Murray was in my rooms one night just before the end of the term, and I was talking over my difficulties, for he was always hard-up himself and not likely to offer to lend me anything, when a note was brought in from Fred, and the first thing which fell out of the envelope was a cheque for fifty pounds. I did not know what to think of that, but the note upset me altogether.

"Dear Godfrey," Fred wrote, "you told me some time ago that you were hard up, so I am sending you a cheque in case you want it. My people have just sent me more money than I shall use this year, and you can pay me back when you like. I am afraid I shan't be able to come down to you after the 'Varsity match, as I have promised to go with a reading party to Cornwall for two months. I believe the only thing to do down there is to play golf, which isn't much fun, but Henderson is coming, and we shall try to get some cricket. Please remember me to your people. Yours ever, F. F.

"P.S. I suppose you won't come down to Cornwall; the men are all right, five of them."

Now Fred had spent nearly all his school-holidays with me, and since we had been at Oxford he had been down for both vacs, so for him to write and say calmly that he had made arrangements to go on a wretched reading party and then to ask me in a postscript to join it, made me want to go to Oriel at once and speak to him. But, fortunately, it was nearly eleven o'clock and I could not get out of college, so as Murray had gone back to his room I went along the passage to work off some of my agitation on him. Murray, however, was one of those annoying men who know exactly when they have had enough of anybody, and I found his oak sported. I beat upon it for some time without any result, and having told Murray my opinion of him in a voice loud enough to penetrate almost anything, I went back to my own rooms and sat down to write to Fred. In the course of an hour I wrote and tore up several letters. Some of them I intended to be dignified, some of them were abusive; in some I kept the cheque, but in most of them I sent it back; in one I enclosed it with the words, "you will find the cheque you were good enough to offer me;" that was the first I wrote, for I was quite incapable of even thanking him until the labours of the imposition which I had set myself began to tell upon me.

I had just torn up the seventh letter, and after a desperate struggle whether I should begin the eighth "Dear Fred" or "Dear Foster" had compromised matters by writing "Dear F. F.," when Jade Ward began to yell my name down in the quad, and I went to the window at once and told him to shut up. For the Warden's house was in the back quad, and although I was pleased to think the Warden my friend I knew he always slept with his window open, because he had told me so in a very great outburst of confidence, and I did not want my wretched name to break in upon his night's rest. I had not got so many dons on my side that I could afford to make the Warden angry; besides, I really liked him, and he was always nice to me, though he did tell the Bishop in the Easter vac that, until I lost a certain exuberance of animal spirits, any credit I did to the college would be more physical than intellectual. But I did not bear him any grudge for that, because he could not help using long phrases, and if he had just said that I liked athletics I should have been rather pleased, which was what he really meant, only the Bishop did not think so.

I shoved the fragments of my letters into a drawer, and when Jack Ward came in I said I was going to bed. The sight of him reminded me of Nina, and to think of Nina gave me a headache. I had never imagined it possible that I should find it difficult to manage her, and here she was at the bottom of all my troubles. As I stood in my room and looked at Jack sitting in my most comfortable chair, the reason why Fred had written that note suddenly occurred to me. Of course she was the reason, and leaving Jack to amuse himself I sat down and wrote another note; but when I read it through it seemed as hopeless as the others, so I tore it up, and having no more note-paper I decided to see Fred in the morning. Then I went into my bedroom and began to undress noisily, so that Jack might know what I was doing, but he gave a huge snore just as I was ready to go to bed and I had to throw a cushion at his head.

"Turn the lamp out, when you go," I said, and I got into bed. I left the door partly open, because my room wanted all the air it could get, and I heard him waking up slowly and stretching himself. After that he attacked a soda-water syphon until it gave a protesting gurgle.

"I've found the whisky, but you don't seem to have any soda," he called to me, but I pretended that I was asleep. However, he ransacked my cupboard until he found another syphon, and then he came and sat on my bed. I told him I was very tired, because I had not forgotten the last time he had invaded me in this way, and two doses of talking about love would be a trial to any man.

"I wanted to talk to you, only you were so busy, and then I went to sleep," he began.

"Well, cut it short, it must be nearly one o'clock."

"Your people have asked me to stay with them in the vac, and I want to know what time would suit you best."

He had cut it far too short to suit me, and I asked him not to sit on my foot, which he was not sitting upon, so that I could think for a moment. Then I turned my face to the wall. But I brought myself round pretty quickly, and felt very displeased with Jack. Things were much worse than I thought they were, if he could throw away all decency and simply insist on coming. Had I wanted him I should have asked him.

"I had a letter from Mrs. Marten this morning, asking me to settle the time with you," he said.

"Any time will suit me," I answered, "except that I may go away with a reading party, and I am afraid you will find it most awfully slow."

"I shan't find it slow," he asserted with conviction.

"There's nothing much to do except loll about," I said.

"That will suit me down to the ground," he said, and I turned over once more. It isn't much good talking to a man who confesses that he likes lolling about; but I thought I would make things out as bad as possible.

"We do nothing but slack down there," I said; "there's not much cricket, and we only keep one fat cob, which is a sort of horse-of-all-work."

"Got a river?"

"A sort of glorified brook."

"And a boat?"

I had to say that we had a boat, but I explained that it was very old.

"That's all right," he said most cheerfully, and I believe he would have been pleased if I had told him that we lived in a barn with several holes in the roof.

He was beginning to think it was time for him to go to bed, when I heard somebody else blunder into my sitter, and in a moment Lambert appeared at the door. Now Lambert, who was only gorgeous by day, frequently became aggressive at night, and I told him to clear out jolly quickly. But instead of doing what he was wanted to he lit a huge cigar, and began smoking the thing in my bedder. He also made a number of stupid remarks about my personal appearance, and though I hate getting out of bed when once I am comfortable I really could not put up with the man, for he compared me to several people, ancient and modern, who suffered from various defects. Jack Ward told him several forcible things, but he went on insulting me, and then cackled as if he had made a joke. So at last I hopped out of bed, and he, escaping from my bedder, continued to cackle in the next room; I just stopped to put on a pair of shoes, and then I went after him; he ran down the dark staircase as hard as he could, and I, anxious to give him one kick, for the sake of honour, pursued him. Both of us got safely to the bottom of the stairs, and I fairly raced him across the back quad, but just as we were going into the front one Lambert stopped suddenly and doubled back, while I was running so furiously that I did not turn quickly enough, and before I could follow him I saw another man standing in front of me with a little straggly beard and great big spectacles. We looked at each other, and then I gave up thinking about Lambert and walked back to my rooms; there was a horrid wind, and I shivered in my pyjamas as I went back to my staircase. Lambert seemed to have disappeared altogether, but I met Jack striking matches and groping his way down.

"Did you catch him?" he asked.

"Just like my luck," I answered. "I met the Subby."

"What's he doing at this time of night?"

"That's what he will ask me to-morrow if he recognized me. There wasn't much light."

"He ought to have been in bed."

"I don't believe dons ever go to bed," I replied. "Give me a match, so that I can get up without breaking my neck."

The next morning Lambert came round while I was at breakfast. He was full of apologies and hopes that the Subby had not recognized me.

"He told me that he sleeps so badly, that he often gets up in the middle of the night and takes a walk," he said, without the slightest regard for truth.

"Then there is no reason why I shouldn't take a run if I like," I replied.

"But you were shouting," he said, as if he wished I had not been.

"I'm a somnambulist, only I somnambulate faster than most people."

"I'm afraid that won't wash," he said, and he started striding up and down my room until he found he was always coming to a wall, and then he stopped in front of the looking-glass, and stared earnestly at himself. "Can't we think of anything better than that?" he asked.

"Doesn't your own face help you?" I asked, and he turned round slowly.

"One of my front teeth has got a chip off it," he said.

"By Jove!" I answered, for Lambert both the last thing at night and the first thing in the morning, was too much for me.

"But about the Subby?"

"He hasn't sent for me yet. Just poke your head out of the door and yell for Clarkson; yell, don't think you are singing."

He did yell, and I had breakfast cleared away.

"I am afraid he must have seen you if you saw him," he went on, and the bulk of the man seemed to cover up all my mantelpiece.

"Get out of the light, I want some matches," I said. "Perhaps he saw you."

"No, I caught a glimpse of his beard coming round the corner."

"I wish men wouldn't come and talk rot to me in the middle of the night."

"I have apologized for that; of course I shall tell the Subby it was my fault."

"You are a big enough fool to do anything," I retorted, but he only smiled at me, and after helping himself to a cigarette he went away.

About half-past ten I got a wretched notice from the Subby to say he wished to see me at one o'clock, and I decided to stay in my rooms to work, and not to go round to Oriel until the afternoon. My work however, was sadly interrupted, for as soon as I had really settled down, and I settle down slowly, Dennison came in to condole with me about my bad luck, but when I told him that I had got to go to the Subby I caught him grinning, which exasperated me. So he soon disappeared, and then Jack Ward came, and after he had gone I went and had a talk with Murray. I have never known a morning go so quickly.

I had scarcely looked at the Subby's notice when I got it, for I only read the time I was to go to him, and then shoved the card into my pocket; but at one o'clock I went off to see him, wondering how I could explain matters best. On my way across the front quad I met Lambert and Dennison lounging about arm-in-arm; they wished me luck, and I told them to go to blazes. I simply hate men who can't stand without propping themselves up, the one against the other.

I knocked at the Subby's door without having made up my mind why I had been running about in pyjamas at one o'clock in the morning; the somnambulist tale did all right to annoy Lambert, but I was not such an idiot as to try it on a don. I had to knock twice before he told me to come in, and when he saw me he only said "good-morning." So I said "good-morning" and waited.

"What is it?" he asked, when he discovered that I did not want to go to some impossible place because my teeth ached, or my great-aunt wanted me.

"You sent for me," I said.

"No," and he shook his head until a lock of hair fell over his forehead.

"At one o'clock."

"I didn't send for you."

"I have the notice in my pocket," and I took it out and looked at it. Then I saw that some one had been scratching at the top of the card, but they had done it very neatly.

"Some one has been having a joke with you," he said, and he smiled as if he thought it a better joke than I did.

"They will be watching for me to come out," I said, and I took my courage in my two hands.

"I suppose they will," he answered, "but I don't want to know their names."

"I didn't mean that," I replied.

"What did you mean?" he asked, and I thought he was behaving splendidly.

"I wish you would ask me to lunch if you aren't engaged," I said, "and then they will have to wait for longer than they bargained."

"Of course," he answered, "they certainly deserve to wait."

I enjoyed that meal very much, the Subby only wanted knowing a little and then he became quite a good sort, and I think he was amused at a fresher calmly asking himself to luncheon with him, but it ought to have shown that I had a certain amount of confidence in him, for even I could not have asked myself to a meal with Mr. Edwardes. I doubt, however, if he ever thought of it in that light, for he had been Subby for five rather troubled years, and had so much to do with dealing with men who did things they ought not to have done, that he could have had no time to wonder why they did them.

We began by condemning practical jokes, which was very tactful of him; he said that he knew only one good practical joke, and that was played upon himself, but he would not tell me what it was though I promised that I would never try it on anybody. Then we talked about all sorts of things, until I had been with him nearly an hour, and the conversation was inclined to droop.

"Do you sleep very badly?" I asked, because I had heard several dodges for getting rid of insomnia, and I should like to have done something for him.

He blinked at me for an instant, and I think he was wondering what I was driving at, for I suppose it would not do for a Subby to sleep too soundly. "I am thankful to say I have never been troubled with sleeplessness," he said, and he looked rather drowsy at that moment.

"Some men do tell the most awful lies," I meant to say to myself, but somehow or other I said it much louder than I intended.

But he took no notice, and after thanking him very much I left him, feeling that I had another ally; but it is never prudent to reckon upon a man who has to look after the conduct of the college, he gets worried and then does not understand things quite right.

Lambert's head was poking out of Learoyd's window as I went back through the front quad, and thinking that I might as well get this thing finished off at once, I ran up-stairs and found Dennison and him in possession of Learoyd's rooms.

"Much of a row?" Dennison said, with a kind of sickly sarcastic smile which meant that he had scored off me pretty badly.

"Row?" I asked.

"Was the Subby furious?"

"I have been lunching with him," I answered; "I hope your lunch was not spoilt by waiting for me to come out."

They did not know what to say to this, so Dennison went on smiling and Lambert stroked his upper lip with one finger.

"You were nicely scored off," Dennison said at last.

"I had a jolly good lunch," I replied.

"Dennison doesn't make a bad Subby, and I imitate his writing pretty well," Lambert said.

"The Subby himself must decide that, when he finds out who was ass enough to buy a beard like his."

This reduced them to silence again, until Lambert said that he did not see how anybody could find out.

"The Subby is much more wide-awake than you think. I wouldn't care to be in Dennison's place, he has just done the one thing which dons can't stand. However, the Subby is a rare good sort, and I shouldn't wonder if he let the thing drop, especially as it is the end of term," I said.

"You looked fairly sick this morning," Dennison remarked, but he was more vicious and less smiling than he had been at the beginning.

"You took me in all right," I acknowledged, "and I hope you won't hear any more about it."

"What did you tell the Subby?" he asked.

"Not much," and if he was fool enough to think that there was any chance of the Subby trying to find out anything, I thought I had better leave him to his doubts, so I went round to my rooms, and having got a straw-hat, I started off to see Fred; and fortunately I found him at Oriel trying to make his cricket-bag hold more things than it was meant to hold. He did not look particularly pleased to see me, but I have never yet met a man who can pack and be in a good temper at the same time.

"Where are you off to?" I asked, for there were still some days before the end of the term.

"I am going to Brighton to-night with Henderson."

"How did you manage to get leave?"

"We have both been seedy, and Rushden wanted us to go before we play Surrey again. In my last three innings I've made seven runs, and I should think Rushden begins to wish he had never given me my blue. I don't feel as if I should ever make another run."

"Your dons must be good sorts," I said.

"They're all right," he answered, and he sat down in a chair by the window and looked so unlike himself that I knelt down on the floor and took everything out of the bag. Then I packed my best, which must have been worse than anybody else's except Fred's, and when I had finished, though the bag still bulged and was not a thing to be proud of, it did not bulge so very badly; at any rate Fred said it would do, but when I looked at him again I forgot entirely that I had intended to be angry with him.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"Nothing to speak of. I've had a cold and a headache, and just rotten little things like that. Brighton will cure me," but he didn't speak as if he cared whether it did or not.

"You've got to come to us directly that reading party is over or I won't have this cheque, and if I don't take the cheque I shall be in an awful hole," I said, for I can't lead up to things.

"I would very much rather not come," he answered.

"Why?"

"Oh, I don't know," he said, and then he got up and gave the bag a kick which, landing on a bat, hurt his toe. "You're the best fellow in the world, Godfrey, but you don't understand."

"There is something odd the matter with you, or you wouldn't say that. We don't say things like that to each other."

"Won't you come down to Cornwall?"

"No, I won't."

"Is Ward going to stay with you?"

"My people have asked him."

"And is he going?"

"He seems to think he is. I told him the boat was rotten and the cob fat, and that there was nothing on earth to do," I added most stupidly, but I had no idea then that any one could really be troubled by things which had never affected me in the least.

"And he is going all the same," Fred said, and he did not look a bit more cheerful.

So I sat forward in my chair and talked to him. It does not matter what I said, but I kept clear of Nina, and told him my people would be desperately sick with him, which made him uncomfortable, because he and my mother liked each other very much. I also told him that he was treating me badly; but I soon had to drop that, because he did not seem to think that it would make any difference how he behaved to me. However, I stirred him up, and if ever a man wanted stirring up he did; so at last he promised that he would come to us in September and stay until the end of the vac, if he was wanted. I told him that if no one else wanted him I always should; but this remark did not appear to cheer him up at all, and I began to think he must be bilious. I know that whenever I had a cold at one of my private schools, the wife of the head-master always said it came from eating too much. But she was a curious woman with a large imagination, and when I wouldn't eat boiled rice and rhubarb-jam she told me that it was rice that made the niggers such fine men; this, however, did not have the effect upon me which she desired, for I was only eight years old, and had got an idea that if I agreed to eat rice I should become black. That lady has made me think ever since that from whatever cause an illness comes it is never from over-eating.

So I soon rejected the theory of Fred being bilious, though any reason for his unfitness except Nina would have been welcome. After a few minutes spent in the unsatisfactory pursuit of finding out that my batting average for St. Cuthbert's was 2.4, which I discovered not for my own gratification but to please Fred, Henderson came in, looking more freckled than ever and not in the least ill.

"You have got to come to Cornwall with us, hasn't he?" he said at once.

"The brute won't come," Fred said.

"You will have to; you know all the men, and they all want you to come. We will have a rare good time—only Fred and Hawkins have to work hard, the rest of us are not going to do much."

"I have to work all the vac," I said sorrowfully, and Fred, who had smiled at my average, began to laugh once more, and he really seemed to be much more cheerful when I saw him and Henderson off at the station, than he had been earlier in the afternoon.

The last few days of the term were terribly dull, because some of us had to do collections, and my papers did not altogether please Mr. Edwardes. I promised again that I would do a lot of work in the vac; but Jack Ward arranged that he would come down and stay with us directly after the 'Varsity match was over, and I could not be expected to allow him to loll in a boat and play the fool without restraint.

I had not been at home in June for years, and June is the month in which to see my mother's garden. Everything went swimmingly for a day or two; Fred made a lot of runs against Sussex, and Henderson—whose blue was very uncertain—made seventy-six. I was enormously pleased, and suggested at dinner that we should all go up to town to see Fred play in the 'Varsity match. My father and mother were rather delighted with the idea, and said they would go if Nina cared to come with us.

"It's the middle of the season," I said promptly, for I suppose I was getting artful.

"I would rather not go," Nina said decidedly, "but do take Godfrey up with you."

"I shan't leave you here by yourself," my mother answered.

"It's a pity Miss Read has gone," I put in, and Nina looked very savagely across the table at me.

"You had better go up by yourself," my father said.

"Don't you want to see Fred playing in his first 'Varsity match—you came up in December to see me play?" I asked Nina.

But she simply went on eating her fish as if I had not spoken, and I wished again that Miss Read had not left us.



CHAPTER XVII

THE PROFESSOR AND HIS SON

There is not much room for a feud in a small family, and, thank goodness, I did not belong to a large one. Collier had five brothers and four sisters, some of whom were never on speaking terms with the others except at Christmas or a birthday when, from habit, they declared a truce. "The truce is no good," Collier said to me when he told me about it, "because the only thing which happens is that they change sides. I believe they pick up." "What happens to you?" I asked. "Oh, I'm neutral, a sort of referee, and have a worse time than anybody," he replied, and I was glad that fate had not decreed that I should be born into the Collier family.

I am sure that had I been able to find any one else to talk to, I should have left Nina alone after she had refused to go to the 'Varsity match. It would have been a great effort, but I thought that Nina was going out of her way to be particularly horrid, and she liked talking as much as I did. Silence, an air of offended dignity, the sort of not-angry-but-very-sorry business, would have been a heavy punishment for her if I could only have inflicted it, but when my father and mother were engaged there was often nobody, except Nina, to ask to do anything. So after wasting one beautiful afternoon I decided that the best thing I could do was to come to a plain understanding with her.

Fortified by my idea, but at the same time rather nervous, because I knew that unless you are a master and the other person happens to be a boy it is much easier to talk about a plain understanding than to arrive at it, I strolled on to the lawn, and after taking a circuitous route I sat down by Nina. I had got her at a disadvantage because she was reading a book which my mother had said was good for her, and if I sat there long enough and bounced a tennis-ball up and down in front of me I knew she was bound to talk. For some reason or other I did not feel like beginning, and this disinclination did not come from chivalry, but I must confess from fear, Nina being armed with all sorts of weapons which if I had possessed I should not have known how to use.

"You seem to be very busy," she said after I had bounced my ball up and down two hundred and eleven times without missing it. I took no notice of that remark except to count out loud. "Twelve, thirteen, fourteen" I went on carefully, and when I was half-way through fifteen she threw her hat at the ball and, by a miracle, hit it.

"You are as big a baby now as you were ten years ago," she said.

"I only wish you were," I answered, and threw the ball away from me.

"So that I might everlastingly fetch and carry for you and Fred," she replied quickly.

"That isn't true," I retorted; "at least if it is true of me it isn't of Fred. He always treats you well."

"You will talk to me about Fred until I shall positively hate him."

"I want to talk about him now," I said.

"Of course you do, he is your favourite topic of conversation," and really I believe she knew that if she attacked me I should forget to talk about Fred.

"You don't seem to see what a friend he is of mine," I answered.

"If I liked all the friends of every one I know, I should never have any time to do anything else."

"You forget that I happen to be your brother," I said, but I might have known better than to make such a remark, for she seemed to think it was amusing.

"Sometimes you are quite delicious," she returned, and I began to feel that we were as far off a plain understanding as we had ever been.

"Look here, Nina, you are beginning to give yourself airs, and it is time some one told you," I began desperately. "You will be known as a nice girl gone wrong; you were nice once, and now you talk as if you know a lot of people and try to make out you are about twice as old as you really are. It won't do, it really won't; what's the good of pretending things, it's such a waste of time?"

She looked away from me when I had finished, and I had not the vaguest idea how she would reply, but at any rate she did not laugh.

"You are really serious for once," she said half questioningly.

"I often try to be serious, only no one ever suspects it," I answered, unable to keep myself out of it.

"But you are always one-sided."

I very nearly said that I had only spoken for her good, but managed to stop myself, because no one ever believes you when you say it. Besides, it would have annoyed her, so I was silent.

"You see you have not got much older, and I have. I couldn't bounce a ball up and down two hundred and thirteen times now."

Again I used abstinence and stopped myself from telling her that she could never have done it, for she was quite solemn, and I thought we were getting at something. I hoped, too, that we should get it quickly, for a tired feeling was creeping over me.

"You are only eighteen," I said.

"I am nineteen next week," she answered, and I knew that she meant this both as a rebuke and a reminder.

"That's not very old."

"It's old enough for me to know that you and I will never quarrel about trifles," she said.

"Then will you come to the 'Varsity match?" I asked.

"You don't think the 'Varsity match a trifle, do you?"

"I'm not going to sit here and quibble; you're too clever altogether," I said, and I got up and wondered in which direction there was most to do, but Nina stood up, too, and put her hand through my arm.

"Let us go for a walk by the river before dinner," she said, and after asking what good she thought that would do I went.

"My dear Godfrey, you are simply splendid," she went on, "the dearest old bungler I know. You remind me of the Faulkners' ostrich, which goes on tapping at the window when it has been opened and there is nothing to tap at."

I did not know what she meant, and if that ostrich had not been rather a friend of mine I should have been insulted. As it was I did not feel pleased.

"You will spend your life running your head against brick walls," she continued.

"I am not going down to the river if you are going to preach to me," but we were already half-way there. "What about the 'Varsity match?"

"You don't understand things, Godfrey."

"Fred has told me that already," I said sulkily.

"Oh, has he?" she replied, and I saw that I had stumbled upon something which made her think. We sat down by the river and did not speak to each other for a long time, and when Nina broke the silence her mood had changed completely. She cajoled me; I think that must have been what she did, and I was weak enough to like it. It was so nice to have me home again; we were going to have a splendid time together, we always had been together; Mrs. Faulkner said Oxford spoiled so many men at first, it made them prigs; but there was no chance of me becoming a prig, I was just the best sort of brother in the world, because when I did meddle in other people's business I hated doing it, and did it all wrong; in the future she would try to do everything to please me, for she was never happy unless I was. As regards my digestion, I certainly must have resembled the Faulkners' ostrich, for I swallowed all this; and when we had walked back home I felt as if my attempt to come to an understanding had not been a failure.

When, however, I thought over what she had said I was not so pleased, for I began to see that if the summer was to be splendid and I was not to be called a prig I must give up the idea of taking her to the 'Varsity match. In fact, in ten minutes I had come to the conclusion that I had been made a fool of, but no one could expect me to begin the thing all over again. I made a resolution then, which is worth recording because I kept it, that I would never tackle Nina again about my friends; she was too much for me, I acknowledged to myself, and apart from determining that she should at least behave decently to Fred, I made up my mind to keep clear of things which seemed altogether out of my line.

It was arranged finally that I should go alone to town for the 'Varsity match, and should bring Jack Ward back with me. My mother said I must stay with the Bishop, and if she had not wanted me to go very much I think I should have found a number of reasons why I had better stay with him at some other time. For though the Bishop in the country had made himself quite pleasant, I had a sort of feeling that he had his eye on me and that this visit would be one of inspection. My reluctance was apparent to Nina, and one evening she mentioned it before dinner.

"I don't see what there is to be afraid of. Think of him as an uncle," she said.

"I am not afraid of a hundred bishops," I answered.

"Then you needn't be nervous about going to stay with half one, because he's only a suffragan."

"You shouldn't speak of your uncle in that way, Nina," my mother said. "It makes no difference whether he is an archbishop or a curate, but I won't have him spoken of as if he is a fraction."

"Godfrey used to hate him, at any rate," she replied, simply to create a diversion.

"I am sure he didn't," and my mother's eyes turned questioningly upon me.

"I did rather bar him at one time until he was decent in the summer, he used to think himself so funny," I explained.

"I wish you would talk English," my father said. "Dinner is already a quarter of an hour late, I am going into the dining-room." He marched off quickly and Nina began to laugh, but I think she must also have been a little ashamed of herself.

"I am a scapegoat for everybody," I said to her; "for you, the cook, and the gardener's boy, whose whistle is always mistaken for mine."

"Never mind," she answered, "you don't look very depressed."

"It isn't fair, all the same; you don't play the game," and as my mother had already gone into the dining-room to sit rebukefully at a foodless table I followed her.

These solemn waitings, which did not happen unfrequently, were comical to me, and since my father never could understand why Nina and I were amused at them, he had generally forgotten his original grievance before dinner began.

When I got to London I could not help being struck by the difference between a bishop at work and a bishop at play. The chief impression I got of my uncle was of a man most strenuously at labour; if he wanted to lecture me he never had time to do it, and nearly the first thing he said was that I was to do exactly as I liked, and he gave me a latch-key so that I might feel that I was a bother to nobody. He was so extraordinarily kind and simple that I wondered how on earth it was that I had really hated him at one time, for I had hated him quite honestly, and I came to the conclusion that as soon as he had ceased to be a pompous humorist he had become a very nice man. At any rate he no longer made jokes, and I never had been able to think them good ones, because those which I remembered had been nearly always directed at me.

The 'Varsity match was a complete failure owing to the weather, and was never likely to be finished. Fred made fifteen in the one Oxford innings, and as the whole side made under a hundred, he didn't do so badly. But I think Cambridge might have won if the game had been played out, so when it poured with rain on the third day, I did not mind very much, apart from the fact that Lord's in wet weather is a terribly dismal place. I went back about one o'clock to my uncle's house and having found a huge London directory, I hunted for the name of Owen. I soon found an address in Victoria Street, which seemed to be the one for which I was looking. "Professor of Gymnastics, Boxing and Fencing" was pretty well bound to be right, and in the afternoon I started off to find Owen.

I wanted to ask him to come and stay with us as soon as Jack Ward had gone, and I had already told my mother about his illness, though I had never mentioned the life-saving tale. I had often wanted to ask my father what really happened, only having made a promise, I had got to stick to it, and I wished I had never been fool enough to make it; it seemed to be making a lot of fuss about nothing. But, if I could persuade Owen to come, the whole thing would have to be cleared up, and I thought being in the country would do him so much good, that the Professor would make him come whether he wanted to or not. I did not know quite what my father would say when he heard all about Owen, for in some ways he belonged to what, I believe, is called "the old school," and clung tenaciously to the belief that there was not a Radical yet born who did not work night and day for the destruction of the British Empire. We never talked politics at home, though sometimes we listened to a lecture. But, as Owen said that he would never have lived if it had not been for my father, they ought, I imagined, to have a sort of friendly feeling for each other, though I cannot say that I felt any great confidence in this idea. I relied more on the fact that as soon as you had removed the crust from my father, you found a huge lot of kindness underneath it. He liked to complain, and some people, who knew him very slightly, thought he liked nothing else, but they were most hopelessly wrong.

My chief recollection of that walk along Victoria Street is that my umbrella was constantly bumping into other umbrellas; I must have tried to walk too fast, and the result was that by the time I reached the Professor's, I was hot and splashed, and my umbrella had a large rent in it. The door of the house was open, and I saw a notice hanging on the side of the wall which told me to walk up-stairs. What I was to do when I had walked up-stairs puzzled me, so I went back into the street, and having rung a bell as a sort of announcement that some one was coming, I went up slowly. The house seemed to be full of stuffiness and gloom, so much so that had I been unable to find either the Professor or his son, I should not have been at all sorry. I was, however, met on the first landing by a servant who must have been cleaning a grate when I interrupted her. Her hair was straying over her face, and as she stood waiting for me to explain my business, she tried to arrange it properly, but she only succeeded in putting two large streaks of black upon her nose and forehead.

"I want to see Professor Owen," I said untruthfully.

"'E's porely this afternoon."

"Never mind," I replied quickly, "is Mr. Owen in—his son?"

"'E don't live 'ere, 'e lives at West-'Am with 'is ornt."

"Would you give me his address, I won't interrupt the Professor if he is not well?"

"Who may you be, I don't remember your fice?"

"I know Mr. Owen at Oxford, I have never been here before."

She laughed for a moment and then said she should have to ask the Professor for the address, but just as I was going to say I would write and ask him to forward my letter, a door opened on my right, and an enormous man in a blue pair of trousers and a flannel shirt came out into the passage.

"This gent wants Mr. 'Ubert's address," the servant said, and disappeared very quickly up another flight of stairs.

"Are you the Professor?" I asked.

"That's me."

I held out my hand, but the passage was dark and his attempt to get hold of it went wide.

"Will you come into my room? Business, I suppose?"

I said it was business, and walked into a small sitting-room, which seemed to be furnished principally with a table, a big arm-chair, and empty bottles.

"I'm cleaning up a bit to-day, you must excuse the bottles," he said, and put his hands on the table. I would have excused everything if only the room had not been so dreadfully close, and I stood while the Professor looked at the bottles and finally picked one up and put it down again in the same place. Then, as if the exertion was too much for him, he sank with a thud into the chair.

"You aren't well, I am afraid."

"No," he answered, "not at all well; damp heat always affects my head."

I sat down on a box labelled "soda-water" and looked at him. My first impression of him had been one of huge strength, my second was one of flabbiness, and no one could help guessing the reason. Everything about him was huge except his eyes, and they might have been had I been able to see what they were like, but all I could see was the puffiness beneath them, and that was enough to make me wish I had never come. I stared at him for some time, but he did not speak, and at last he began to breathe so heavily that I had to interrupt him. "I say, Professor," I began, and he jumped up and began to rub his eyes. Then he sat down again and putting his elbows on his knees looked at me as if he was trying to remember what brought me there.

"This is my afternoon off," he said; "I have no pupils until to-morrow at ten o'clock, and then I give a fencing-lesson to the Honourable Mr. Bostock. Perhaps you know him?"

I said that I did not, and I thought the Professor was a snob.

"What can I do for you? Fencing or boxing? I trained Ted Tucker years ago—you remember Ted Tucker, the Bermondsey Bantam as they called him? My eye, he was a hot 'un with his fists."

I had never heard of Ted Tucker, and said so.

"You don't seem to know anybody," he replied, and for the life of me I could not help laughing.

"Look here, young man, I'm not going to be laughed at. I may have my little weakness, but I keep my self-respect, and I'd like you to remember that, if you can remember anything. Who are you, I've asked you that before, and where did you come from?" He glared angrily in my direction and I did not like the look of him at all.

"I came to see your son," I answered; "I don't want to fence or box, but his address."

His manner changed at once. "Are you from Oxford?" he asked.

"Yes."

"And you call on my afternoon off, that's most unlucky." He talked all right but his legs were uncertain, and when he stood up he found the mantelpiece useful. "Rheumatism, I'm a martyr to it," he said.

"Very painful," I remarked, and got off my soda-water case.

"Don't get up, it's passing off. If you're from Oxford, I must put on a coat and collar. Would you oblige me with your name?"

"Godfrey Marten," I said.

"Colonel Marten's son? Here, sit in this chair. I must put on two coats," and he made a most gurgly kind of sound which must have meant that he was amused with himself. Then he looked towards the door as if wondering whether he could reach it.

"Please don't put on anything for me," I said, and I took his arm and directed him back to the chair.

"Your father saved my life, and you're the very image of him. It's enough to upset an old man like me," and without the slightest warning tears began to roll down his checks.

"Cheer up," I said, for I felt very uncomfortable.

"And you'll go and tell him that you found me—that you called on my afternoon off."

"I shan't," I said stoutly.

"And you've been a good friend to Hubert."

"That's nothing; I want his address in West Ham."

"Don't say it's nothing, no deed of kindness was yet cast away in this world of sin," and two more tears began to roll.

"Stop that kind of thing, I simply can't stand it. Pull yourself together," I said, "and if you will give me his address I'll go."

"Don't go, you must stay and have a cup of tea. The Colonel, I hope he's well?"

"He's all right; you write to him still, don't you?"

"No, I never write to him."

"Hubert told me you did."

"He made a mistake. The Colonel and I quarrelled, but you must never say a word. I was treated badly, but I don't bear anybody any grudge, leastways not to the man who saved my life. Hasn't he ever told you about it?"

"Never."

"That's like him, but he will never want to hear my name again; I should take it as a favour if you will not mention it."

"Why shouldn't I?" I asked.

He stood up again and was ever so much better.

"I was misunderstood," he said.

"How did you ever know anything about me?"

"The gymnasium instructor at Cliborough is my brother-in-law. He was in the old regiment. He told me about you."

"He taught me fencing," I said, and added, "But why did you want Hubert to see me?"

"You do want to get to the bottom of things; would you like some tea?"

I did not want any tea, but I asked if I might open the window, and then I took my case across the room and got some air.

"It's right for every man to have one ambition," he said, in the way which made me loathe him.

"What's yours?" I asked promptly.

"That Hubert shall be a gentleman, that's why I wanted him to know you, only he's so shy——"

"Good gracious!" was all I could exclaim, and it did not express my astonishment in the least.

"You'd have done very well for my job if he'd only buttoned on to you."

"He is not the kind of man to 'button on.'"

"Don't you teach your grandfather to suck eggs," he said angrily. "I like your impudence, but I'm busted if I can put up with it," but before I could answer him he was apologizing and shaking my hand most vigorously.

At that moment Hubert opened the door, and both saw and heard what was happening.

The Professor turned round quickly and forgot to drop my hand, with the result that I was pulled from my soda-water case on to the floor.

"I thought," he gasped, "it was old Ally Sloper."

I managed to escape from him and to stand up. Hubert, however, did not say anything, but began to brush my coat with his hand.

"Who is Ally Sloper?" I asked, for I began to think that the Professor, who was looking ashamed of himself, was a lunatic.

"He's Mr. King, the man who helps me at Oxford, he dresses rather funnily," Hubert explained.

"He bothers me when I am not well," the Professor added, but he did not seem certain what line to take and kept his back turned to both of us.

"If you would only be well, he wouldn't bother you," Hubert said at once.

"I am better than I used to be. You know how the weather upsets me, I haven't had an afternoon off for six weeks. Ask Emily," and when he turned round the tears were once more rolling down his cheeks, and I was desperately afraid that I was in for a regular scene.

"You are nearly all right now," I said, "and I must be going if Hubert will walk a little way with me."

He took my hand again and held it. "You will not think very badly of an old man who has served his country," he said.

"No, but I do think you ought to be——" and then I stopped.

"What?"

"It's no business of mine."

"You are the son of the man who saved my life."

"Oh don't," I replied, and a tear dropping plump on the back of my hand settled me. "I was going to say ashamed of yourself."

"To think that any one should say that in the presence of my son," he said, and dropped my hand.

"I have said it a hundred times, but no one else has ever had the pluck to," Hubert put in.

"Kick a worm when he doesn't turn," he said confusedly.

"That's all rot," I answered, and something compelled me to walk up to him and tap him on the shoulder. "You aren't a worm, and I wouldn't dare to kick you. Wouldn't dare, do you see; you're a fine, big chap, why in heaven's name don't you pull yourself together? I don't know much about it, but I'll bet it's worth it. A man like you oughtn't to go crying like a baby."

"No sympathy," he moaned.

"Rot," I said again. "I shall tell my uncle about you, he'll be a jolly useful friend."

"What's he?"

"A parson."

"Two pennuth of tea and a tract. No thanks," he shook his head decidedly.

"He's not that kind. A man isn't bound to be an ass because he is a parson."

"You seem to have kind of taken charge of me," he said.

"I don't mean any harm," and then, for it was no time for facts, I added, "I like you, you are an awfully good sort, really."

"Me and the parson uncle," he said, and he gave a hoarse chuckle. "We should do well in double harness. I'd pull his head off in about ten minutes."

"May I ask him to call on you?"

"You'd better see what Hubert says. I'm only a dummy."

"A good big dummy," I answered, with the intention of taking myself off pleasantly.

"Oh, be rude. Trample on me, call me names," and then swelling out his chest and glaring at me, he added, "Hit me."

"I shouldn't care to risk it," I returned, and asked Hubert, who had been walking aimlessly round the room, if he was ready.

We left at last, and were pursued down-stairs by volleys of apologies. I had to stop twice and shout back that I was not offended and that I forgave everything, though from the way I had talked to him it struck me that he had about as much to forgive as I had.

We walked towards Victoria without speaking, and when I did try to talk I was most horribly hoarse, I must have fairly shouted at the Professor.

"My father's often like that after an afternoon off," Owen said presently. "He's first angry and then apologetic, and in the end he's most horribly ashamed of himself. Wednesday afternoon is his worst time, and I generally try to be with him and then he's all right, but I got stopped to-day. He comes down to my aunt's on Sundays, though he hates it."

"I believe he would like my uncle, he wouldn't jaw and cant."

"Do as you like. I've never thanked you, except in letters, for seeing me through that illness."

"How are you now?"

"All right; I feel as if I have been ill, that's all."

"You've got to come down to Worcestershire," I said; "a fortnight there will do you more good than years of West Ham."

"I can't do that," he answered at once.

We turned into Victoria Station and sat down on a bench. For some minutes I listened to his objections and answered them; in all my life I do not think I have ever been quite so sorry for any one, though I had sense enough not to tell him so. I felt rather a brute when I left him; it seemed to me that I had been having a most splendid time without knowing it, while he had been having a very wretched one, but I can't keep on feeling a brute long enough for it to do me any good, if feeling a brute ever does any good.

I overcame all Owen's objections, and I made him promise to come to Worcestershire, but as soon as I had time to think about it I wondered what on earth I should do with him when I had got him. I could count on my mother as an ally. I did not altogether know what my father would think, and Nina, as far as I was concerned, was represented by x in a problem to which no one had ever found an answer which was anything like right.

The first thing to do, however, was to go for the Bishop, and I think I can say that I went for him at some length. I didn't explain well, or he was very stupid, because he got dreadfully mixed up before he got the facts of the case clearly, and I can't say that he seemed altogether pleased when I told him that I had as good as promised that he would be a friend to the Professor.

"As it is, I am rushed off my legs. Who was it you said he had trained?"

"Ted Tucker." I had brought that in as a piece of local colour or whatever it is called, just to liven things up a bit, but I am afraid it was a mistake.

"You see, I don't know anything about prize-fighters. I did box once, but that's years ago."

"Why, you're the very man," I exclaimed. "He'd love you; he's not a bit more like a prize-fighter than he is like a Professor, he's more like a sort of prehistoric man in blue trousers and a shirt."

But prehistoric men did not seem to appeal to my uncle any more than prize-fighters. He looked very sombre indeed, so much so that I was quite impressed, but I had taken this job in hand and really had to see it through. So I talked, and I won in the way all my few triumphs have been won, by talking until the other man wanted to go to bed.

"I like your enthusiasm, Godfrey," he said at last, "and I wouldn't check it for the world. I will do all I possibly can, both with the Professor and with your people. But you can't persuade me that your father will like the son of a man, who has been dismissed from the army for some cause, to come down and stay with you."

"Don't you tell that to anybody else," I said. "Owen only told me this afternoon, he's only just found it out himself."

"Are you going to tell your father all this?"

"Everything except that the Professor gets drunk now, and you're going to stop that," I added cheerfully.

"Oh, am I?" he answered, "I can't help wishing that it had not rained this afternoon and that you had been safely at Lord's."

"Well you can't say that I've wasted my time."

"You have got your hands too full, considering that you have promised to work this summer. Don't forget you have got to work, we don't want any fourth in Mods," and then he wished me good-night, and on the next day I went home with Jack Ward, who had a most astounding lot of luggage.

I am not going to describe my first summer vac at any length, because if I once began I should not have any idea when to stop, it was the kind of time which made gloomy people cheerful and cheerful people gloomy; silly, ridiculous things happened, and Mrs. Faulkner was at the bottom of most of them. She even found a niece for me, but that came to nothing, for the niece was a very nice girl and in a week we understood each other beautifully. She stayed a month with the Faulkners and thought of me as a brother, which was most satisfactory; sometimes, however, she treated me like one and then I was not so pleased.

Jack Ward and Nina, in my opinion, behaved none too well; but my father liked Jack and my mother did not say much about him, which explains the whole thing. He was always ready to do anything, and his only fault in my father's eyes was that he was never in time for breakfast.

I was chiefly engaged during his visit in paving the way for Owen's. I told my mother everything and wanted to tackle my father at once, but she said I must wait for a favourable opportunity. I waited a whole week, and it had a most depressing effect on me, so I just walked into his study at last and got it over. It happened to be a damp day, during which he had felt two twinges of lumbago, but he forgot those twinges before he had done with me. I bore everything he said silently, because when he is in a furious rage in the beginning he tails off wonderfully at the end. It seemed that he had a very low opinion of the Professor, and he declared emphatically that he was not going to have his house made into a sanatorium. I listened to a crowd of disagreeable facts about my new friend, and my father declared that even the sight of his son would give him an attack of gout. "It is true," he said, "that I did save his life, and he had, as far as that went, cause to be grateful, and he wasn't grateful but a disgrace to the regiment. I want to forget all about the man and then you rake him up again, and you say that stupid uncle of yours, who plays cricket when he ought to be writing sermons, is going to be a friend to him. It's more than I can or will put up with," and he banged The Nineteenth Century down on his writing-table so violently that he upset a vase of roses and some of the water went into his ink-pot. After that he was incoherent for a minute, and I, not knowing what to say, remarked that the Bishop could not be expected to write sermons during his holidays.

"A bishop ought always to be writing sermons," was his only answer, and I guessed that his rage had reached its climax. I tried to lower the flood on his table by means of my pocket-handkerchief, and waited.

"What sort of a fellow is this son who pushes himself upon you in this way? It's monstrous."

"He's quiet and all right, and he has never pushed himself at all. I made him promise to come; he didn't want to, only it's his chance to get well and he must take it. You would have done the same thing."

"What's he like?"

"He's not exactly like any one else I know at Oxford, but——"

"Of course he isn't."

"I was going to say no one could possibly dislike him."

"I suppose he will have to come, but I want you to understand that in future I insist on knowing whom you want to ask here before you ask them. I am exceedingly annoyed, I shall go and see your mother."

I went with him, as when I am about I generally manage to absorb most of his anger, but after a few outbursts my mother soothed him, and in the end he even gave a grim sort of smile when I said that unless he had saved the Professor there would have been no bother about his son.

"Don't call that man a Professor," he said, "he's a humbug, he always was and always will be, and if it wasn't that I am sorry for a son who has such a father I wouldn't be talked over by you. But you have given your uncle something to think about," and that idea sent him smiling to the window.

One most splendid thing happened while Jack Ward was staying with us, for just before he was going away Nina fell into the river again and Jack was superb enough idiot to repeat his previous performance and jump in after her. I met them trying to get into the house by a back way, and from the look of them I saw that they were feeling rather silly. It is all very well to fall into one river, but when you start going overboard anywhere the thing becomes comical, and they fell from their high position as rescued and rescuer and had to put up with a good deal of wit, as we understood it at home. I didn't say much, because Nina was better than I was at saying things, but whenever I saw her I gave way to fits of silent laughter. I can't think how I thought of that dodge, it was so extraordinarily successful and so far above my average efforts, and as soon as I saw that it was working properly, I did not mind being called anything she liked. And my father, being particularly well just then, helped me by what, I was determined to believe, were very humorous remarks. Jack did not hear many of them, but the few he did hear must have upset him a little, for he tried to explain himself by saying that he would jump into anything to save a kitten, which from the look of Nina did not seem to satisfy her much. In the end I don't believe she was as sorry for Jack to go as I was. She could not stand being a family joke, and I, having suffered in that way many times, could have sympathized with her if I had not thought that it was much the best thing which could happen.

I felt dull after Jack went, for he was the sort of man who does brighten up a place, and he was never by any chance bored; besides, I was wondering how I could make Owen enjoy himself, because the only thing I knew about him was that he did not care for any exercise except walking, and I hoped that he would be reasonable about the distances he wanted to go.

However, the day before he was to come, Miss Read arrived, which was an idea of my mother's, and a very good one. Miss Read had been Nina's governess for eight years, and she knew all of us better than we knew ourselves. She was a kind of tonic when any of us were depressed, and a cooling draught when we were angry; in my case she had seldom been a tonic, but all the same when she had left us at Easter I was very sorry. She was the only person I have ever seen of whom Nina was really afraid. I am sure she could have told some funny tales if she had felt inclined. She was supposed to be coming to see Nina, who was going to Paris in a few weeks to be "finished," but I am sure that my mother thought Owen would like her, and that she would like him. And as it happened, they were both botanists and butterfly-catchers, at least Miss Read knew a lot about butterflies, though her time for catching them had gone by, and they were always doing things together.

Worcestershire must certainly be a better place than West Ham for a botanist, and after Owen had got used to us I believe he enjoyed himself. We worked together in the mornings, which pleased my father, and he let my mother give him as much medicine as she wanted to, which pleased her, and I feeling virtuous after reading every morning for nearly four hours, was very pleased with myself. But he was in a mortal terror of Nina, though she really never gave him any cause to be, and made the most valiant efforts to learn the Latin names of plants. Miss Read and he made excursions and grubbed about in hedges, and Nina and I often met them at some place to have tea. It wasn't very exciting, for I had always to carry the kettle and the things to eat; but the sun shone most of the time, which was really a blessing, because on wet days Owen persuaded me to work in the afternoons as well as the mornings, and that was more than I had ever thought of doing in a vac.

I suppose Owen was what is generally called a smug, but he was not one by choice but by compulsion, which is the best kind I should think. He was so totally different from any other kind of friend I have ever had that I sometimes caught myself wondering whether I really liked him. But I could always satisfy myself about that, for there was one thing about him which no one could help liking; he was most tremendously clever and never tried to make out that he was, and having already seen plenty of people who were about as clever as I was, and who talked as if they were Solomon and Solon rolled into one, I was grateful to him. We got on very well together, though we had not got a single thing in common, except that we both liked sunshine; and that can't be said to be much, for I have only met one man in England who did not like the sun, and he had been affected, permanently, by too much of it.

Men get blamed freely enough for putting on side about playing cricket and football well, and they deserve all they get, but the men who put on intellectual side ought, I think, to be spoken to more severely, because they get worse as they get older, while the first sort of side generally dies an early death. Owen was a kind of encyclopaedia, who did not air or advertise himself, and I thought him a very rare specimen. Athletics meant no more to him than botany or butterflies meant to me, but when he went away my father said emphatically that it was refreshing to think Oxford turned out some men who took interest in useful things. I did not answer that remark, because he did not really know very much about Oxford, and his occasional hobby was that the country was being ruined by too many games. "A very well-conducted young man," he said of Owen, "always up in the morning, and always ready to go to bed at night."

"He looked much better when he went away than when he came," my mother said; "I hope we shall see him down here again."

"I think he means to make a name for himself," Miss Read added; "he knows exactly what he wants."

Nina yawned, and although I thought my father need not have described Owen as a well-conducted young man, I was thankful that his visit had passed off so well, and I said nothing.

After Owen had gone away we had a fellow to stay with us out of my brother's regiment. He was home on sick-leave, but had quite recovered from whatever had been the matter with him, and was as full of bounce as a tennis-ball. Mrs. Faulkner loved him and wanted Nina to follow her example, as far as I could make out, for she gave a dance and a moonlight supper party on the river. Mr. Faulkner, who was always more or less semi-detached, disappeared before the supper-party, which he told me was a midsummer madness.

"There will be a mist and the food will be damp and horrid, and everybody will be wanting foot-warmers and hot-water bottles before they have done, you had better put on your thickest clothes and borrow my fur overcoat," he said to me. And he was a true prophet, for Nina caught a violent cold in her head, which checked and really put a stop to a more violent flirtation.

Nina went to Paris a few days after Fred came to us, and we all agreed that she would enjoy herself there, though I do not believe that any of us really thought she would. As a matter-of-fact she was so home-sick that my mother would have gone to fetch her back if it had not been for Miss Read, who was blessed with much courage and common-sense. Mrs. Faulkner tried her hardest to persuade my mother to bring Nina home again, and she came to our house and wept so much that I thought she was sure to win. But Miss Read met tears with arguments, until Mrs. Faulkner stopped crying, and having lost her temper, forgot that Miss Read had not only been Nina's governess, but was also one of my mother's greatest friends. So Nina stayed in Paris, and I wrote to her twice a week for a fortnight, but after that she began sending me messages in other people's letters, and I was sorry for her no longer.



CHAPTER XVIII

THE ENERGY OF JACK WARD

After Nina went to Paris Fred spent most of his time in trying to be cheerful, but for some days he looked as if he had lost something and expected to find it round the next corner. I was very patient, though I do not believe he understood how often I wanted to argue with him. By the end of the vac, however, he had forgotten to be gloomy, and I hoped that Oxford would cure him altogether, for he had a good chance of getting his Rugger blue, and he had got to read; besides, I have never been able to see that perpetual gloom is of any use to anybody.

I went back to St. Cuthbert's full of desperate resolutions. I wanted to make every one in the college understand that it was the slackest place in Oxford, and having done that I wished to find the men who would make it keener. The scheme was a gigantic one for me to take up; it needed tact, and I went at it so vigorously that in a few days I had offended some men and had succeeded in making others look upon me as a freak. Dennison told me that I had a bee in my bonnet. If he had said that I was mad I should not have minded, but those horrid little expressions of his always tried me very much, and I am bound to confess that my first efforts to rouse the college met with more ridicule than success. Very few men seemed to care what happened to us, and nearly everybody pretended that our eight would rise again, and our footer teams cease to be laughed at, though no one tried to make them any better. Dennison wrote a skit called "The Decline and Fall of St. Cuthbert's"; and some artist, who thought that my nose was as big as my arm, made a drawing of me in which I was trying to carry the college on my back, and was so overburdened by the weight of it that nothing but my nose prevented me from being crushed to the ground. It was very funny and also very unfair in more ways than one, because I did not start my crusade with any idea of becoming important, and I have no feature which is superlatively large.

This skit of Dennison's really settled me for a time, but I did stir up one or two men whom I had never expected to do anything. Jack Ward stopped driving about with Bunny Langham, and began to play footer, and Collier actually went down to the river every afternoon. Physical incapability prevented him from rowing well, but he persuaded several other men, who did not suffer as he did, to go through the same drudgery, and for self-sacrifice I thought he was hard to beat, because he was quite a comical sight in a boat. What good did come from my first crusade was due chiefly to him; a kind of revivalist spirit was upon him, and many unsuspecting freshers who had only thought of the river as a place to avoid, were unable to resist his entreaties.

The dons heard of my crusade, and I know that Mr. Edwardes did not like it, but I had two of them on my side, and the others did not take any active measures against me. Mr. Edwardes took the trouble to tell me that I was mistaken in thinking that the reputation of St. Cuthbert's depended upon athletics, and I answered that I had never supposed anything of the kind, but that I thought a college which was slack about other things would end by being slack in the schools. This reply of mine surprised him so much that he told me that any campaign to be successful must be managed by the right people, and I agreed with him cordially, for although I knew that plenty of men would have worried everybody out of their slackness much more successfully than I could, I was not going to tell him so.

The Bursar supported me soundly, and we had a new don at the beginning of my second year who took a most invigorating interest in the college. He was known to us as "The Bradder," and though his real name was Bradfield it was seldom used, and as far as we were concerned he could have done quite well without it. I had become so accustomed to aged dons that I could not understand him at first, he was so very young. He was also reported to be very clever, but I was so impressed by his youthfulness that it took me some time to believe that he would ever count for much. I ought, however, to have known that The Bradder was not the kind of man who would allow himself to become a nonentity, for he was full of energy and determination.

I was never able to find out how the dons heard of my scheme, but they find out most things by some extraordinary means, and The Bradder spoke to me very encouragingly about it, though he looked at me as if I amused him in some odd sort of way. He also asked me to breakfast, which I thought was carrying kindness a little too far. I anticipated the usual thing—a crowd of men with large appetites, and a host who abstained from food in his efforts to provide conversation; but when I went to The Bradder's rooms I found that I was in for a tete-a-tete, and my opinion of the other kind of breakfast rose considerably. As a don I was not in the least nervous of him, but as a host I thought he might be overwhelming.

That he ever lived through this meal without laughing was a marvel, for when I was sitting opposite to him my nervousness vanished, and I told him exactly what I thought about every subject he suggested, and it was not until I had left him that it occurred to me that I had been talking nearly all the time, and that he had said very little. I determined that he was a most thoroughly good sort, but the idea of his being a don struck me as being absurd. I put him on my side with the Warden and the Bursar, and thought that Mr. Edwardes was in a hopeless minority of one in persecuting me, for I looked upon the Subby as a man who had been born to be neutral. I do not suppose that I should ever have started my first crusade if I had known that it was going to cause the mildest of sensations. As far as I had thought about it at all, I had imagined that everybody in St. Cuthbert's would be glad to see the college take its usual place again, and certainly I had no idea that I should be violently supported and opposed. The captains of everything were in favour of less slackness, but Dennison and all his set said that an Oxford college was not a public school, and talked a lot of nonsense about the iniquity of compulsory games. No further proof is needed to show how unfair they were, for a man must be mad to dream of compulsory games at Oxford, and such an idea never entered my head. But all this talking made me wish that I had never said or done anything, and before long I was heartily tired of the whole thing, for my own affairs became rather more than I could manage.

At the beginning of the term I had moved into larger rooms, and I was elected to both Vincent's and the St. Cuthbert's wine club. Murray advised me not to join the wine club, because I was an exhibitioner, and the dons would be sure to fix their eyes steadfastly upon me if I did. But Jack Ward was very anxious for me to join, and every other member, except Dennison, who was only elected when I was, spoke to me about it. So I became one of the twelve Mohocks, which only meant that I could give a guest a good dinner three or four times a term, and after that take him to the rooms of the club where there was a big dessert, and old Rodoski, who was concealed in the bedder, unless some one asked him to show himself, provided music. When we had finished with Rodoski we went out of college and played pool, and then we came back and played cards. There was not much harm about the whole thing, and occasionally it was quite dull, but some of our dons had got hold of the idea that a Mohock must be a rowdy and riotous person. Mr. Edwardes was one of them, and I found out very soon that he considered that I ought not to have joined the club. I did not, however, feel in the least like resigning, for though there were one or two members who took delight in nothing which was not an orgie, they were generally suppressed before they made much noise. A club of this kind depends a good deal upon its President, and we had a man who thought far too much of the reputation of the Mohocks to insult his guests by a common pandemonium.

My position with Mr. Edwardes had become a critical one when I broke my collar-bone playing against Richmond, and suddenly ceased to be a culprit and became an invalid. At the time I was very sick at my footer ending so abruptly, but my accident was really a stroke of good luck, for I feel certain that I should have been turned out of the 'Varsity fifteen anyhow. An Irish international named Hogan had come up who was, I thought, a really good full-back, and each time I was asked to play for the 'Varsity I expected to be my last. But as soon as there was no chance of my playing against Cambridge I got no end of sympathy, and nearly all the team told me that my absence weakened the side, though previously some of them had said the same thing about my presence. My accident settled the question of who was to be the 'Varsity back quite conveniently; it also made me give up all thoughts of my crusade, and gave me plenty of time to read. I should not think anybody's collar-bone has ever been broken at such an opportune moment. Fred played against Cambridge, but our forwards were hopelessly beaten, and no one distinguished himself for us except Hogan, who lost two teeth and covered himself with glory.

At the end of the Lent term both Fred and I got seconds in Moderations; mine was not a good second and Fred's was almost a first, so what would have happened if Fred had been smashed up instead of me is not worth inquiring, for there is no doubt that I did more work than he did. Murray got a first, which was what everybody expected; he was one of the few men I have ever seen who read logic because he liked it.

I cannot say that Mr. Edwardes was very pleased about my second, for he had told me I should be lucky to get a third, and in my case I believe he would rather have been a truthful prophet than a moderately successful tutor. When I asked him if I might read history for my final examinations he was doubtful if I was not seeking a degree by the least fatiguing way, but The Bradder was a history tutor, and although I had found out that he was a very strenuous man, I meant to work with him. So after many warnings against idleness I was allowed to do as I wanted, and Mr. Edwardes got rid of me, which must have pleased him very much. I do not think that any one else ever upset him so completely as I did, and I have never been able to find out why he disapproved of me to such an extent, unless it was that until I got accustomed to him I thought him funny, and when I think anybody or anything funny I have to laugh. No one else laughed at Mr. Edwardes except me, and I should not have done so if I could have helped it, but an unintentionally comic don causes a lot of trouble.

Mr. Grace, the senior history don in St. Cuthbert's, was more like a very benevolent parent than a tutor. Perhaps he was rather old for his work, but he was so extraordinarily peaceful that you could not help liking him, and I had a vague feeling that he was my grandfather. The change from Mr. Edwardes to him was like going to bed in a choppy sea and waking up in a punt on the Cherwell. I can't explain the feeling I had for him, but he seemed to be surrounded by a homely atmosphere, and he reminded me of hot-water bottles and well-aired beds without making me feel stuffy. You worked for him because it struck you as being hopelessly unfair to annoy him if you could help it. He was a most pleasant old gentleman, and a very convenient tutor to have in a summer term. The Bradder, however, to whom I had also to read essays, scoffed when I told him that I had two years and a term before my examinations, and generally speaking allowed me to see that he was going to stand no nonsense. If he had been less of a sportsman I should have thought him more inconvenient, for I never found an excuse which he considered a reasonable one, and after I had done two very short essays for him he let me understand that I must do more work if I wanted him to be pleasant.

"Look here, Marten, it won't do," he said to me when I had read my second essay to him, which even surprised me by its early closing. "This could not have taken you a quarter of an hour to write, and you have read it in five minutes."

I had tried to lengthen my essay by stopping to discuss any point which might make him talk, but he knew all about that time-worn device, and had told me to finish reading before we discussed anything, and when I had finished there did not seem much to discuss.

"It's the summer term, and I read very fast," I said, because he was waiting for me to say something.

"Don't," he answered; "poor excuses are worse than none. When I began to read history, I wrote telegrams instead of essays, and I tried to make my tutor talk so that he should fill up the time, just as you have done. But I found out in a month that history is not a joke, and that my tutor was not a fool. You have got to read seriously, whatever else you may do; we may as well understand each other from the start."

I gathered up my essay slowly, for he had, as he spoke, scattered what there was of it over the table.

"It would be better to use a note-book than any odd piece of paper that happens to come your way," he said, and added, "if you are slack about your work, you may end by being slack at other things."

"So you have been talking to Mr. Edwardes about me," I said, and I was annoyed.

"Perhaps it would be truer to say that Mr. Edwardes has been talking to me about you," he answered. "You will probably like history very much if you will only give yourself a chance; don't think a fourth is any good to you—or me."

"I'm only just through Mods," I replied, "you do go at a fearful rate."

"You will have to be bustled until you get interested," he answered, "and I will bustle you all right, you can trust me to do that."

I expect that The Bradder knew that I should not care about being bustled by him, and the result of his conversation with me was that he got a great deal of essay out of me with very little trouble to himself, though I thought that he was mistaken in making me start at such a furious pace, and I asked him, without any effect, if he had ever heard of men being overtrained.

Although no one expected our eight to make any bumps, I think they astonished everybody by going down four places, and as we were being bumped by colleges which were generally in danger of being bottom of the river, a wholesome feeling spread over most of us that as a joke our rowing was nearly played out. We began to talk about what we would do next year, but Jack Ward was so disgusted with everything that he suddenly determined that he had wasted nearly two years, and meant to make up for lost time by doing everything with all his might.

I thought these terrific resolutions came from a row he had with Dennison about cards, a disagreeable row in which Dennison said such nasty things that had I been Jack, I should have picked him up and dropped him out of the window; but by some extraordinary means Jack kept his temper until he told him to shut up, and that ended the whole thing, for Dennison knew when it was wise to be silent. I did not think much of Jack's resolutions, for he had been doing no work for such a long time and with such perfect success, that a complete change was more than I was able to grasp. Every one in St. Cuthbert's was supposed to read for honours in some school or other, and Jack, having scrambled through pass "Mods," had for a year pretended to read law. I never saw him doing it, but he had a most effective way of fooling dons, and, as far as his work was concerned, he never seemed to be worried. When, however, he came to me three weeks before the end of the term, and told me he was going to give up law and read history, I thought he was seeking trouble.

"You will have to work if you have anything to do with The Bradder," I told him.

"For the last ten minutes I have been trying to make you understand that I want to work," he answered, but still I did not believe him.

"All your law will be wasted," I said.

"I don't know any, so that's all right."

"But the dons won't let you change."

"I can manage them; the history people won't want me, but the law people will be glad to get rid of me, I have sounded them already."

"You will end by reading theology," I said.

He gave a great laugh and said he didn't know where he should end, and that all he wanted to do was to work. But he spoke of working as if it was a new sort of game, and I thought his desire to try it would vanish as quickly as it had come, so I was surprised when he tackled The Bradder, and persuaded him that history was the only subject in which he could ever take a decent class. Without the consent of anybody, he stopped going to the lectures to which he was supposed to go, and came to my rooms at all hours of the day to borrow books and read them. Apparently he had become a kind of free-lance, having shaken off his old tutors and not having got any new ones, but he read through a short history of England three times in a week because he said he wanted a good solid ground-work to build upon. Perhaps The Bradder asked that he might be left alone, for certainly no one bothered him and he bothered nobody with the exception of me. I admit that I found him a very great nuisance, for I had been compelled to read during the last two terms, and I had not been smitten with any enthusiasm for an examination which was in the far distance. In fact I wanted to slack, and I did not see why Jack should choose my rooms to work in. The mere sight of him annoyed me; he took his coat off and turned up his shirt-sleeves to read, and whenever I made the slightest noise he told me to be quiet. I impressed upon him most earnestly that he could go anywhere he liked or didn't like, but he had settled upon me, and nothing I did could make him go or lose his temper. After a few days I got quite accustomed to him, and I believe that I should have missed him if he had not come to annoy me, but he showed no signs of slackening off, and I was watching for them every day.

We were within a few days of the end of term before I believed that Jack had any serious intentions of changing his manner of living, and then he explained the whole thing to me.

"I have worked for a solid fortnight," he said to me, "and if I can go on for a fortnight I can go on for two years. I didn't want to explain anything until I knew whether it was any good, for I have never worked before in my life and I didn't know what it was like. My father has suddenly got very sick with me, and says I have got to read or go down altogether; besides I am tired of doing nothing, and there are enough slackers in the college without me. We have got to pull this place together somehow." He threw himself into an arm-chair and picked up The Ordeal of Richard Feverel. "George Meredith," he said, "I tried him once," and he shook his head.

"Try him again."

"I shan't have time, you are always coming out in unexpected places. I should have thought you would have liked a good sporting novel, I can't understand Meredith."

"The Bradder told me to read this."

"The Bradder's an idiot; you be careful, or you'll write stuff which the examiners won't trouble to read. An examiner doesn't like any other style except his own."

"How do you know?" I asked.

"I guess from the look of them, they must get so horribly tired; facts are what I mean to give them, piles of dates and things like that. Just let 'em know what I know at once and no rot about it."

"You have got to write essays, not answer questions like a Sunday-school class," I said, and yawned.

"The Bradder will have to teach me all about essays, but I am going to stick to plain English, no going round corners for me. I mean to row next year, and I am going to be coached in the vac; if I don't get into the college eight next summer, I——"

"Aren't you going to do a lot?" I interrupted him by asking.

"I have always done a lot; hunting three times a week is a lot when you play footer and cards as well. We will read after dinner for three hours."

I yawned again, for I had had very little fun for some time, and I felt as if a little relaxation would do me good. An Irish M.P. was coming to speak during that evening about the advantages of Home Rule, and although I thought Home Rule meant the disruption of the Empire and many other things, I wanted to hear what this man had to say, and to see if anything exciting happened. The Bradder had told me that there was a good deal to be said in favour of Home Rule, but I put him down as a Radical and did not take any notice of him. The first thing I can ever remember about politics was my father saying that Radicals talked nothing but nonsense, and that had remained with me and was mixed up with the things which I most truly believed. The Bradder, however, made me think that Radicals were not bound to be hopeless persons. I don't know how he did it, but I think it was by telling me that I was one at heart. I never thought half so badly of them after that.

But if what I must apologize for calling my politics were rather wobbly just then, ten thousand Bradders could not make me a Home Ruler, and had I not known that other things happen at political meetings in Oxford besides the ordinary programme, I might have been content to stay in college and go on being dull and peaceable. As it was I thought that Jack and I had earned something in the way of excitement, and after a good deal of persuasion he started with me, but when we got to the meeting the place was packed with an audience which, from the noise, seemed to consist largely of undergraduates singing "Rule Britannia." We talked eloquently to the men at the doors, without getting past them. One of them told me that they had already admitted far too many of our kind, and then added that there was no room for anybody else whatever kind he might be, so we went over to Bunny Langham's rooms, which—for he was not living in college—were opposite the hall in which the M.P. was speaking. There were more than half-a-dozen men in Bunny's rooms when we got to them, and I found out that he had been scattering invitations broadcast during the afternoon. A lot of other men came in soon afterwards, but nobody did anything more extraordinary than sing out of tune until the meeting had finished. I was sitting by the window looking down on the people who had been in the hall, and nearly everybody had gone out of St. Aldgate's when Bunny came up to me and said he thought he should make a short speech. He went away and came back with a horn, which he blew so lustily that in two or three minutes he had collected a small crowd in front of the house.

"They are not enough," he said, and he blew on his horn until I should think fifty or sixty people were standing in the street. Then he put his head out of the window and shouted, "Silence. I will, if you will permit me, say a few words to you on burning questions of the day." The crowd was almost entirely made up of loafers from the town, and they received him with loud cries of approval.

"Fellow-citizens of Oxford," he began, and was told at once to speak up, and asked if his mother knew he was out and other ancient questions, which interrupted but did not discourage him.

"Fellow-citizens of Oxford," he repeated, "who have assembled in your thousands——" His next words were drowned by a rude man, with a blatant voice, telling him that he was a blooming liar.

"Fellow-citizens and burgesses of Oxford, who have assembled in your thousands to hear—" Bunny began once more, but the rude man shouted that he was not at a concert, and when he wanted to listen to the same thing over and over again he was not too shy to say so.

"I shall have to ask you to remove that gentleman, he is mistaking me for one of his unfortunate family," Bunny shouted back, and was told to go on and not mind Tom Briggs. It was not possible, however, for him to make himself heard, and instead of continuing his speech he and Tom Briggs talked to each other, until some one behind me threw a banana at Tom and knocked his hat off. At the same moment I saw the proctor and his bull-dogs coming down the street, and in a minute we had turned out all the lights in the room and gone up-stairs. There we stayed until we heard the proctor leave the house.

"That's a bit of luck," said Jack, as we sat down again.

"I can't make out what the deuce has happened," Bunny answered, "he must have spotted the house."

"Perhaps he didn't want to catch us; after all we were not doing much," some man, whose experience of proctors must have been limited, said.

We got back to the room and heard a tremendous booing in the street, for the crowd, deprived of their fun, were letting the proctor know what they thought of him.

"That's splendid," Bunny said, "it's a real score if he doesn't send for us in the morning. If he does he will be sick to death with me, I've been progged three times already this term. Pull the curtains and let's light up again."

"It's about time we went," Jack said; "has the crowd gone?"

I looked out of the window and told him there were only a few people left in the street, but just as we were going there was a knock at the door and a man came into the room.

"Halloa, Marsden," Bunny said; "I am afraid we have been making rather a row in here, perhaps you put a towel round your head and went on reading. Didn't you tell me you tied cloths over your ears when you wanted to be quiet?"

"It's not much of a joke having rooms in the same house with you," Marsden answered, and looked very solemn.

"Don't say that," Bunny answered. "Have a drink, I'm generally as quiet as a lamb."

Marsden sat on the table and refused to drink.

"It's no joke being in the same house with you," he said again, and began to laugh.

"I'm not going to set fire to the place or blow it up," Bunny replied.

"But the house becomes infested with proctors."

"Did you see the 'proggins?'"

"He came into my room and progged both Carslake and me. He said we were disturbing the peace of the town."

"He didn't, did he?" Bunny exclaimed, and then went off into such fits of laughter that for some time he could do nothing but cough and choke.

"He couldn't have chosen a funnier man. A sneeze is about the biggest row you have ever made in your life. Didn't you tell him you had nothing to do with the rag?" he asked at last.

"I left you to do that; he wouldn't listen to me, he seemed to be in a hurry to get it over," Marsden said.

"Was he Carter of Queen's, or the other man?"

"Carter."

"I'll be at Queen's at nine o'clock to-morrow, so you and Carslake needn't bother to go; Carter knows me. I am awfully sorry he has been shoving himself into your rooms; the worst of this place is, there is no privacy, Carter just goes where he pleases," and Bunny rang the bell and told his servant that he wanted a hansom in the morning at ten minutes to nine. There were only a few of us left in his rooms, but every one said they would be at Queen's to meet him, though he told us not to make fools of ourselves. "I asked Carter the last time I went to him to let me off a shilling because he had kept my cab waiting, and he fined me double for impertinence. I should think this would cost about two pounds, and I've got about thirty sixpences up-stairs, he shall have all those," he continued. "I'll have some fun for my money, so you fellows had better let me see it through by myself, I made the speech and blew the horn," but as we had all been in the affair we couldn't back out of it because we had been caught.

I walked as far as St. Cuthbert's with a New College man, who thought we should have to pay more than two pounds. "Carter will be so precious sick at being hooted in the street, we shan't get off under a fiver each," he said, and when I got back to college I went up to Jack's rooms to wait and see what he thought we should have to pay.

I was nearly asleep when Jack came in.

"Phillips says we shall have to pay a fiver each, what do you think?" I said, without turning round, and instead of answering me Jack went straight into his bedder and seemed to be washing himself vigorously.

"What are you doing?" I shouted, but Jack went on washing, so I shut up asking questions.

In a few minutes he came back into the room, and stood in front of me with a candle held up in front of his face. His lips were swollen, and there was a great cut, which kept on bleeding, over his right eyebrow.

"I look nice, don't I?" he said. "I've had a fight with a man who told me that his name was Briggs."

By degrees I got the whole tale out of him, but it is no fun trying to talk when a great coal-heaving man has hit you in the mouth with his fist. Jack had come home by himself, and as he was turning out of the High by B.N.C. Tom Briggs, who had followed him all the way, charged into him. Then there was a little conversation, and Briggs called Jack something especially horrid, and gave him a shove at the same time, so Jack hit him on the nose. After this there was a rough-and-tumble, until that most inquisitive man Carter and his bull-dogs came up and caught Jack. What happened to Briggs he did not know.

"You mustn't tell Carter that you were at Bunny's," I said, after I had blamed myself, until Jack was tired, for having persuaded him to start to that wretched meeting.

"That's a trifle compared with this," he answered, and he was right.

There was a huge row, and it ended in Jack being sent down for the rest of the term. A man, who had been lurking about somewhere, said that he saw Jack hit Briggs first, which was true as far as it went, but hard luck on Jack all the same.

Bunny wanted to have a procession to the station when Jack went away, but he absolutely refused to have any fuss whatever, and altogether took his luck like a sportsman.

If I had only waited for him, or never bothered him to go out at all, this would never have happened, and tired as I have often been of myself, I do not think I have ever felt more utterly wretched than I was during the last few days of that term when I, who ought really to have been in Jack's place, was still in Oxford, and Jack was with his very angry people.

I went to the Warden and told him that Jack would never have gone out of college that night if it hadn't been for me, but all he said was that the Proctor had taken a serious view of the case, and he would not have anybody in the college brawling in the streets. I also wrote to Jack's people and told them that the whole thing was my fault, but his father's answer was very short and disagreeable; he had entirely lost his temper.

Dennison and his friends made the most of this misfortune, and I suppose it was natural that they should think it a comical finish to Jack's attempts at working. For the rest of the term I did not care what happened to anybody or anything. I was thoroughly sick with my luck, and when you are born with a faculty for disobeying rules and offending authorities and have trampled upon your inclinations for a long year without any result except disaster, it is enough to make you think that fighting Nature is a perfectly absurd thing to do. It was very fortunate that the term was nearly over, for I had a mad idea that the best way to make up to Jack for getting him sent down was to get sent down myself; but The Bradder, who knew how foolish I could be, nipped my demonstrations in the bud, and gave me some of the straightest advice I have ever listened to. He was very rude indeed. One of the few good things about this term was that Fred batted splendidly, he was not successful afterwards against Cambridge, but we had every reason for thinking that they were an exceptionally strong eleven. I bowled faster than ever, and a little straighter than the year before; I was said to be the fastest bowler at Oxford, and I heard two men saying in Vincent's that their idea of bliss was my bowling on a good wicket. But when I lowered a newspaper and showed myself they pretended that it was a joke.