My life for several days after Nina went away was just what I expected it would be. Everybody I knew wanted to be told about the accident, and congratulated me on her narrow escape. I was gloriously rude to several men, but nothing I could do was really any good. The first man at whom I let myself go was Dennison, and in this I made a very great mistake, because in letting him know that I was sick of the whole business I gave him a chance which he did not miss. He went round finding men who had not seen me, and persuaded them to come to me and say how sorry they had been to hear of the accident, and how glad they were that Jack Ward had saved Nina, and a lot of other desperate twaddle. Finally, Dennison having worked this joke most diligently, decided that a dinner must be given in Jack's honour, and when he met me in the quad on Sunday and told me about it I refused flatly to go.
"Of course you will come," he said, "it would be a disgrace to the college if we didn't do something to celebrate Ward's pluck and your sister's escape."
"It is a disgrace to the college to make a wretched fuss about nothing," I replied.
"You are the only man who thinks that. Next Thursday night, half-past seven, at the Sceptre," he said, and walked off.
Ward and I had been avoiding each other ever since the Wednesday night, when he having first of all been to Brasenose because they were Head of the River and lively, came to see me afterwards and talked very stupidly. I was in bed, and he woke me up to talk to me for over half-an-hour about love. Any one would have been angry, and though I tried to be polite, because he had jumped into the Cher, I told him to go away several times before he went. I had never thought it possible that I could have so much trouble about Nina. I suppose he knew that he had made an idiot of himself that evening, for if there is any time when it is decent to wake a man up and talk to him about wonderful subjects, I am sure it can never be after a huge celebration at Brasenose. I didn't know much about love, but I thought that there must be the wrong and the right kind, and that Jack had made a bad start.
So we kept out of each other's way as much as possible, and I did not know that he hated the idea of this dinner even more than I did. We might together have done something to stop it, but we had no chance unless we combined. I thought Jack wanted to be fêted, and in consequence I felt absolutely savage with him, while he told me afterwards that he was simply dragged into the thing by Dennison. However, I am not altogether sorry that the dinner took place, for though neither Jack nor I were anything like wily enough to score off Dennison, we got some rare fun out of him before that evening finished.
Collier, Lambert and Learoyd all came to tell me that I must go to the dinner before I could be persuaded to have anything to do with it, and it was really comical to hear why each of them was so keen on the affair. Collier gloried openly in the fact that it would be a huge feed, and said he was glad Dennison had engaged Rodoski to play the fiddle because music gave him a better appetite, and he advised me strongly not to miss such a good chance of enjoying myself, and thought me mad to hesitate. Lambert said that Dennison had asked him to propose Ward's health, and that he hoped his speech—though quite unprepared—would not be unworthy of the evening. "The dinner itself will be nothing, just like any other kind of dinner, but don't you miss it," he concluded, and I felt sure that he had already got his speech in his pocket. Learoyd begged me not to stay away from a jolly good rag. "If we can't row, we can rag," he said, and when I told him that I was sick to death of ragging, he took such a serious view of my case that I promised that I would go so that I could get rid of him.
There were about fourteen men at the dinner-party, including Ward, Dennison, Lambert, Learoyd, Collier, Webb, and Bunny Langham, and since Dennison had taken a free hand in arranging everything, it was a tremendous affair. I never doubted that his idea was to make Ward and me look as foolish as possible, for he was the kind of man who was never really contented unless he was trying to make some one feel uncomfortable. The whole thing, I knew, was an elaborate joke at our expense, but I was not going to starve because Nina had fallen into the "Cher" and Jack had pulled her out, so I set to work to enjoy myself, though I had to sit next to Dennison. In fact, having once got to the Sceptre, I think I made more row than any one at dinner, and this must have disappointed Dennison, who started by saying those half sweet and half bitter things to me, which I never know how to answer, but which make me long to put the man who says them under the table. So I talked and shouted loud enough to drown Dennison's remarks, for it would never have done to put him out of sight during the dinner. I suppose that being unable to get any fun out of me, and having Collier, who did not like to speak much at meals, on the other side of him, he must have found some fresh amusement, for he became very quiet as the evening went on, and there was only one thing which ever made him silent and that was the kind of thing which makes most people talk.
He was, however, capable of asking Lambert to propose the toast of the evening, but nothing would make Lambert stir before some one had proposed the royal toasts, which Dennison had forgotten; and three or four men who did not want any one to talk except themselves shouted, "No speeches," until Bunny Langham got up and surprised every one by making them laugh. He did not stick to his subject very much, but he managed to make everything he said ramble round in an odd sort of way to an apology for Dennison's forgetfulness, and if only he had been sitting on the other side of me I should not have been compelled to shout during the whole of dinner, for I believe he would have been able to help me in answering the gibing remarks which had been made to me. Dennison smiled across the table at Langham, but his smile looked as if it had been glued on to his face, and if I had been in his place I should have thrown something solid, like a pine-apple, at Bunny.
My penance, however, was to come, and when Lambert at last got up to finish off the business of making fools of Jack Ward and me, I thought of pretending that my nose had begun to bleed and of hurrying out of the room, only it seemed to be rather a weak thing to do. So I just sat there and imagined that everybody was looking at me, which made me feel most uncomfortably hot. Lambert admitted afterwards that he was in his very best form that evening, and I think he must have been, for I never heard anybody talk such a lot of nonsense in all my life. I looked at Jack Ward once, and he was evidently having a very bad time, but every one else except Collier, who was sleepy, seemed to think that Lambert was amusing. He referred to Jack in a patronizing way as "our young hero," and said that my mind had been so completely upset by this brave deed that for some days I had been a cause of considerable anxiety to my friends. When he made that remark I took a very ripe pear from a dish in front of me, but Learoyd persuaded me not to throw it. I couldn't have missed Lambert, and I think he deserved to be mobbed, but he saw what was happening and I think it made him forget some of the things he was going to say about me. At the end of his speech he actually began to recite a piece of poetry of his own, though the first line was about the brave deserving the fair and sounded like somebody else's, which was a way his poems had. He had arranged for slow music to be turned on while he did this, and there was such a general feeling against the combination that he had to sit down before he had finished. Bunny Langham, who was a member of the Horace Club, and disliked any poems made in Oxford except those which he wrote himself, led the hubbub, and after we had drunk Jack's health there was such a noise that he escaped having to reply. When any one shouted for him, as they did fitfully for some time, their voices were always drowned in the general cheerfulness of the evening, and he finally came round from the other side of the table and sat down by me.
"You have been making a most awful row," he said.
"Self-defence," I answered, "I didn't want to hear anything which Dennison said."
"A most rotten evening, the proggins will come in a few minutes if he is within shouting distance. They have been trying to get us out for the last quarter of an hour."
"Several men seem to have gone already."
We talked for some minutes, and then a waiter came in and said the proctor was coming down "The High," so we all bolted as hard as we could. Instead of turning down the Turl, I saw Dennison run down the High, with Lambert pursuing him and telling him to stop. But Dennison had been careful during the last part of the evening, and had arrived at the state when any one shouting at him made him run all the faster, while Lambert, excited by oratory and the after-effects of it, declared very loudly that he would catch Dennison if he had to run a mile.
"Dennison thinks that the proggins and all his bulldogs are after him," Bunny Langham said; "the whole thing was only a trick to get us out before anything happened."
"They can catch me if they like," Ward replied, "I can't run to-night."
So the three of us walked back to St. Cuthbert's, and Bunny complained bitterly that he could not come in and wait until Lambert and Dennison turned up. The first man to come into college after us was Collier, who said he had been dodging round the Radcliffe for a quarter of an hour, and soon afterwards Learoyd and Webb strolled in and pretended that they had been sitting under the table in the Sceptre, but they looked exceedingly warm. We all went to Ward's rooms, which were a kind of club for any men he knew and very often used when he was not even in them, to wait for Dennison and Lambert; but we had to stay until nearly twelve o'clock before either of them came, and then there was a tremendous thumping on the door, and Dennison, in a most exhausted condition, tottered in and nearly collapsed in the porter's arms.
It was some time before he had breath enough to walk across to Ward's rooms, but when we had got him settled in an arm-chair he began to feel better.
"At any rate I did the brute," he said, "that bulldog will remember me for the rest of his life."
I should have given the whole thing away by laughing if I had said anything, and I moved to the window so that I could put my head outside if I really had to laugh, while Collier, who had been scored off by Dennison very often, began to ask him questions. He had not to ask many, because when Dennison once began to talk, he told us everything without needing much encouragement.
"That big bull-dog has had his eye on me for ages," he said, "ever since I dodged him one night last term in the Corn, and I know that he has been saying that he would catch me some day." He stopped for a minute, being still rather breathless, and Collier asked him where he had been. "Directly I went out of the Sceptre he started off after me, and I made up my mind I would give him the deuce of a time before I had done with him, so I ran like blazes down the High, and when I turned round by Magdalen to see if he was coming I saw the brute in the distance. So off I went again, and when we got to the running-ground I heard him panting and swearing and shouting a hundred yards away. I let him get a bit closer and then went on towards Iffley; but I got a most horrible stitch, so I went as hard as I could for a bit, and then climbed over a gate and sat down under a hedge. I waited until he had gone past, and then came back to college. It is the easiest thing in the world to score off a bull-dog, they are simply the stupidest men in the world."
"He must have got a long way past Iffley by now," Collier said.
"I don't care where he is, but I shall have to look out that he doesn't get level with me," Dennison replied.
"You will always have to wear a cap and gown now," Learoyd remarked.
But Dennison took no notice of this advice.
"Where's Lambert?" he asked; "everybody else seems to be here except him and that fool, Bunny Langham."
"We don't know, he has not come in yet," Collier answered, and at that moment there was a rap at the door, and as soon as Lambert got into the porch I put my head out of the window and told him to come up to Ward's rooms. As he walked across the quad I saw that he had been having a rough time of it, for his clothes did not look as immaculate as usual. He was carrying an overcoat over his arm, and his shirt and collar had given way so badly that the first thing he did when he got into the room was to go to a looking-glass, and see how he could improve the appearance of things. A lot of men asked him where he had been, but he had forgotten that any of us had seen him start after Dennison, and he answered that he had just been for a stroll. "I like to have a walk by myself after a noise," he added; "the heat of that room made me feel absolutely ill."
Then Ward could not restrain himself any longer, and told Dennison that we all knew Lambert had been running after him, and that there had been no proctor and bull-dogs in the High.
"Coming suddenly out of a hot room into the open air always affects me," Lambert said. "I made up my mind I would catch Dennison if I ran until my legs gave way."
"It's all a silly lie," Dennison exclaimed; "I was chased by the big bull-dog; I should have seen that shirt, which was white when you started."
"I had on an overcoat," was Lambert's reply.
"Did you go to Iffley?" Collier asked.
"Iffley? Good heavens, no, I never went any further than Magdalen Bridge."
There was such a shout of laughter that I believe I should have thought anybody else except Dennison had been rotted enough.
"Then Iwaschased by a bull-dog!" he said emphatically.
"You weren't chased by any one after I stopped, for I sat on the bridge for quite ten minutes, and then I thought I would come home by Long Wall Street, the High being rather exposed at night. I made an unfortunate choice." He shot his cuffs down, but they were terribly limp, and he looked at them with disgust.
"What happened?" Ward asked.
"I met the proggins, and having got my wind I charged right past him. Then I ran round by the Racquet Courts, and finally hid in a garden by Keble. I ought not to have done that, because the bull-dogs know me, and I found them waiting outside when I came in. It is all your fault for running away when I told you to stop," he said to Dennison.
"I expect you were hiding in the garden at the same time Dennison was hiding from you behind a hedge in the Iffley Road," Collier said, and the idea pleased Lambert so much that he took off his tie and went to the looking-glass again. But he soon made up his mind that no tie, however beautifully tied, had a chance with a collar which looked like a piece of moderately white blotting-paper, so he stalked out of the room without wishing any one good-night, though he did wave his tie in Jack Ward's direction as he went, and since it was very late I followed him.
During the rest of the term I hardly saw anything of Fred, as he was playing cricket for the 'Varsity, and whenever I tried to see him I nearly always failed. I did not try much, for I did not see why he wanted to avoid me, and I thought he was treating me very badly. Besides, my people were bothering me a lot during the last few days of the term, and I didn't see any use in telling Fred that my mother wanted Jack Ward to come down to Worcestershire during the summer. As a matter-of-fact I was in an awkward position, for my mother had written to Jack Ward to thank him for pulling Nina out of the "Cher," and to say that she would be very glad if he could come down sometime to stay with us. But I thought Jack Ward would not come unless I asked him myself, and that rotten jumble he talked about love on my bed, and a sort of feeling that Fred would not like him to come kept me from saying anything to him. Jack only told me that my mother had written to him, and I heard from her that she had asked him to stay, so I had some time to think of what I had better do, and the more I thought the more bothered I became.
I had one idea which pleased me for a quarter of an hour; it was that Jack should come while Nina was away, but as soon as I thought of the temper Nina would be in when she found out this little plan I abandoned it quickly. Another idea, which did not please me for so long, was that I should tell Jack that my people simply hated any one who flirted, but that seemed both to be taking a good deal for granted and to be rather hard on Nina; besides, it reminded me unpleasantly of those advertisements for servants which end up, "No followers allowed," and which, I should think, are a great waste of money. In addition to this bother which I manufactured more or less for myself, I had another trouble which did not worry so much because I understood it better. Mrs. Faulkner had told my mother, quite privately, that I was in her opinion doing very little work at Oxford, and my mother was not as disturbed at this as her informant thought she ought to have been. At least I suppose that must have been the reason why Mrs. Faulkner told my father the same tale, and even took the trouble to show him some of the papers which were in that wretched parcel. I could not expect him to approve of all those papers, and I did not dare to tell him that I had not chosen them myself, because he would then have accused me of laziness and extravagance and a whole host of unpleasant things, so I accepted his rebukes with a contrite spirit and wrote and told him, quite truthfully, that I read very serious papers nearly every week. But when you have been fairly caught buying a host of sporting and theatrical literature, it isn't much good trying to persuade your father that it was a fluke. I sent himThe Spectatorsoon afterwards, but he never acknowledged it, and my mother in her next letter drew my attention to the fact that he had subscribed to this review for the last seven years. My luck was very bad just then, I seemed unable to do anything right.
There was only one thing which cheered me up, and it was that Owen had got over the worst part of his illness. But I could not even think of this without being bothered, for when a man is ill you don't mind promising to do anything, and it is only when he is getting better that you begin to realize how much you have promised. It was certain that I must pay the expenses of his illness, and it was equally certain that I should not have enough money to pay my college bills as well; the whole thing made me very pensive.
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.
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."