"Oh, nothing much. He didn't like me calling his fellows 'swine.'"
"But why the devil not? They are swine, aren't they?"
"Of course they are; but you can hardly expect 'the Bull' to realise it."
"No, perhaps not; but, my God, they are the last thing in swine, those Hazlitts and their crowd."
The House supper this year was not much, compared with the one of the year before. Simonds was not an R.D. Lovelace, and Ferguson again spoke miles above his audience. However, he was a sport, and let them do as they liked; so they drank his health and sang: He's a Jolly Good Fellow! Several old boys came down, FitzMorris with an eyeglass and a wonderful tie; Sandham, as usual, quite insignificant; Armour wearing the blue waistcoat of a Wadham drinking club. Meredith had been expected, but at the last moment he had found his debts so much in excess of a very generous allowance that he would have to retrench a little. It was a pity; but in the Bullingdon living is not cheap and Meredith was a great blood.
The prize-giving this term afforded little comfort to Gordon; he was easily bottom of V.A. Rather a collapse, but still one has to keep up with things. It does not do to lose sight of the really important issues of life, and Gordon had certainly been a social success. He travelled up to London with Ferguson and Tester, and felt no small part of a giant when Collins entered their carriage, suddenly saw Ferguson, and with inaudible apologies vanished quickly down the corridor. Olympus was not so very far off.
CHAPTER II: HEALTHY PHILISTINISM
During the Christmas holidays there appeared in a certain periodical one of the usual attacks on the Public School system. It repeated all the old arguments about keeping abreast of the times, and doing more modern languages and less classics. The writer had nothing new to say, and, like most other such attacks, his jeremiad was in an hour or two forgotten. But at Fernhurst it did have some effect, for it gave Henry Trundle the idea of forming a special class for French enthusiasts. Henry Trundle was one of the French masters. He was entirely English, had won his Blue for golf at Oxford, and had got a Double First. He also was quite incapable of teaching anything. His form made no pretence of keeping order; the noise that proceeded from his class-room could be heard anywhere within a radius of a hundred yards. And yet he was not a bad fellow; he was a good husband, and his children were very fond of him. His domestic virtues, however, were sadly lost on Fernhurst, who looked on him as a general buffoon, a hopeless ass. His class-room was considered a sort of Y.M.C.A. entertainment hall, where there was singing and dancing, and a mild check on excessive rioting.