CHAPTER XX
THE HEDONISTS
Fred Foster's people came back from India during the summer, and he spent all the vac with them, though I tried to make him come to us for the shooting. He had, however, got an idea that Nina did not want him, and nothing I could do was successful in removing it. I told him that Nina had been greatly improved by Paris; I did not like the expression, but I did not see why he should think it ridiculous. Still, if he meant to be obstinate it was no use wasting time in writing letters at which he gibed, so I left him alone.
Jack Ward managed to appease his father, and having done it he set out on a campaign which for thoroughness beat anything I have ever discovered. He went off at the end of July to stay with a tutor who coached him in history and rowing, and he stayed with him until the Oxford term began. The tutor was a rowing blue who did not, from Jack's account of him, mind how little work his pupils did as long as they were ready to go on the river, but Jack assured me that he had read for four or five hours every day. To start with a history coach two years before his schools struck me as being magnificent, but Jack would not hear a word against his way of spending the vac.
"He may not know much history," he said to me when we got back to Oxford, "but he's a rare good sort, and he says I'm a natural oar. Besides, he's a sportsman."
"What's that?" I asked, for I used the word "sportsman" to mean so many things.
"He doesn't bother people; you can play cards if you like, and he has a billiard table. He is a nailer at cork pool."
"Is he?" I said, and asked no more about him, for I have a horror of nailers at any sort of pool, having once been hopelessly fleeced by some of them.
"I won a pot," Jack went on gaily, "in the scratch fours at Wallhead regatta—I rowed in two regattas. Not so bad; and now I've got to go down to the river every day and be coached by men who don't know the difference between an oar and a barge pole. Well, it's all part of the game."
"What's the game?" I asked.
"Look here, Godfrey, something's happened to you. You've gone stupid; it's your game. To buck St. Cuthbert's up, get rid of these confounded slackers, squash them flat, and we are going to do it, you see if we don't. Dennison was drunk last night or pretended to be, and he and his gang invaded a lot of freshers and then asked them all to breakfast. That crowd are no more use to a college than a headache. Fancy coming to Oxford to be ragged by Dennison!"
"It does seem rather futile."
"Futile!" Jack exclaimed scornfully, and then proceeded to say what he called it; "but if you have given up caring what happens I shall chuck up the whole thing," he concluded.
"I have not given up caring, but I have tried once and got laughed at for my trouble. I don't believe you can squash men like Dennison when they once get into a college; they are like black beetles, and you can't get rid of them unless you kill them."
"We can try," Jack said.
"I tried, and most men thought me a fool. The only thing to do is to leave them alone; but the worst of it is that we can't help meeting Dennison at dinners and things. He smiled on me the other day as if I was his best friend."
"He didn't smile at me."
"I think he hates you; I can't get properly hated, when I try to show Dennison I loathe him he smiles. There's something wrong with me somewhere."
"You are too rottenly good-natured."
"I never thought of that," I said.
"That's it," Jack declared; "I saw Lambert hitting you on the back in the quad this morning."
"I told him that if he did it again I should throw Stubbs' Charters at his head," I replied in self-defence.
"But, don't you see, Lambert would never hit me on the back. He is one of the most gorgeous slopers we have got, and twangs his banjo for Dennison to sing what they call erotic ballads. You've not got enough dignity."
"Steady on," I said, for with too much of one thing and not enough of another I was beginning to think that it was about time for him to discover something of which I had the proper amount.
"Don't get angry," he returned, "I only meant to explain why your shot to buck the college up failed. You're too popular, that's it."
I spoke plainly to him.
"It's no use talking like that," he went on; "say you'll help me, and we'll have a go at squashing this ragging lot. It wouldn't matter so much if they could do anything decently, but they are the very men who ought to go and bury themselves because they won't try to do anything. Let us do something first and then have a good wholesome rag, but for heaven's sake let us shut up until we have done it."
Jack had only just left my rooms when, as if to prove what he had said, Lambert strolled in and asked me if I would let him have lunch with me. My table-cloth was laid and I couldn't tell him that I was lunching out, so I told him that Murray was coming. He replied that he liked Murray, and since that had failed I said that I was going to play footer and had very little time, but he answered that he would not be able to stay for more than half-an-hour. Meals with Lambert were apt to get less simple as they went on, for he had a habit of saying that he wanted nothing and then of demanding port with his cheese and liqueurs to save him from indigestion, but I could not get rid of him, so apart from making up my mind that his luncheon should be as short as possible, I left him alone.
He read the paper for a few minutes and then asked me if I did not like his waistcoat. It looked to me like some new kind of puzzle, so I asked him if he had the answer in his pocket, but he was looking at it thoughtfully and did not answer.
"Nice shade, isn't it?" he said presently.
I thought that there was more glare than shade about it and told him so.
"It's unique," he declared, and at last I was able to agree with him.
"Have you called on that man Thornton?" he asked, and stood up so that he could see his waistcoat and himself in the glass.
"I never call on anybody. I have had a lot of freshers to meals, but I don't know Thornton; he is supposed to be cracked, isn't he?"
"Of course he is. We've got a splendid rag on. I thought of it, and Dennison is going to work it out. Do you think this coat fits properly in the back? I met Collier this morning and he swore it didn't."
"What's the rag?" I asked.
Clarkson came in with a message from Murray to say that he could not come to luncheon.
"That's a good job," Lambert remarked.
"I thought you liked Murray," I answered.
"He would not have cared about our rag. I don't suppose Collier knows when a coat fits, he's so fat that a petticoat would suit him better than a pair of trousers."
"Here's lunch," I said, and as soon as I had got him away from the spot where he could examine his clothes, I asked again what was going to happen.
"Thornton is absolutely green, Dennison will be able to do exactly what he likes with him."
"Poor brute."
"I can never make out why you pretend to hate Dennison, he wouldn't mind being friends with you; besides, it makes things very disagreeable for me."
"I don't pretend anything," I said.
"At any rate it's very stupid of you; you are both Mohocks, and ought to be friends."
I thought he had come on a peace mission, so, to prevent waste of time, I said what I thought of Dennison.
"You make a mistake about him altogether," he said. "Got any port?"
"You'll get as fat as Collier if you aren't careful, and it wouldn't suit you a bit," I replied, and stayed in my chair.
"Port doesn't make people fat," but he spoke doubtfully.
"You know best, but I should advise you to be careful. What's the rag?"
He shot his cuffs down and stroked his upper lip, as he always did when he was going to say anything which he thought interesting.
"Dennison is getting it up, which means that it will be jolly well done. He has found out that Thornton knows nothing, so he is teaching him a lot. To begin with, he has invented a society called 'The Hedonists,' which is supposed to get pleasure out of anything extraordinary, and he has filled up Thornton with the idea that he is the very man to be President if we can get him elected."
"Does he believe all that?"
"He believes it all right; Dennison is splendid at that sort of thing. But we must make some opposition, or Thornton might think it was too easy a job, so we are getting Webb to stand against Thornton, and Dennison and I want you to propose him. We thought it would be a chance to show that you didn't mean all that rot you talked about us last year."
"I meant every word of it," I replied, but Lambert shook his head.
"Really you didn't," he said. "Dennison declares that you hate smugs and prigs and the sort of men who wear red ties and baggy trousers. Besides, you have fair rows with the dons yourself. You are made to enjoy yourself; that's all about it, and it is time some benefactor told you so."
"I shan't have anything to do with this rag; it seems to be playing a pretty low-down game on a fresher, and if I can stop it I shall. Tell Dennison that from me," I replied.
Lambert got up and put his fingers into the pockets of his waistcoat. "Don't be a fool, Marten," he said sadly, "if you had thought of this yourself you would have been delighted with the idea; it's so funny."
"Ask Jack Ward to help you."
"Ward! Between ourselves Dennison and I think that Ward is rather a bounder."
"I'll tell him; he will be glad to hear it."
"You make me ill; can't you see that this is too good to miss?"
"You'd better leave this wretched lunatic alone; but if you stand there talking until you spoil the pockets of your waistcoat I shan't help you."
He took his fingers from his pockets and rearranged his tie. "You disappoint me greatly," he said, and strode out of the room.
Our footer match that afternoon was against Oriel, who play soccer better than rugger, so we beat them without much trouble. Fred didn't play for them, because the captain of the 'Varsity team objected to his team playing in college matches, but he watched the game and came back to tea with me afterwards. I wanted to give him a cheque for the fifty pounds I still owed him, for I had just got my year's allowance, and I thought I ought to pay him. But he would not listen to what I said, and only tore up my cheque when I gave it to him. "It's no use," he said, "you will only be short at the end of the year."
That, I knew, was the truth, for economy was a thing which evaded me, however zealously I pursued it.
"But I hate owing you money," I said, "and by the end of the year something may have happened."
He only laughed, and told me that if I couldn't borrow money, which he did not want, from him, I must be a fool, and before I could say any more Jack Ward appeared. Fred and he did not seem to be very pleased to see each other again, and since they always got on my nerves I went into my bedder to finish dressing.
"Been staying with Godfrey this vac?" I heard Jack ask.
"No; have you?" Fred answered.
"Rather not," Jack said; "I've had no time to stay with anybody. I'm trying to become a decent oar, and reading history—it simply takes all the time I've got. I rowed a bit at school, but have never touched an oar for two years until last July."
"It's rather a grind, isn't it?" Fred said; but from that moment he seemed to change his opinion of Jack, and if I could be a fool about some things I feel quite certain that Fred had been bothering his head about nothing for a very long time, which was not very sensible of him. I don't believe that Jack ever understood why Fred disliked him, and after he had pulled Nina out of the river the second time, I think he began to regard her solely as a safe and easy way to a Humane Society's medal. If Fred would only have believed that there are some things which cannot stand repetition, I should have been saved a lot of trouble.
When I went back to my sitter I found that the blight which had always settled upon them when they were together was disappearing quickly. They were talking quite amiably, and although I should have been glad to have said something to show that I noticed the change, I expect that it was prudent of me to be silent. For the first time, as far as I could remember, we met without wondering how soon we could separate, and I had the sort of feeling which I should think a great-grandfather must have when he is celebrating his ninetieth birthday in the presence of his not too numerous descendants. I just sat and felt placid for some time, until I woke up and told Fred that we were supposed to have a mad fresher in college.
"You are always getting hold of freaks," he answered, and I asked him what he meant.
"You've got about half-a-dozen men here whose names look as if they have been turned hind-before; St. Cuthbert's has always been a home for a peculiar brand of potentate."
"Potentate!" I said scornfully; "besides, colour is not everything."
"Prince, if you like." But I knew that he was trying to draw me on, so I said nothing. To hear me in defence of my own college was, I am sorry to say, a great pleasure to him.
"Do you know how this report of Thornton being mad began?" Jack asked. "I'm rather keen on this, and believe it can be made into a much better rag than Lambert and Dennison think. It may be a chance to squash them altogether."
"Lambert has been trying to persuade me to help," I said. "I told him I would have nothing to do with his blessed rag."
"The best of the whole thing is that I don't believe Thornton is a lunatic. Collier says he isn't, and both Learoyd and Murray say he's not mad, but awfully clever or a humorist."
"Murray!" I exclaimed, but Jack was losing the power to astonish me very much.
"He's all right, I met him in Learoyd's room," Jack said, and began to laugh.
"So Thornton isn't mad after all, and you needn't talk about freaks," I told Fred.
"Do you mind hearing about this?" Jack asked him; "it will be splendid if it only comes off. It's like this: Lambert and Dennison are always looking out for freaks"—I wished he would not give Fred such chances to grin at me—"and Thornton's hair sticks up on end, and he never seems to know what he is going to do next. Murray told me that he is like a very good pianist he met once, except that he can't play the piano. At any rate he's odd, and that was the reason why Dennison asked him to lunch. And Lambert, do you know him?"
Fred shook his head.
"He is the kind of man who is built for processions and platforms and Lord Mayors' Shows," Jack explained; "he's gorgeous altogether."
"I saw him at your smoker," Fred said.
"He's one of the sights of the place, and he began to talk to Thornton about champagne."
"He always talks about clothes or wine," I put in.
"Thornton pretended—at least, I'll bet he pretended—to know nothing about champagne. So Lambert told him the best brand was Omar Khayyam of '78, and that by a stroke of luck it could still be got at a place in the High. They thought Thornton swallowed that all right, so Dennison told him that if he couldn't get Omar Khayyam he must get some Rosbach of '82. After that they asked what sort of fly he used for quail; of course the man must have been simply too sick of them to say anything."
"Lambert never told me anything about the champagne," I said.
"I expect that was because he and Dennison nearly had a row about it; he swore that he thought about Omar Khayyam, and Dennison swore that he did—a rotten sort of thing to quarrel about, anyway. I never heard of the man until yesterday. I've often heard of Rosbach," he added.
"What's going to happen now?" Fred asked, and from some cause or other he was shaking with laughter.
Jack told him about the Hedonists, and finished up by saying that he must go to see Thornton.
"What's the good of that?" I asked.
"I want to see if he isn't having a huge joke all to himself; if he is we may as well help him with it."
As soon as Fred had gone away Jack persuaded me to go with him and call on Thornton. He had got hold of a scheme which Murray and Learoyd had started, and as its object seemed to be to score off Dennison I was not going to be out of it. We found Thornton sitting in an arm-chair with his feet on the mantelpiece, and Jack seeing that he was alone sported the oak so that we could not be interrupted.
"I should think," Thornton said, as he pushed his chair back, "that I must have had over thirty men in here to-day. There were seventeen before twelve o'clock. I am thinking of putting a visitors' book in the passage, so that they can write their names and go away. Are you going to back me up to-morrow night?" he asked Jack.
"They have persuaded you to stand?"
"Dennison says it would be such a bad thing for the college if this man Webb got in. Of course it is a great honour for a fresher, but I am used to speaking; we have a debating society at home." He spoke as if the whole thing was not in the least important, and ran his fingers through his hair until it stood straight up on end. It was the sort of hair which looked like stubble.
Jack was so discouraged that he did not know what to say, so I asked Thornton if he expected to be elected.
"There doesn't seem to be any doubt about that; there are only about thirty members, and quite half of them have promised to support me. Webb of course is better known, but in some cases it does no harm to keep oneself in the background until the last moment. Then I shall speak." He seemed to think that his speech would settle everything completely.
I wandered round the room waiting for Jack to bring forward his scheme if he could remember it, but he was sitting on the table sucking at a pipe which had no tobacco in it, so I drifted over to a book-case, and nearly the first book I saw was an edition of Omar Khayyam. This surprised me so much that I turned round to see if Thornton really looked like a lunatic, but I got no satisfaction from him, for I had once seen a man who might have been his brother, and then I had been playing cricket against an asylum. He was lying back in his chair gazing at the ceiling, and I pulled Omar Khayyam out of the case and put it on the table for Jack to see. Then I sat down and waited for results, but I had to make no end of signs before he would take any notice of the book, for he was in such a state of despondency that I believe he thought I was trying to talk on my fingers. At last his eye fell on the book, and after I had nodded furiously at him, he jumped off the table and stood in front of Thornton.
"You read Omar Khayyam?" he said, holding the book in his hand.
Thornton stopped staring at the ceiling and sat forward with his elbows resting on his knees. "Yes," he answered; "at least, I used to until I knew it by heart."
"He's a good brand of champagne," Jack went on.
"Are you a friend of Dennison's?" Thornton asked, and there was a kind of hunted look in his eyes.
"I'm not," I hastened to tell him, and at that moment I looked at my watch and discovered that I had already kept The Bradder waiting for ten minutes, so I had to go just as things were becoming interesting.
Jack assured me afterwards that Thornton was not mad. "But," he added, "he's very odd, and I believe he's in a mortal terror that, unless he goes on pretending to be a fool, these men will do something much worse to him than make him president of a society which doesn't exist. So I've put Murray to speak to him; this will be the talk of the 'Varsity, and I don't see what good there is in keeping prize idiots. I have told him to go on playing up to Dennison for a bit, and then we would help him."
I did not think, however, that it would be very easy to save Thornton, and when Collier and I went to the meeting of the Hedonists on the following evening we agreed that whether he was mad or only very simple, he was sure to be in for a bad time. Although Dennison had moved into some of the biggest rooms in college, they were crowded when we got to them, and it was very difficult to get Collier inside the door. Dennison and a few other men were sitting at a table at the far end of the room, and just as we arrived a fourth-year man got up to speak.
I suppose that his business was to explain why the Hedonists existed. At any rate, he said that it was his duty before he, as the out-going President, broke his wand of office to remind the Society that it existed for two definite objects—the pursuit of pleasure, and the suppression of vulgarity. He then went on to state that Mr. Wilkins, formerly of St. Cuthbert's, had kindly consented to give an account of his travels in Central Africa.
"Formerly of St. Cuthbert's," described Wilkins correctly, for he had been sent down after one term, and since then had been living an alcoholic existence in a farm-house a few miles outside Oxford. His appearance was comical, but he was really a dreadful barbarian, who thought that it was better to gain notoriety as a hard drinker than to be forgotten entirely. He began by telling us that he had never been to Central Africa, and hoped sincerely that he never should go. He also told us that the reason why he was addressing the Society was a rumour that his aunt had met several African explorers at dinner, but he wished to say that she was no more of a lion-hunter than he was. In this way he strove desperately to be amusing, but the struggle was very painful, and I was glad when he had finished.
The President then broke his wand of office, which for some obscure reason was a bulrush painted white, and Thornton and Webb, who had been sitting behind the table, were put up for election and called upon to speak. Webb developed a stammer, and although he had his speech written on his shirt-cuff, no one could hear what he said. He was, however, received with a lot of applause, so that Thornton might think the election was genuine; Dennison had certainly packed the meeting with great care.
Thornton's speech was, in its way, almost too amusing, for I found it very hard to believe that any one who was not more or less mad could possibly make it. He spoke at a tremendous pace, sometimes talking utter nonsense, and then as if by chance saying something almost sensible. Voting-papers were given to twenty-five picked men after he had finished, and Thornton was elected President by fourteen votes to eleven. The meeting finished by Thornton thanking everybody in a voice which sounded tearful, and then he announced that the annual dinner of the Hedonists would be held at The Sceptre on the following Friday evening, at which the ceremonies of inauguration would be held, and he would be the only guest of the Society in accordance with its ancient and honourable traditions.
"Don't you think he is mad?" I said to Jack as I walked across the quad with him.
"The only danger is that they may find out that he is rotting the whole lot of them. He overdid the thing to-night. Come and see Murray."
We found Murray waiting to hear what had happened at the meeting, and from the account we gave him he said that it could not have gone off more successfully. "If you think Thornton mad when you know that he isn't, there is no reason for Dennison to change his mind. Besides, these men are quite certain that he is cracked, and as long as we are careful they won't suspect anything."
"We shall have to be most tremendously careful," Jack said, and he seemed to find the prospect oppressive.
"I'll manage Thornton," Murray continued, "and what you men have got to do is to get asked to this dinner. We shall have to take some others into this."
We sat down and chose several men who disliked the Dennison gang, and who could be trusted not to give our scheme away by talking about it, and during the next few days we had to work hard. Dennison and Lambert, however, were so confident that this dinner was going to be the finest rag ever held in Oxford that they did not mind who came to it. Collier got several invitations for us, because he had a nice solid way of sitting down in a man's rooms and waiting until he was given what he wanted; but apart from Jack it was not difficult for us to get to The Sceptre, and at last even Jack was invited. Murray said that his part was to prepare Thornton, and he refused to go to the dinner, because Dennison might wonder why he wanted to be there. I thought that Murray carried caution to extremes.
I should think that there were nearly forty men at this function; but the only guest was Thornton, so he began by scoring something. It was an elaborate affair; Dennison as Secretary of the Hedonists, and two or three men who called themselves Ex-Presidents, wore enormous badges, and Thornton's shirt was covered with orders and decorations which were supposed to have been worn by eighty-eight consecutive Presidents. How any one who was sane could possibly consent to be made such a fool puzzled me altogether, and it required all Jack's assurances to make me believe that we should not be scored off all along the line.
After the dinner was finished Dennison got up to introduce the President of the year, but all he did was to give a short biography of Thornton, which for impudence was simply terrific. Everything had gone so well up to then that I suppose he could not keep himself in hand any longer; but as he was bounder enough to pull Thornton's people into his speech, he succeeded in disgusting several men who had been helping him in the rag. He finished up by saying that Thornton would give his inaugural address, and that afterwards the historic ceremonies of the Hedonists would be performed.
A man with a voice which was a mixture of a street hawker's and a parish clerk's stood up and chanted, "I call upon Mr. Edward Noel Kenneth Thornton to put on the purple presidential cap and to deliver his inaugural address to this ancient and historic Society." The cap, which had a long black tassel, was then handed to Thornton, and he put it on amidst tremendous applause. It made him look more ridiculous than ever, but he seemed to be perfectly calm when he got up and bowed solemnly in every direction.
"Mr. Ex-Presidents and fellow-members of this justly-celebrated Hedonist Society," he began, and every word he said could be heard plainly, "we are here to-night in obedience to custom and in pursuit of pleasure. Custom is one thing and pleasure is another, but we are fortunate in belonging to a Society which makes its customs pleasant, and which has such skilled hands to guide its pleasures that the word customary fails entirely to describe them." He paused for a moment, and a man near me asked what he was talking about, but Webb answered quickly that he was a hopeless madman, and that the ceremonies would be the real joke. "That I, a freshman," he continued, "should be elected President of this Society fills me with gratitude and even dismay, for I fear that the duties of so distinguished an office will be but inadequately performed during the coming year." Loud cries of "No" followed this remark, and he went on, "You are good enough to disagree with me, and perhaps the ceremonies connected with my office may help me to fulfil my duties. I will tell you what those ceremonies are." Dennison tried to stop him, but he was speaking quickly and took no notice of the interruption. "After my address has been given I put on my robes of office and ride on a mule from here to St. Cuthbert's; I am to be accompanied by the band of the Society, and attended by six men who will carry syphons of Apollinaris water and prevent my robes from being soiled by the dust of the streets. Had I known before I came here that so much honour was about to be showered upon me I do not think that I should have considered myself worthy of being your President. I forgot to say that I am provided with an umbrella." I looked at Dennison, and he did not seem to be feeling very comfortable; Thornton, however, had kept up the rôle of a madman thoroughly, and had spoken of the ceremonies as if he was quite prepared to carry them out. Some men were shouting with laughter, but Jack was almost pale with anxiety, and whispered to me that he was afraid Thornton would get flurried and finish his speech too soon. As soon as the laughter had stopped he went on speaking, and although he looked terribly pale and bothered, he was never at a loss for words. "I am, I have been told, the eighty-ninth man to fill this important office, and when I think of my predecessors, some of whom have doubtless passed away, I am filled with a sense of my unfitness for the post which I fill. The whole fate of this Society depends upon its President; without him to guide the members in their pursuit of pleasure they would be left to drift into undignified amusements, and might even end by taking such absurd things as degrees. At all cost we must avoid banality." As if in the excitement of the moment, he swept his hands over his head and knocked off his cap. "However, my fellow Hedonists, I think I may say that your last President has entered earnestly into the spirit of this Society. Its aim, you remember, is pleasure—not any vulgar or ordinary pleasure, but refined and exclusive amusement—that is written in the rules of the Society as they were given to me, and I need not remind those who are present to-night that it is their duty to obey them." He rested his right hand on his shirt, and continued quickly, "I, at any rate, have obeyed them to the letter. I have, if I may say so, got more amusement out of this evening than I have ever had in my life, and as your eighty-ninth President I declare this magnificent Society at an end." Dennison, Lambert, and one or two others jumped up, but Thornton told them loudly not to interrupt him, and several of us shouted for him to go on with his speech. "I have had an exceedingly good dinner, and my last word must be one of sympathy with Mr. Dennison, who, thinking that I was a bigger fool than he was, has invented a society of which, I am sure you will all acknowledge, he is the only man worthy to be President. I hope that you will see that he performs the ceremonies which he has arranged for me." As he finished he took off all his badges and tossed them across the table to Dennison.
There was a good deal of noise during the concluding sentences of his speech, but the so-called Hedonists were so astonished that they did nothing, and Thornton very prudently did not wait to see what would happen next. Dennison was in a miserable state because he was violently angry and trying to grin, and before the general hubbub had stopped, two men out of our eight, who had never forgiven him for laughing at their rowing, picked him up and carried him out of the room. In a minute Dennison, with the purple cap on his head, was sitting on the donkey, and a procession had started to St. Cuthbert's. When we got back to college we succeeded in taking possession of the porter who answered our knocks, and in getting both the moke and Dennison into the quad. I was so engaged with the porter that I did not see whether Dennison entered in state, but at any rate he had to ride round the quad two or three times, and crowds of men were there to see him do it. Finally, the Subby and The Bradder appeared, and gave orders that the donkey should leave the college; so as soon as Dennison had dismounted, his steed was handed over to its owner, who was waiting in the street. Then some of us paid a call on the porter to see if he could develop a bad memory for faces, but the only thing we found out from him was that his temper was bad, and that we had known before. As I went back to my rooms I met Lambert, who drew himself up in front of me as if he was on parade.
"Don't think," he said, "that you have heard the last of this."
"We shall never hear the last of it," I answered,
"We know that you played this dirty trick."
"You can know what you please," I said.
"I told you about Thornton, and then you prepare this behind our backs."
"The whole college, and nearly the whole 'Varsity knew about Thornton, so you needn't talk such rot to me. Crowds of out-college men were here to see him come in to-night."
"You arranged the whole thing."
"You may think whatever you like," I replied; and he strode away with a warning that I had better look out for myself.