that I am going to Greece, to a quarry which has something to do with either marble or cement; I didn't listen much, because I shall probably be booked for Siberia before night. Anywhere but back to Oxford is really his idea, and the more often he changes the place the better. Meanwhile I flaunt history books before him. I left Taswell Langmead on the lawn, because it is the fattest book I have got, and it looks so like one of the Stock Exchange books that I knew he would look at it. He did and growled, but he put it back on the chair, which rather surprised me, for I expected him to launch forth on the uselessness of me reading such things. If I sit tight for a bit and don't get ready to go anywhere, perhaps I shall get back to Oxford after all."

I knew nothing about the Stock Exchange, but I sympathized very much with any one who had to live in the same house with a fuming bull. Even Fred agreed with me that Jack was being treated unfairly, and he never spoke about him at all if he could help it. When Jack and he had met during the last year at Oxford, as they had often, they were so astonishingly polite to each other that had I not known the reason I should have been very amused, but as it was, I thought they were making a great fuss about something quite unimportant.

To pretend not to notice a thing which is as clear as daylight is not a part which I can play with any comfort, so Jack and Fred fidgeted me terribly, but they had got some idea firmly fixed in their heads, with which I was wise enough not to meddle. They were both such friends of mine that I hoped they would see as quickly as possible that there was something very humorous in the way they treated each other.

Owen took a first in his final schools, and as soon as the list was out he wrote to me and said that he hoped to come up for a fifth year to read for a first in History. This, I thought, was tempting Providence, for he had already got two firsts, and he seemed to me to be collecting them as I had once collected birds' eggs. He decided, however, to give up his plan, and accepted a mastership at a school in Scotland. I must say that I was relieved at this, for I intended to take two more years before my examinations, and if he had got a first in one year I am sure that I should have heard a very great deal about him, when my father felt unwell or wished to make me feel uncomfortable.

I spent most of my second summer vac in France, partly because my mother was not well, and also because an old scheme for improving my French had been revived. When Fred and I had gone to Oxford there had been some idea of us trying for the Indian Civil Service, but for various reasons this was abandoned, and although Fred had determined that he would go back to Cliborough as a master if he could manage it, I had drifted through two years without having made up my mind what was to happen to me when I got my degree. The Bishop wanted me to be a clergyman, my mother thought that if Fred was going to be a school-master there was no reason why I should not be one, and although my father did not say anything he was not the man to see me finish my time at Oxford and then sit down to wait for some employment to turn up. It was really no use for me to decide what I should do, for unless I showed an especial craving for some profession I knew that he would settle everything, and as I had two years before me I thought that there was no particular hurry, which is, I suppose, the dangerous state of mind of many undergraduates.

I did not understand that my father's wish for me to talk French was part of any definite scheme, and for the life of me I cannot make out why he settled upon my profession and told me nothing about it, but I suppose that unless I ever become a parent there are some things which will puzzle me all my life.

"One of the reasons the English are hated on the Continent is because they can only speak their own language, and when they are not understood they shout," he said to me, and I am afraid I did not care much what the English were thought of on the Continent; at any rate I did not see what I could do to make them more popular. "I intend that you shall at least be able to speak French properly," he went on; "you are not going to stay with us at the hotel, but live with a French family about three miles out of the town."

I detested the idea and had to submit to it, but I acknowledge that I enjoyed my visit to France, though I was told that I spent too much time at the hotel. The fact was that my family lived three miles up hill from the town, and on a bicycle I could reach the sea or my people in a few minutes, but after I had bathed I had to think a lot before I started back. I was arrested twice, once for riding furiously and also for not having my name on my bicycle, accidents which my father assured me would never have happened had I been able to talk French fluently, though it was absolutely impossible that I could under any circumstances or in any language have talked as fluently as the policeman who stopped me. My French family were very nice to me, and we got on splendidly together after they discovered that I did not mind them laughing at my pronunciation. After two months, during which I had attacked the language vigorously, Nina came from Paris to join us. I expected that she would find my accent amusing, but I made a mistake. What my mother had once mentioned to me as her awkward age had been lived through, and after a few days I began to wonder why I had ever found it easy to be irritated with her. If things go well I generally have an attack of thinking them perfect, but all the same Nina and I became better friends than we had been since I had left school, and we were together so often that nothing but a promise to talk French to her prevented my people from forbidding me to come near the hotel.

On Saturday afternoons, however, I stipulated that I should do and talk what I pleased, but unless I went to the Casino there was not much to do on my first holiday after Nina had arrived; so I persuaded her to come to a concert, have tea on the terrace, and then watch the "petits chevaux." She was ready to do anything, but my mother detested any kind of gambling, and begged me not to take her into the room in which the tables were. I could have imagined the time when to be told that something was not good for her was the surest way to make Nina want it, but now she said at once that she would much rather sit on the terrace than stay in a room with a crowd of people, and after tea I left her for a few minutes while I went for a walk through the rooms. There was a crowd round each table, and not being able to see anything I was going back to Nina at once when I felt some one touch me on the arm. I turned round quickly for I suspected that my pocket was being picked, though that would not have caused me any serious inconvenience, and before I could remember what I ought not to say I had exclaimed "Good Heavens," but if people will turn up in utterly unlikely places they ought not to be too critical of the way in which they are greeted. I should as soon have expected to see Mr. Edwardes at a Covent Garden Ball as the Warden in a French Casino, and I had an intense and immediate desire to ask him what he was doing there. I suppressed it, however, and only shook him so violently by the hand that he winced perceptibly.

"I have been guilty of watching your movements for the last four minutes," he said, as we walked towards the door leading to the terrace. "I observed you as you entered this chamber of horrors, and I was afraid that you were about to give an exhibition of your generosity."

"Did you think I was going to play?" I asked.

"Yes, if that is the right expression for an act of madness. There are, if I have observed exactly, eight chances against you, and the fool, for believe me he is a fool, who is fortunate enough to win is paid seven times his stake. The man who tries to make money in that way must be generous and a fool."

"The bank must win to pay for the croupiers and keep the place going," I said.

"In my opinion there is no acute necessity for the place to be kept going, as you express it. I entertain a hope that if you have ever taken part in that orgie, at which every one with the exception of the croupiers looks greedy and hungry, that you will in the future abstain from it. Gambling is the meanest of all vices," he said slowly, and he tapped my arm seven times.

He did not seem to be going anywhere in particular, and as I cannot bear anybody tapping at me, I thought Nina might help to calm him. So I walked down the terrace and introduced her to him suddenly, for he had a reputation for bolting from strange ladies, and I thought it best to leave nothing to chance. But as soon as he saw Nina the cloud disappeared from his face, and his aggressively moral mood changed. In fact I distinctly heard him say "delightful," though I am sure that he did not intend his remark to be audible. He inspected Nina as if she was for sale or on show, but he so clearly approved of her that she did not seem to mind him.

"Won't you sit down?" she said.

"Only on one condition," he answered.

"What is it?"

"That you tell me the name of your dressmaker," but before Nina could speak he had settled himself beside her, and continued: "You are not only successful in being cool but also in looking cool; now I have ten nieces, delightful girls, but they cannot take exercise without rivalling the colour of a peony. They look what I can only describe to you as full-blown."

"But I have not been taking exercise," Nina said.

"That, I suppose, is true," he replied, and forgot promptly what he had been talking about.

After a minute's silence his head began to sink forward, and I was afraid he was beginning to think hard or go to sleep, so I told Nina that it was time for us to go back to the hotel; for much as I liked the Warden I had no wish to watch over him while he slept on the Terrace of the Casino, and I thought that he might expect to find me there when he woke up. Nina held out her hand to wish him good-bye, but he said that he was coming with us, and while we were walking to the hotel I left him to her, for I was debating whether I had better ask him to meet my father and mother or not. I knew that he had offended a great many people who had come to see him in Oxford about their sons, and he was reported to have said that the greatest difficulty in dealing with undergraduates was the parent difficulty. "If I was dictator of Oxford it should be a city of refuge for young men, and no father or mother should be allowed to enter it during twenty-four weeks of the year," was one of the things he was supposed to have said, and if my father happened to get him upon that subject I foresaw trouble.

But the question settled itself, for my mother was sitting on the verandah in front of the hotel and came down the garden to meet us. I had heard the Warden chuckle three times as we had walked up the road, and though I could not imagine how Nina was amusing him, I thanked goodness that he seemed to be thinking about ordinary things.

"I have the pleasure of knowing your brother," he said as soon as he was introduced; "he and I disagree upon every subject I have ever had the privilege of discussing with him."

"I do not think my brother would ever discuss a subject with any one whom he expected to agree with. It would be hardly worth while," my mother answered, and the Warden looked at her quickly.

"Surely the benefit arising from a discussion does not depend wholly, or I may say chiefly, from disagreement upon the subject discussed. A Cabinet Council, for instance, may conceivably arrive at a satisfactory and at the same time an unanimous conclusion."

"My brother would not call that a discussion," my mother answered shortly, and the Warden said "Ah," which meant, I believe, that however the Bishop defined the word discussion, it was useless to discuss anything with ladies.

"You will have some tea?" my mother said, as soon as we had reached the verandah.

"You will excuse me, my absence from the hotel at which I have taken a room for to-night, has already been too prolonged. You drink tea in France, madam?"

"We brought our tea with us."

"Admirable foresight, but it remains for you to see the water boiling," and then as if he knew that he had hurt my mother's feelings and wished to make some recompense, he continued, "The Bishop, madam, is a man for whom I have a most sympathetic regard, neither politics nor pageants divert him from the work he has pledged himself to do; I know of no man more fitted to be a Bishop."

My mother bowed slightly, and said nothing, and really it was not easy to guess from the Warden's tone whether he considered any man fit to be a Bishop.

"We think differently on many subjects, and on one, I may say, I think with perfect truth, we have differed so widely that a little less self-restraint on the one side or on the other would have brought us to the verge of a very vulgar quarrel. The Bishop preaches what is called Humanity, he practises Humanity, he would have a manufactory—which he would manage on a profit-sharing system—for Humanity pills, and make every young man in Oxford swallow two of them every morning. But there is another meaning to the word Humanity which has been lost sight of in this age of upheaval, it is 'classical learning.' Oxford has a duty to perform; it has something to teach in addition to the development of kindly feelings which must be taught at the mother's knee, and grow naturally if they are ever to be effective. We are attacked at Oxford by many kinds of outside influence, and you know enough of young men, madam, to realize that there is no influence which appeals to them so strongly as that which is outside, what I must call, constituted authority. The Bishop, in short, if I judge him with accuracy, thinks that Oxford is the finest playground for the East-end of London which can be imagined by the wit of man. On this point I disagree with him entirely, not from any dislike to the people of the East-end, but from a profound conviction that young men in Oxford, if they are to do their work with success, have already more than enough to occupy their minds."

He leaned forward in his chair and looked hard at me; he did not apparently expect any answer to his oration, but he had touched on a subject which was near my mother's heart, and I felt so uneasy that I moved from my seat and leaned against one of the posts of the verandah.

"Don't you exaggerate what my brother wants?" my mother asked. "He knows too well the value of time to wish to waste that of anybody, and he loves Oxford."

"Too well," the Warden jerked out, as if he was an automatic arrangement and some one had touched a spring.

"I don't think any one could love Oxford too well, and I should be sorry if Godfrey did not learn something from his life there which could help him to sympathize with other people."

I knew that I was bound to be pulled in sooner or later, and I thought of disappearing behind my post and of leaving the Warden to say what he liked.

"The sympathies of your son are already as wide as those of a Charity Organization Society, and, I venture to say, as misdirected," the Warden returned, and seemed to have forgotten that I was standing in front of him, but if he was going to say things about me I decided to stay and hear them. "I find him the most pleasant companion, he has the gift of silence—Meredith wrote—'Who cannot talk!—but who can?'—he is also amusing, always unconsciously. I have great hopes that he may become a man who will not waste his youth in vain struggles with a ball. Had I the power I would banish all balls from England for one short year, the experiment would be entertaining."

"It would result in a national dyspepsia," my mother said, laughing.

"Godfrey would play catch with an orange," Nina remarked.

The Warden looked up and saw me. "An orange bursts," he said. "I must return to my hotel. Would you find me a conveyance, one with a coachman as unlike a furious driver as possible?" he asked, and as Nina came with me he was left alone with my mother. I don't know what he said during those few minutes, but when we got back I found my mother smiling placidly, though when I had gone away I was certain that she disapproved of the Warden most thoroughly.

"The Warden wishes you to dine with him to-night," she said to me, and without waiting for me to reply she went on to say how sorry my father would be to miss him. The Warden began to express regrets at my father's absence, but forgot what he was talking about in the middle of his sentence, and finished up by telling the driver to go very slowly. As he stepped into the vehicle I had found for him, he expressed a fervent hope that it was more robust than it appeared to be.

"What a funny old man!" Nina exclaimed as soon as he had gone, "and what nonsense he talks. He is a dear, but he does look odd!"

"He looks like a gentleman, and is one," my mother replied.

"You didn't like him at first," I said to her.

"I thought he spoke slightingly of your uncle and that he meant all he said, which of course was stupid of me. He was delightful after you had gone, and talked most kindly and sensibly about you, I wish your father could have heard him."

But my father had gone to Rouen and was not coming back until ten o'clock, and I am not sure that he would have liked the Warden, so perhaps it was as well that they did not meet.

My dinner was wearisome, for Miss Davenport, the Warden's sister, was with him, and she talked while I listened. I am sorry to say she was in a very bad temper, and it seemed that the naughty Warden had kept her waiting for two hours during the afternoon. She was by no means in love with France, and though I tried to soothe her I only succeeded in making her sarcastic; I thought the Warden ought to have protected me, but he had known his sister longer than I had, and probably had forgotten that she could make any one suffer. He took no part in the conversation, and most obviously did not listen to it. My mother was disappointed when I told her about the dinner, but I think that she had expected the Warden to give me advice as well as a meal. She had formed the highest opinion of him, and said that he was so wise that he was the only man she knew who could afford to say foolish things. But when my father heard that the foolish things were said about the Bishop he did not believe in the folly of them, for he could not forget that my uncle had once played stump cricket for three hours at a stretch.

When the time came for us to go back to England I could talk French without putting in one or two English words to fill up every sentence, but I did not think that Dover Station was the place in which to be told that I must not be satisfied until I could think in French—though what the station at Dover is the proper place for, I leave to people who are cleverer than I am. I was so glad to get home again that the idea of thinking in French was quite comical. My father and I were going to shoot together, and when he is shooting he forgets all the little grievances with which he has riddled his life and he is—though it makes me blush to confess it—the best companion in the world. If he could only shoot all the year round I believe that Ritualists and Radicals would lose their powers of annoying him, and he might even end by admitting that our long-suffering cook makes curry which is fit to eat, and no more generous admission than that could be expected from an Anglo-Indian.

For nearly three weeks we lived in a state of peace and contentment which none of us thought dull, but during the first week of October I had a letter from The Bradder in which he said that he was on a walking tour and should be passing near our house. There was only one answer for me to give, but I gave it reluctantly, for though I liked him I thought that if he and my father once started upon politics our calm season would be interrupted abruptly.

"Does he shoot?" my father asked, and I said that as he was walking for amusement he would probably only stay a few hours. "We can't treat him like that; tell him to stay a week and send for his gun. For the matter of that he can have one of mine. I don't expect he will be able to hit a haystack," was his reply.

So I wrote again, and to my surprise The Bradder accepted the invitation and appeared a few days afterwards with no marks of the tourist upon him; for there is no mistaking people who are on walking tours, their anxiety to get on stamps itself upon their faces, and their luggage is generally on their backs or in their pockets. He told us that his companion had broken down three days before, and that he had been back to Oxford to get his gun. I never remember having seen anybody who looked quite so fit as he did, and my father, who had a kind of general impression that every tutor in Oxford was anaemic, seemed to be thoroughly pleased with him. Thus I was lulled into a false state of security, for I had intended to warn The Bradder not to speak of politics while he was with us, but as every one took a fancy to him at sight I thought that I need not trouble to say anything.

There was a lot of speculation about The Bradder's shooting, he shot whenever he got the ghost of a chance, but he added more to the noise than to the number of the bag. He tried to persuade my father before he started that he was the worst shot in the world, but he was not believed until he had proved that he had spoken the truth. He was, however, much happier in a bad than in a good place, and he seemed to be perfectly pleased as long as he could see an occasional bird to shoot at. My father said that he was a good sportsman, though had he not liked him he would have called him a rank bad shot.

Two days passed by successfully, and then The Bradder discovered that there was an old abbey near us, and arranged with Nina to go over and see it. Why in the world any one should want to see an abbey when he could shoot at pheasants, was more than my father could understand.

"The abbey will be here the next time you come, let it wait," he said at breakfast.

"I should like to see it," The Bradder replied; "besides, I never kill anything."

"You needn't bother about that."

"I have promised Miss Marten to go, she said she would drive me over," he replied, and any one could see that he didn't mean to shoot.

"As you like," my father said, and told me to be ready in ten minutes, though we were not going to start for an hour.

On the top of this we had a very disappointing day, and finished up by getting wet through, so at dinner there were many more danger signals flying than were usual in the shooting season. The Bradder, however, did not notice them, or if he did he thought them ridiculous, and he amused my mother and Nina very much, which under the circumstances was a grievous offence. I found myself in the position of trying to catch my tutor's eye, so that I could warn him to be careful with my father, and although I realized the comedy of the position I did not appreciate it. To make matters worse The Bradder would not drink any port, and as it was a wine of which my father was proud, he had to say that he never drank any wine at all before his refusal was accepted. Teetotalism in the abstract was a thing which I was encouraged to believe in, but teetotalers, who did not know when to make an exception to general rules, were not approved of at our table when '63 port was before them. Everything seemed to be going most hopelessly wrong, and I was so anxious to get into the drawing-room that I made several exceedingly fatuous remarks.

"You talk like a Radical," my father said in answer to one of them; "you want this changed and that changed, you had better go up to Hyde Park and take a tub with you, if you want to talk nonsense."

"I probably shouldn't get two people to listen to me," I replied.

"Strahan told me yesterday," he went on, "that they are teaching a lot of this Radical tomfoolery in Oxford now; he says his son has come home stuffed with it, thinks agricultural labourers are underpaid and all the rest. Is it true, Bradfield?"

"I should not say that the feeling at Oxford is as out-and-out Tory as it was, but the young Radical is often a very ridiculous man," The Bradder replied, and took a pear off the dish in front of him and began to peel it.

"Always," my father said.

"Not always; he may conceivably be very sane indeed."

"Never."

The Bradder was quite willing to let the subject drop, but his pear was a mistake and prevented me from suggesting that we should go.

"You sympathize with this Radical feeling?" my father asked him.

"To some extent I share it."

"I can't believe it, I really can't—why, the Radicals want to ruin the army, spend no money on the navy, make magistrates of Tom, Dick, and Harry, and top everything by letting Ireland do what it likes. They are a dangerous crew."

"I am not a Home-Ruler, though every one must admit that our way of managing Ireland up to the present has not been fortunate."

"But you wouldn't try experiments with a volcano?"

"I would try any experiment with Ireland which it wants, and which I did not think dangerous," The Bradder said, and he seemed to be wholly occupied in trying to say as little as possible without appearing to be ashamed or afraid of his opinions.

"So you are a Radical, but not a Home-Ruler. Well, from the look of you, I should never have thought it. You can go if you like, Godfrey; I should be glad to talk to Mr. Bradfield for a few minutes; he is the first Radical I have ever liked," and he smiled at The Bradder, anticipating triumph.

I did not go, and I am glad that I stayed, for both of them had to fight hard to keep their tempers, and their struggles fascinated me. From the beginning The Bradder made up his mind to treat the duel lightly, but my father pressed him hard, and occasionally provoked a retort which flashed. For more than an hour they talked, and indignant servants, showing heads of expostulation, had to go away unnoticed. But The Bradder met explosions with what my father called afterwards rank obstinacy, and the man who explodes is naturally angry if he cannot get some one to explode back at him.

"The Warden, from what I have heard of him, would not approve of your opinions," my father said at last.

"He does not meddle with our politics," The Bradder answered.

"He's a wise man," my father returned, and The Bradder laughed.

"The Warden talks about politicians as if they were an army of tuft-hunters, hunting for tufts which they will never find. He refuses to speak seriously about politics."

"The habit of being amused at our failures or cynical about them is becoming too common."

I could not help smiling at the quickness with which the Warden had been toppled off his seat of wisdom, and my father pushed his chair back impatiently.

"The Warden is, I believe, a strong Tory, and reserves his contempt for what he calls 'modern politicians.'"

"I said he was a wise man," my father replied, and the Warden was reinstated.

"He is certainly," The Bradder answered, as we went into the drawing-room.

During the next day I heard from Nina that The Bradder had been denounced as a very dangerous man, all the more dangerous because he was so attractive.

"Father wants him to go," she said.

"He will have to go soon, because term begins in a few days," I answered.

"But why shouldn't a man be a Liberal if he wants to be? We are about a hundred years behind the times down here."

"And had better stay there if we want peace," I added.

"Are you a Liberal?"

"Goodness knows."

"I like a man who knows what he is."

"You mean you like The Bradder; why not say so?"

"Because I meant nothing of the kind. We are going to walk over to Chipping Norbury, if you will come with us."

"I can't. I have promised to call on Mrs. Faulkner, who won't see me."

"Mrs. Faulkner has been rude to mother, and has behaved very foolishly," Nina said, in a way which she considered impressive and I thought humorous.

So The Bradder and Nina went to Chipping Norbury without me, and he stayed for three more days, by which time even my father did not want him to go, though he talked to my mother about him as one of those misguided young men who want England to stand on its head just to see what it would look like.

I found out afterwards that The Bradder described my father to some one as a mixture of cayenne pepper and kindness, and, since there was no harm in it, I passed it on.

"I won't have people making up these things about me," he said, but he chuckled, and I am sure he liked the cayenne pepper part of the mixture.



CHAPTER XX

THE HEDONISTS

Fred Foster's people came back from India during the summer, and he spent all the vac with them, though I tried to make him come to us for the shooting. He had, however, got an idea that Nina did not want him, and nothing I could do was successful in removing it. I told him that Nina had been greatly improved by Paris; I did not like the expression, but I did not see why he should think it ridiculous. Still, if he meant to be obstinate it was no use wasting time in writing letters at which he gibed, so I left him alone.

Jack Ward managed to appease his father, and having done it he set out on a campaign which for thoroughness beat anything I have ever discovered. He went off at the end of July to stay with a tutor who coached him in history and rowing, and he stayed with him until the Oxford term began. The tutor was a rowing blue who did not, from Jack's account of him, mind how little work his pupils did as long as they were ready to go on the river, but Jack assured me that he had read for four or five hours every day. To start with a history coach two years before his schools struck me as being magnificent, but Jack would not hear a word against his way of spending the vac.

"He may not know much history," he said to me when we got back to Oxford, "but he's a rare good sort, and he says I'm a natural oar. Besides, he's a sportsman."

"What's that?" I asked, for I used the word "sportsman" to mean so many things.

"He doesn't bother people; you can play cards if you like, and he has a billiard table. He is a nailer at cork pool."

"Is he?" I said, and asked no more about him, for I have a horror of nailers at any sort of pool, having once been hopelessly fleeced by some of them.

"I won a pot," Jack went on gaily, "in the scratch fours at Wallhead regatta—I rowed in two regattas. Not so bad; and now I've got to go down to the river every day and be coached by men who don't know the difference between an oar and a barge pole. Well, it's all part of the game."

"What's the game?" I asked.

"Look here, Godfrey, something's happened to you. You've gone stupid; it's your game. To buck St. Cuthbert's up, get rid of these confounded slackers, squash them flat, and we are going to do it, you see if we don't. Dennison was drunk last night or pretended to be, and he and his gang invaded a lot of freshers and then asked them all to breakfast. That crowd are no more use to a college than a headache. Fancy coming to Oxford to be ragged by Dennison!"

"It does seem rather futile."

"Futile!" Jack exclaimed scornfully, and then proceeded to say what he called it; "but if you have given up caring what happens I shall chuck up the whole thing," he concluded.

"I have not given up caring, but I have tried once and got laughed at for my trouble. I don't believe you can squash men like Dennison when they once get into a college; they are like black beetles, and you can't get rid of them unless you kill them."

"We can try," Jack said.

"I tried, and most men thought me a fool. The only thing to do is to leave them alone; but the worst of it is that we can't help meeting Dennison at dinners and things. He smiled on me the other day as if I was his best friend."

"He didn't smile at me."

"I think he hates you; I can't get properly hated, when I try to show Dennison I loathe him he smiles. There's something wrong with me somewhere."

"You are too rottenly good-natured."

"I never thought of that," I said.

"That's it," Jack declared; "I saw Lambert hitting you on the back in the quad this morning."

"I told him that if he did it again I should throw Stubbs' Charters at his head," I replied in self-defence.

"But, don't you see, Lambert would never hit me on the back. He is one of the most gorgeous slopers we have got, and twangs his banjo for Dennison to sing what they call erotic ballads. You've not got enough dignity."

"Steady on," I said, for with too much of one thing and not enough of another I was beginning to think that it was about time for him to discover something of which I had the proper amount.

"Don't get angry," he returned, "I only meant to explain why your shot to buck the college up failed. You're too popular, that's it."

I spoke plainly to him.

"It's no use talking like that," he went on; "say you'll help me, and we'll have a go at squashing this ragging lot. It wouldn't matter so much if they could do anything decently, but they are the very men who ought to go and bury themselves because they won't try to do anything. Let us do something first and then have a good wholesome rag, but for heaven's sake let us shut up until we have done it."

Jack had only just left my rooms when, as if to prove what he had said, Lambert strolled in and asked me if I would let him have lunch with me. My table-cloth was laid and I couldn't tell him that I was lunching out, so I told him that Murray was coming. He replied that he liked Murray, and since that had failed I said that I was going to play footer and had very little time, but he answered that he would not be able to stay for more than half-an-hour. Meals with Lambert were apt to get less simple as they went on, for he had a habit of saying that he wanted nothing and then of demanding port with his cheese and liqueurs to save him from indigestion, but I could not get rid of him, so apart from making up my mind that his luncheon should be as short as possible, I left him alone.

He read the paper for a few minutes and then asked me if I did not like his waistcoat. It looked to me like some new kind of puzzle, so I asked him if he had the answer in his pocket, but he was looking at it thoughtfully and did not answer.

"Nice shade, isn't it?" he said presently.

I thought that there was more glare than shade about it and told him so.

"It's unique," he declared, and at last I was able to agree with him.

"Have you called on that man Thornton?" he asked, and stood up so that he could see his waistcoat and himself in the glass.

"I never call on anybody. I have had a lot of freshers to meals, but I don't know Thornton; he is supposed to be cracked, isn't he?"

"Of course he is. We've got a splendid rag on. I thought of it, and Dennison is going to work it out. Do you think this coat fits properly in the back? I met Collier this morning and he swore it didn't."

"What's the rag?" I asked.

Clarkson came in with a message from Murray to say that he could not come to luncheon.

"That's a good job," Lambert remarked.

"I thought you liked Murray," I answered.

"He would not have cared about our rag. I don't suppose Collier knows when a coat fits, he's so fat that a petticoat would suit him better than a pair of trousers."

"Here's lunch," I said, and as soon as I had got him away from the spot where he could examine his clothes, I asked again what was going to happen.

"Thornton is absolutely green, Dennison will be able to do exactly what he likes with him."

"Poor brute."

"I can never make out why you pretend to hate Dennison, he wouldn't mind being friends with you; besides, it makes things very disagreeable for me."

"I don't pretend anything," I said.

"At any rate it's very stupid of you; you are both Mohocks, and ought to be friends."

I thought he had come on a peace mission, so, to prevent waste of time, I said what I thought of Dennison.

"You make a mistake about him altogether," he said. "Got any port?"

"You'll get as fat as Collier if you aren't careful, and it wouldn't suit you a bit," I replied, and stayed in my chair.

"Port doesn't make people fat," but he spoke doubtfully.

"You know best, but I should advise you to be careful. What's the rag?"

He shot his cuffs down and stroked his upper lip, as he always did when he was going to say anything which he thought interesting.

"Dennison is getting it up, which means that it will be jolly well done. He has found out that Thornton knows nothing, so he is teaching him a lot. To begin with, he has invented a society called 'The Hedonists,' which is supposed to get pleasure out of anything extraordinary, and he has filled up Thornton with the idea that he is the very man to be President if we can get him elected."

"Does he believe all that?"

"He believes it all right; Dennison is splendid at that sort of thing. But we must make some opposition, or Thornton might think it was too easy a job, so we are getting Webb to stand against Thornton, and Dennison and I want you to propose him. We thought it would be a chance to show that you didn't mean all that rot you talked about us last year."

"I meant every word of it," I replied, but Lambert shook his head.

"Really you didn't," he said. "Dennison declares that you hate smugs and prigs and the sort of men who wear red ties and baggy trousers. Besides, you have fair rows with the dons yourself. You are made to enjoy yourself; that's all about it, and it is time some benefactor told you so."

"I shan't have anything to do with this rag; it seems to be playing a pretty low-down game on a fresher, and if I can stop it I shall. Tell Dennison that from me," I replied.

Lambert got up and put his fingers into the pockets of his waistcoat. "Don't be a fool, Marten," he said sadly, "if you had thought of this yourself you would have been delighted with the idea; it's so funny."

"Ask Jack Ward to help you."

"Ward! Between ourselves Dennison and I think that Ward is rather a bounder."

"I'll tell him; he will be glad to hear it."

"You make me ill; can't you see that this is too good to miss?"

"You'd better leave this wretched lunatic alone; but if you stand there talking until you spoil the pockets of your waistcoat I shan't help you."

He took his fingers from his pockets and rearranged his tie. "You disappoint me greatly," he said, and strode out of the room.

Our footer match that afternoon was against Oriel, who play soccer better than rugger, so we beat them without much trouble. Fred didn't play for them, because the captain of the 'Varsity team objected to his team playing in college matches, but he watched the game and came back to tea with me afterwards. I wanted to give him a cheque for the fifty pounds I still owed him, for I had just got my year's allowance, and I thought I ought to pay him. But he would not listen to what I said, and only tore up my cheque when I gave it to him. "It's no use," he said, "you will only be short at the end of the year."

That, I knew, was the truth, for economy was a thing which evaded me, however zealously I pursued it.

"But I hate owing you money," I said, "and by the end of the year something may have happened."

He only laughed, and told me that if I couldn't borrow money, which he did not want, from him, I must be a fool, and before I could say any more Jack Ward appeared. Fred and he did not seem to be very pleased to see each other again, and since they always got on my nerves I went into my bedder to finish dressing.

"Been staying with Godfrey this vac?" I heard Jack ask.

"No; have you?" Fred answered.

"Rather not," Jack said; "I've had no time to stay with anybody. I'm trying to become a decent oar, and reading history—it simply takes all the time I've got. I rowed a bit at school, but have never touched an oar for two years until last July."

"It's rather a grind, isn't it?" Fred said; but from that moment he seemed to change his opinion of Jack, and if I could be a fool about some things I feel quite certain that Fred had been bothering his head about nothing for a very long time, which was not very sensible of him. I don't believe that Jack ever understood why Fred disliked him, and after he had pulled Nina out of the river the second time, I think he began to regard her solely as a safe and easy way to a Humane Society's medal. If Fred would only have believed that there are some things which cannot stand repetition, I should have been saved a lot of trouble.

When I went back to my sitter I found that the blight which had always settled upon them when they were together was disappearing quickly. They were talking quite amiably, and although I should have been glad to have said something to show that I noticed the change, I expect that it was prudent of me to be silent. For the first time, as far as I could remember, we met without wondering how soon we could separate, and I had the sort of feeling which I should think a great-grandfather must have when he is celebrating his ninetieth birthday in the presence of his not too numerous descendants. I just sat and felt placid for some time, until I woke up and told Fred that we were supposed to have a mad fresher in college.

"You are always getting hold of freaks," he answered, and I asked him what he meant.

"You've got about half-a-dozen men here whose names look as if they have been turned hind-before; St. Cuthbert's has always been a home for a peculiar brand of potentate."

"Potentate!" I said scornfully; "besides, colour is not everything."

"Prince, if you like." But I knew that he was trying to draw me on, so I said nothing. To hear me in defence of my own college was, I am sorry to say, a great pleasure to him.

"Do you know how this report of Thornton being mad began?" Jack asked. "I'm rather keen on this, and believe it can be made into a much better rag than Lambert and Dennison think. It may be a chance to squash them altogether."

"Lambert has been trying to persuade me to help," I said. "I told him I would have nothing to do with his blessed rag."

"The best of the whole thing is that I don't believe Thornton is a lunatic. Collier says he isn't, and both Learoyd and Murray say he's not mad, but awfully clever or a humorist."

"Murray!" I exclaimed, but Jack was losing the power to astonish me very much.

"He's all right, I met him in Learoyd's room," Jack said, and began to laugh.

"So Thornton isn't mad after all, and you needn't talk about freaks," I told Fred.

"Do you mind hearing about this?" Jack asked him; "it will be splendid if it only comes off. It's like this: Lambert and Dennison are always looking out for freaks"—I wished he would not give Fred such chances to grin at me—"and Thornton's hair sticks up on end, and he never seems to know what he is going to do next. Murray told me that he is like a very good pianist he met once, except that he can't play the piano. At any rate he's odd, and that was the reason why Dennison asked him to lunch. And Lambert, do you know him?"

Fred shook his head.

"He is the kind of man who is built for processions and platforms and Lord Mayors' Shows," Jack explained; "he's gorgeous altogether."

"I saw him at your smoker," Fred said.

"He's one of the sights of the place, and he began to talk to Thornton about champagne."

"He always talks about clothes or wine," I put in.

"Thornton pretended—at least, I'll bet he pretended—to know nothing about champagne. So Lambert told him the best brand was Omar Khayyam of '78, and that by a stroke of luck it could still be got at a place in the High. They thought Thornton swallowed that all right, so Dennison told him that if he couldn't get Omar Khayyam he must get some Rosbach of '82. After that they asked what sort of fly he used for quail; of course the man must have been simply too sick of them to say anything."

"Lambert never told me anything about the champagne," I said.

"I expect that was because he and Dennison nearly had a row about it; he swore that he thought about Omar Khayyam, and Dennison swore that he did—a rotten sort of thing to quarrel about, anyway. I never heard of the man until yesterday. I've often heard of Rosbach," he added.

"What's going to happen now?" Fred asked, and from some cause or other he was shaking with laughter.

Jack told him about the Hedonists, and finished up by saying that he must go to see Thornton.

"What's the good of that?" I asked.

"I want to see if he isn't having a huge joke all to himself; if he is we may as well help him with it."

As soon as Fred had gone away Jack persuaded me to go with him and call on Thornton. He had got hold of a scheme which Murray and Learoyd had started, and as its object seemed to be to score off Dennison I was not going to be out of it. We found Thornton sitting in an arm-chair with his feet on the mantelpiece, and Jack seeing that he was alone sported the oak so that we could not be interrupted.

"I should think," Thornton said, as he pushed his chair back, "that I must have had over thirty men in here to-day. There were seventeen before twelve o'clock. I am thinking of putting a visitors' book in the passage, so that they can write their names and go away. Are you going to back me up to-morrow night?" he asked Jack.

"They have persuaded you to stand?"

"Dennison says it would be such a bad thing for the college if this man Webb got in. Of course it is a great honour for a fresher, but I am used to speaking; we have a debating society at home." He spoke as if the whole thing was not in the least important, and ran his fingers through his hair until it stood straight up on end. It was the sort of hair which looked like stubble.

Jack was so discouraged that he did not know what to say, so I asked Thornton if he expected to be elected.

"There doesn't seem to be any doubt about that; there are only about thirty members, and quite half of them have promised to support me. Webb of course is better known, but in some cases it does no harm to keep oneself in the background until the last moment. Then I shall speak." He seemed to think that his speech would settle everything completely.

I wandered round the room waiting for Jack to bring forward his scheme if he could remember it, but he was sitting on the table sucking at a pipe which had no tobacco in it, so I drifted over to a book-case, and nearly the first book I saw was an edition of Omar Khayyam. This surprised me so much that I turned round to see if Thornton really looked like a lunatic, but I got no satisfaction from him, for I had once seen a man who might have been his brother, and then I had been playing cricket against an asylum. He was lying back in his chair gazing at the ceiling, and I pulled Omar Khayyam out of the case and put it on the table for Jack to see. Then I sat down and waited for results, but I had to make no end of signs before he would take any notice of the book, for he was in such a state of despondency that I believe he thought I was trying to talk on my fingers. At last his eye fell on the book, and after I had nodded furiously at him, he jumped off the table and stood in front of Thornton.

"You read Omar Khayyam?" he said, holding the book in his hand.

Thornton stopped staring at the ceiling and sat forward with his elbows resting on his knees. "Yes," he answered; "at least, I used to until I knew it by heart."

"He's a good brand of champagne," Jack went on.

"Are you a friend of Dennison's?" Thornton asked, and there was a kind of hunted look in his eyes.

"I'm not," I hastened to tell him, and at that moment I looked at my watch and discovered that I had already kept The Bradder waiting for ten minutes, so I had to go just as things were becoming interesting.

Jack assured me afterwards that Thornton was not mad. "But," he added, "he's very odd, and I believe he's in a mortal terror that, unless he goes on pretending to be a fool, these men will do something much worse to him than make him president of a society which doesn't exist. So I've put Murray to speak to him; this will be the talk of the 'Varsity, and I don't see what good there is in keeping prize idiots. I have told him to go on playing up to Dennison for a bit, and then we would help him."

I did not think, however, that it would be very easy to save Thornton, and when Collier and I went to the meeting of the Hedonists on the following evening we agreed that whether he was mad or only very simple, he was sure to be in for a bad time. Although Dennison had moved into some of the biggest rooms in college, they were crowded when we got to them, and it was very difficult to get Collier inside the door. Dennison and a few other men were sitting at a table at the far end of the room, and just as we arrived a fourth-year man got up to speak.

I suppose that his business was to explain why the Hedonists existed. At any rate, he said that it was his duty before he, as the out-going President, broke his wand of office to remind the Society that it existed for two definite objects—the pursuit of pleasure, and the suppression of vulgarity. He then went on to state that Mr. Wilkins, formerly of St. Cuthbert's, had kindly consented to give an account of his travels in Central Africa.

"Formerly of St. Cuthbert's," described Wilkins correctly, for he had been sent down after one term, and since then had been living an alcoholic existence in a farm-house a few miles outside Oxford. His appearance was comical, but he was really a dreadful barbarian, who thought that it was better to gain notoriety as a hard drinker than to be forgotten entirely. He began by telling us that he had never been to Central Africa, and hoped sincerely that he never should go. He also told us that the reason why he was addressing the Society was a rumour that his aunt had met several African explorers at dinner, but he wished to say that she was no more of a lion-hunter than he was. In this way he strove desperately to be amusing, but the struggle was very painful, and I was glad when he had finished.

The President then broke his wand of office, which for some obscure reason was a bulrush painted white, and Thornton and Webb, who had been sitting behind the table, were put up for election and called upon to speak. Webb developed a stammer, and although he had his speech written on his shirt-cuff, no one could hear what he said. He was, however, received with a lot of applause, so that Thornton might think the election was genuine; Dennison had certainly packed the meeting with great care.

Thornton's speech was, in its way, almost too amusing, for I found it very hard to believe that any one who was not more or less mad could possibly make it. He spoke at a tremendous pace, sometimes talking utter nonsense, and then as if by chance saying something almost sensible. Voting-papers were given to twenty-five picked men after he had finished, and Thornton was elected President by fourteen votes to eleven. The meeting finished by Thornton thanking everybody in a voice which sounded tearful, and then he announced that the annual dinner of the Hedonists would be held at The Sceptre on the following Friday evening, at which the ceremonies of inauguration would be held, and he would be the only guest of the Society in accordance with its ancient and honourable traditions.

"Don't you think he is mad?" I said to Jack as I walked across the quad with him.

"The only danger is that they may find out that he is rotting the whole lot of them. He overdid the thing to-night. Come and see Murray."

We found Murray waiting to hear what had happened at the meeting, and from the account we gave him he said that it could not have gone off more successfully. "If you think Thornton mad when you know that he isn't, there is no reason for Dennison to change his mind. Besides, these men are quite certain that he is cracked, and as long as we are careful they won't suspect anything."

"We shall have to be most tremendously careful," Jack said, and he seemed to find the prospect oppressive.

"I'll manage Thornton," Murray continued, "and what you men have got to do is to get asked to this dinner. We shall have to take some others into this."

We sat down and chose several men who disliked the Dennison gang, and who could be trusted not to give our scheme away by talking about it, and during the next few days we had to work hard. Dennison and Lambert, however, were so confident that this dinner was going to be the finest rag ever held in Oxford that they did not mind who came to it. Collier got several invitations for us, because he had a nice solid way of sitting down in a man's rooms and waiting until he was given what he wanted; but apart from Jack it was not difficult for us to get to The Sceptre, and at last even Jack was invited. Murray said that his part was to prepare Thornton, and he refused to go to the dinner, because Dennison might wonder why he wanted to be there. I thought that Murray carried caution to extremes.

I should think that there were nearly forty men at this function; but the only guest was Thornton, so he began by scoring something. It was an elaborate affair; Dennison as Secretary of the Hedonists, and two or three men who called themselves Ex-Presidents, wore enormous badges, and Thornton's shirt was covered with orders and decorations which were supposed to have been worn by eighty-eight consecutive Presidents. How any one who was sane could possibly consent to be made such a fool puzzled me altogether, and it required all Jack's assurances to make me believe that we should not be scored off all along the line.

After the dinner was finished Dennison got up to introduce the President of the year, but all he did was to give a short biography of Thornton, which for impudence was simply terrific. Everything had gone so well up to then that I suppose he could not keep himself in hand any longer; but as he was bounder enough to pull Thornton's people into his speech, he succeeded in disgusting several men who had been helping him in the rag. He finished up by saying that Thornton would give his inaugural address, and that afterwards the historic ceremonies of the Hedonists would be performed.

A man with a voice which was a mixture of a street hawker's and a parish clerk's stood up and chanted, "I call upon Mr. Edward Noel Kenneth Thornton to put on the purple presidential cap and to deliver his inaugural address to this ancient and historic Society." The cap, which had a long black tassel, was then handed to Thornton, and he put it on amidst tremendous applause. It made him look more ridiculous than ever, but he seemed to be perfectly calm when he got up and bowed solemnly in every direction.

"Mr. Ex-Presidents and fellow-members of this justly-celebrated Hedonist Society," he began, and every word he said could be heard plainly, "we are here to-night in obedience to custom and in pursuit of pleasure. Custom is one thing and pleasure is another, but we are fortunate in belonging to a Society which makes its customs pleasant, and which has such skilled hands to guide its pleasures that the word customary fails entirely to describe them." He paused for a moment, and a man near me asked what he was talking about, but Webb answered quickly that he was a hopeless madman, and that the ceremonies would be the real joke. "That I, a freshman," he continued, "should be elected President of this Society fills me with gratitude and even dismay, for I fear that the duties of so distinguished an office will be but inadequately performed during the coming year." Loud cries of "No" followed this remark, and he went on, "You are good enough to disagree with me, and perhaps the ceremonies connected with my office may help me to fulfil my duties. I will tell you what those ceremonies are." Dennison tried to stop him, but he was speaking quickly and took no notice of the interruption. "After my address has been given I put on my robes of office and ride on a mule from here to St. Cuthbert's; I am to be accompanied by the band of the Society, and attended by six men who will carry syphons of Apollinaris water and prevent my robes from being soiled by the dust of the streets. Had I known before I came here that so much honour was about to be showered upon me I do not think that I should have considered myself worthy of being your President. I forgot to say that I am provided with an umbrella." I looked at Dennison, and he did not seem to be feeling very comfortable; Thornton, however, had kept up the role of a madman thoroughly, and had spoken of the ceremonies as if he was quite prepared to carry them out. Some men were shouting with laughter, but Jack was almost pale with anxiety, and whispered to me that he was afraid Thornton would get flurried and finish his speech too soon. As soon as the laughter had stopped he went on speaking, and although he looked terribly pale and bothered, he was never at a loss for words. "I am, I have been told, the eighty-ninth man to fill this important office, and when I think of my predecessors, some of whom have doubtless passed away, I am filled with a sense of my unfitness for the post which I fill. The whole fate of this Society depends upon its President; without him to guide the members in their pursuit of pleasure they would be left to drift into undignified amusements, and might even end by taking such absurd things as degrees. At all cost we must avoid banality." As if in the excitement of the moment, he swept his hands over his head and knocked off his cap. "However, my fellow Hedonists, I think I may say that your last President has entered earnestly into the spirit of this Society. Its aim, you remember, is pleasure—not any vulgar or ordinary pleasure, but refined and exclusive amusement—that is written in the rules of the Society as they were given to me, and I need not remind those who are present to-night that it is their duty to obey them." He rested his right hand on his shirt, and continued quickly, "I, at any rate, have obeyed them to the letter. I have, if I may say so, got more amusement out of this evening than I have ever had in my life, and as your eighty-ninth President I declare this magnificent Society at an end." Dennison, Lambert, and one or two others jumped up, but Thornton told them loudly not to interrupt him, and several of us shouted for him to go on with his speech. "I have had an exceedingly good dinner, and my last word must be one of sympathy with Mr. Dennison, who, thinking that I was a bigger fool than he was, has invented a society of which, I am sure you will all acknowledge, he is the only man worthy to be President. I hope that you will see that he performs the ceremonies which he has arranged for me." As he finished he took off all his badges and tossed them across the table to Dennison.

There was a good deal of noise during the concluding sentences of his speech, but the so-called Hedonists were so astonished that they did nothing, and Thornton very prudently did not wait to see what would happen next. Dennison was in a miserable state because he was violently angry and trying to grin, and before the general hubbub had stopped, two men out of our eight, who had never forgiven him for laughing at their rowing, picked him up and carried him out of the room. In a minute Dennison, with the purple cap on his head, was sitting on the donkey, and a procession had started to St. Cuthbert's. When we got back to college we succeeded in taking possession of the porter who answered our knocks, and in getting both the moke and Dennison into the quad. I was so engaged with the porter that I did not see whether Dennison entered in state, but at any rate he had to ride round the quad two or three times, and crowds of men were there to see him do it. Finally, the Subby and The Bradder appeared, and gave orders that the donkey should leave the college; so as soon as Dennison had dismounted, his steed was handed over to its owner, who was waiting in the street. Then some of us paid a call on the porter to see if he could develop a bad memory for faces, but the only thing we found out from him was that his temper was bad, and that we had known before. As I went back to my rooms I met Lambert, who drew himself up in front of me as if he was on parade.

"Don't think," he said, "that you have heard the last of this."

"We shall never hear the last of it," I answered,

"We know that you played this dirty trick."

"You can know what you please," I said.

"I told you about Thornton, and then you prepare this behind our backs."

"The whole college, and nearly the whole 'Varsity knew about Thornton, so you needn't talk such rot to me. Crowds of out-college men were here to see him come in to-night."

"You arranged the whole thing."

"You may think whatever you like," I replied; and he strode away with a warning that I had better look out for myself.



CHAPTER XXI

ONE WORD TOO MANY

The collapse of the Hedonists placed me in a very curious position, for by some freak of fortune an idea spread through the 'Varsity that I had been responsible for it, and whenever I went to Vincent's I was always button-holed by men who asked me to tell them what had happened. It was almost as bad as Nina falling into the "Cher," for a tale thirty times told is as flavourless as sauce kept in an uncorked bottle. I could not say that Murray was the man to explain the whole thing, for he was most extraordinarily anxious that his name should not be mentioned. I thought that he carried discretion beyond the bounds of decency, but Jack said that if it had not been for him we should never have made a fool of Dennison, and this was so far true that I stopped myself from making one or two forcible remarks. The immediate result of our procession was that a great many people seemed to be incoherently angry. I had interviews with both the Warden and the Subby, and I am sorry to say that our porter had told them that I had hit him in the ribs. I had done nothing of the kind, but it was necessary that he should be taken for a short walk, and I did put my arm through his and keep myself between him and the donkey until it was safely in the quad. I am sure that the Warden understood that I would not hit any one in the ribs, and I think his annoyance was due chiefly to the fact that some one had told a reporter a lot of things which were not true, and there were accounts of the Hedonists in some of the London papers. But the fact of a donkey being in our quad had got on the Subby's nerves, and he gated me for a month without listening to what I had to say. He also told me that I ought to consider myself very lucky not to be sent down for the term. Several other men, including Dennison, were gated for a fortnight, and I had great difficulty in keeping Jack from going to the Subby, to ask him if he would not do something to him. It was very silly of Jack to think of pushing himself into this row, but instead of thanking his stars that he had not been seen, he was furious with me when I told him to keep away from the Subby; and a lot of other men in St. Cuthbert's who would have been glad to help in squashing Dennison, were angry because they had never been told of our plans.

Collier, who had not been gated, told me by way of comfort that virtue is its own reward, but if this is true, I really think that virtue is badly handicapped, and that those who practise it should get something more substantial to satisfy them. I began to think that if ever there was another attempt to do anything for the college I should be too busy to take any part in it. There was, however, one thing which cheered me during these days of bad temper, and that was a report that Dennison and Lambert were vowing vengeance upon me. I hoped most sincerely that they would try to do something, for I should have received them with pleasure. But their threats never came to anything, for as the days passed by and every one knew how completely they had been scored off, their desire for revenge seemed to wane. Ridicule smothered them, and try as they would to live it down, their influence, as far as the college was concerned, disappeared entirely. Some of the set pulled themselves up and became more or less silent, while others continued to shriek at night, and to go to the theatre for the purpose of making a row, which seems to me to be nearly the end of all things.

In a week the Hedonists were almost forgotten, and when the storm had blown over, Murray was not so anxious that I should have all the credit of having caused it. But by that time no one cared to know who had thought of preparing Thornton for the dinner, and Murray treated me as if I had robbed him of something. I think he must have been working too hard, or suffering from some secret illness, for I had already told a hundred men that it was not in me to make a plot of any kind, and that if I had been responsible for this one it would never have been successful. Murray's indignation came too late to have any effect, and as I thought he was quite unreasonable I made no attempt to pacify him.

After things had settled down again no one could help seeing that the fall of Dennison and his friends had done no end of good to the college. The men who can be only described as absolute slackers do not often get the chance of having any influence in a college, but for some reason or other Dennison had become the fashion among a certain set in St. Cuthbert's, and if we were ever to do anything properly again it was time for the fashion to change. There are many ways of making yourself conspicuous in Oxford, and Dennison chose the one which the majority of men never have been able to put up with. I think St. Cuthbert's during my first two years had most unusually bad luck; we were suffering, like the agricultural interest, from years of depression, and we tobogganed down the hill instead of trying to pull ourselves to the top of it again. I suppose other colleges have their troubles, but while I was at Oxford no college had such a desperate struggle as St. Cuthbert's.

My interviews with The Bradder during the first two or three weeks of this term were most strictly business-like. I was afraid that he would speak to me of the Hedonists, and as I had no intention of saying a word to him about them I never stayed with him longer than I could possibly help. Dons, however, find out things without asking undergraduates, and the man who imagines that they are not troubling themselves about him is in danger of having rather a rude awakening, if he happens to be doing things which do not please them. Our dons must have known all about Dennison, and I believe they fixed their eyes most steadfastly upon him. At any rate, his father, who was a barrister, must have heard something, because he paid a surprise visit to Oxford. There is something horribly mean about surprise visits, whatever information may be got from them, and for the first time in my life I felt a little sympathy for Dennison.

Whether his father thought this visit successful or not I do not know, but he certainly found out a lot in a short time and came to a very definite decision. He called on Dennison at ten o'clock and found him sleeping, he called again at twelve o'clock with the same result; at one o'clock he discovered him sitting at breakfast in his dressing-gown. Lambert was unfortunate enough to hear some of the interview which followed, and he said that Dennison's defence was very clever, but that he broke down under cross-examination.

"I have never seen such a man as old Dennison," I heard Lambert telling some one in the common-room; "he looked like a piece of marble, and when I went in and wanted to bolt he treated me as if I was an office-boy, and said that as he believed I was a particular friend of his son's it would do me good to stay. The worst of it was that Dennison wasn't very well, and was having a pick-me-up with his brekker. He wasn't in bed until four this morning, so it's no wonder he didn't look very fit."

On the following afternoon Dennison left Oxford; he was not sent down by the dons, but had to go for the simple reason that his father said he would not let him stay any longer. His friends took him down to the station, and there was a procession of cabs and a noise, but I am sure that there was a feeling of relief in the college when he had gone. Jack and I told each other that we were sorry that his end had come so suddenly, although if any one had asked me what I meant, I am sure that I could not have given any explanation. It is not very hard to guess what would have happened to him if his father had not acted as he did, and if you have to leave Oxford abruptly I should think the best way is to be hurried off by your people; it must save so many explanations when you get home.

What happened to Dennison I cannot say; somebody said that he was going round the world or on to the Stock Exchange, but Lambert denied both these reports, and declared that he had reformed so violently that he had become a teetotaler and intended to wear a blue riband in his button-hole. I doubted the blue riband part of the story, and if Dennison ever wore one I think it would only be on Boat-race day, for it takes a tremendous lot of courage to wear a badge of any kind.

After Dennison had disappeared, Jack and I saw The Bradder nearly every day. His keenness on the college increased instead of wearing off with time, and he seemed to be exactly the right kind of man to be a don. His energy was really terrific, and I received more goads than I could endure conveniently, so I passed some of them on to Jack and chose those which I liked the least, not, I am afraid, the ones which Jack might be inclined to receive with patience.

The Bradder persuaded me to join both a Shakespearian and a Browning Society, and as I could not plunge into such things by myself I dragged Jack with me. The Shakespearian Society was pleasant enough, but after two meetings of the Browningites Jack said flatly that he would not go again. Some of the Browning men objected to the windows being opened, and it is very difficult to keep awake in a stuffy room when you have been taking hard exercise in the afternoon. Jack, at any rate, snored so loudly at the second meeting that he shocked the President, and when he woke up he interrupted a discussion by giving a very fluent lecture on the advantages of ventilation. I expect that he would have been turned out of the society if he had not resigned, and I ought not to have dragged him into it, for he was so violently bored by the whole thing that he declared he must have a little pleasure to make him forget all about it.

"Something in the open air," he said to me, when he came to my rooms on the morning after he had snored, and he looked at a volume of Stubbs' Constitutional History as if he was very tired of it. I was also feeling rather dull, for I had already got through a fortnight of my gating, and to be kept in college after nine o'clock night after night is not very exciting.

"A little change is what we want," Jack went on, as I said nothing.

"I can't do much," I answered; "I'm gated and you have got to row."

"I've got a day off to-morrow; the stroke of my boat has to go to town and bow's ill."

"Why not have a day's hunting?" I asked.

"There is a little race-meeting down below Reading; you pulled me into that Browning thing and it is only fair for you to come to this."

"But I shan't be back in time."

"It's only about twenty miles beyond Reading, and there's no footer match, because I've looked to see. Let's get Bunny Langham and have a rest, it will do us all no end of good. Bunny is going in for politics—his father was President of the Union, and he has got to be, if he can. I should think that there are more Presidents of things in Oxford than any other place in the world, unless it's Cambridge; but Bunny will stick some of his own poetry into his speeches, and the men at the Union don't like it. You can tell him that if ever he expects to be President he must stop that game, he takes no notice of what I say about poetry. You'll come?"

We looked up trains and found out that we could be back by half-past six, so I said that I would go, and Jack went off to see Bunny Langham. As far as racing was concerned the Horndeane meeting was not very interesting, for there was not a close finish in any race which I saw, but if any one has a fancy for picking up very inexpensive horses I should advise them never to miss Horndeane.

I was strolling about with Bunny and Jack after one race, and saw the winner of it brought out for sale. It fetched a hundred and sixty guineas, and Jack said it was "dirt cheap." Then another horse was put up, and I was surprised to hear some one bid ten guineas. Such an offer seemed to me ridiculous for a race-horse, so without thinking, and just to help things on a bit, I said "eleven," and strolled on with Jack; but before we had gone far some one was asking my name, and another man was asking me what I wished him to do with the horse. So many questions bothered me, and I tried to explain that I had made a mistake when I had said "eleven," but it seemed as if such mistakes did not count for much.

"The horse is yours," one man said.

"And he's got the temper of a fiend," the other man added, "and I should like you to find some one to take him at once."

I was quite prepared to give him away if I could find any one foolish enough to have him, but Bunny wouldn't hear of it, and declared we would take him back to Oxford with us. "He may be a gold mine, who knows?" he said.

Jack laughed so much, that while I was surrounded by a lot of impatient people he was unable to help me at all, and I can tell those who have never had to suffer as I did, that to become an owner of a race-horse suddenly is a very awkward experience.

My brute was called "Thunderer," and the man who had got hold of him said that his name was the only good thing about him, for he roared like the sea. I wished heartily that some one would steal my horse, but every one seemed to be most distressingly anxious to keep as far away from him as possible.

I suppose Bunny knew all about racers, for in a few minutes he had arranged for a horse-box to be put on our train, and Thunderer disappeared. I seemed to spend the remainder of the afternoon in being asked for money by people who said they had done or were going to do something for me. I found that my exalted position brought many burdens with it, and I was very glad when we left the race-course. Unfortunately, however, we trusted to Bunny's watch, and when we got to the station, which was on a little branch line, our train to Reading had gone. There had been some bother about the horse-box, and the station-master and a number of people who took an unabating interest in me were quarrelling when we arrived. I sat down on a bench and left Bunny to talk to them; I have never been so tired of anything in my life.

Even if the next train was punctual we had to wait for an hour, and by no chance could we reach Oxford before half-past seven. We should have been annoyed in any case, but Jack and I were very irritated because the Mohocks were meeting that evening, and we had men dining with us. The only thing to do was to telegraph and ask some one to look after our guests until we came, but the station had no telegraph-office, and if we wanted to send a telegram we had to go down to the village.

A porter assured us that we could get to the post-office in ten minutes, and that the road was quite straight. I don't know what he was thinking about, possibly of a bicycle and daylight, for the way to the village needed a lot of finding, and it took us quite half-an-hour to reach the post-office. By that time a thick fog had risen. We tried, and failed, to get any kind of vehicle to take us back to the station, so we started to run and lost our way. The natural result was that we missed another train, and the stationmaster, who must have had an especial dislike for me, had not sent on the horse-box, and was more angry than ever. Of all the obstinate people in the world I think a station-master at a small station can be easily first, and our efforts to soothe him produced no effect whatever. Everything he said began with "I know my business," and I have always been inclined to doubt people who try to crush me with such unnecessary information.

We got away eventually, but my misfortunes were not finished. Our train was very late at Reading and there was no longer any chance for me to be in college by nine o'clock. Jack, too, was bothered about the men whom he had asked to dinner, and Bunny alone remained in a state of unruffled contentment.

When the train came at last I got into a carriage with only a glance at the people in it, and tried to go to sleep, but Bunny kept on talking about Thunderer and had magnificent schemes for my future benefit. I regret to say that he was in what must have been a sportive mood, and asked me to choose my racing colours and my trainer. He kept up a long series of questions which I did not answer, but which prevented me from going to sleep. I opened my eyes reluctantly and saw Jack slumbering in a corner, but when I looked at the man opposite to me I became most thoroughly awake. This man, as far as I remember anything about him when I got into the carriage, had his head buried in a newspaper; now he was revealed as Mr. Edwardes, and having wished me "good-evening," he added—quite superfluously—that he was surprised to see me.

Bunny with more curiosity than good manners put on his glasses to look at Mr. Edwardes, and I, having to say something, thought that I might as well introduce them to each other, though I took care to mumble Bunny's name so that it could not be heard. Mr. Edwardes bowed and opened his paper again, but Bunny having arrived at the fact that I was face to face with a don of some kind, thought he would try to pass the time pleasantly. Considering what he had already said about race-horses nothing could have been more fatuous than his attempts to explain why I was not in Oxford. He began by talking about British industries, and in a minute was saying that he thought a visit to Huntley and Palmer's biscuit manufactory was well worth a visit to Reading. I kicked and nudged him incessantly, for the snubs which he received from Mr. Edwardes only seemed to encourage him.

The distance between Reading and Oxford is happily not great, but by the time we had finished our journey I was in a state of profound discomfort, and though I had no love for Mr. Edwardes, I thought that Bunny might have had the sense to know that if he was amusing himself he was making things more difficult for me. His explanation was that a man who looked like a frozen image was just as likely to believe that I had been inspecting Huntley and Palmer's manufactory as buying a race-horse, and at any rate it was a good thing to try and mix him up a little, but I can't say that I thought the explanation a good one.

When we got to Oxford a man from a livery-stable was waiting for Thunderer, and Jack and I reached St. Cuthbert's just as the Mohocks were coming back to college after playing pool. It was half-past ten before I could explain things to the men whom I had asked to dine with me, and when they heard that I had been buying a race-horse they thought that my excuses were good enough.

The Bradder was dining with the Mohocks that evening, and when the out-college men had gone away he asked me to come to his rooms and have a smoke. I looked at Jack, and The Bradder said at once, "Ask Ward to come with you," and walked off across the quad.

We told him exactly what we had been doing, and I think Mr. Edwardes would have been rather surprised to see how he laughed.

"What would Colonel Marten say if he knew you had bought a race-horse?" he asked me.

"I hope to goodness he never will know," I answered.

"What are you going to do with him?"

"Sell him—if I can; Langham's got him in the stables where he keeps his horses, and if you would like to have a look at him, I'll take you round."