"We used to be head of the river, and now we can't row for sour apples," Dennison chuckled, "the thing's a perfect pantomime."
"And you are the stupidest clown in it," I said suddenly, for although I did not want to lose my temper the "sour apples" expression, on the top of being told that I had "a fair old head," compelled me to say something.
"One to Marten," Lambert said, as he stalked about the room; they were a most trying lot to have anything to do with. Everything they said was just the thing that made me want to get away from them, and Dennison had told me once that he considered conversation a very fine art.
It would have been wise of me to have gone away without waiting for Dennison's attempts to get level with me, but I felt like staying where I was.
"Poor old fellow," Dennison groaned, "he sits up all night, and then his conscience smites him and his head aches, and he thinks the college is going to the deuce and is to be saved from perdition by his being rude. What you want, old chap, is a sedlitz powder; go and have one, and you won't be so gloomy, you may even smile when you see our eight bumped to-night."
"You laugh and jeer at our boat when it goes down, but I'll bet you would be the first to kick up a row if we ever make any bumps again, though you don't care whether we go to the bottom of the river and stop there," I answered.
"I don't see that it matters," Lambert put in, "and I would much rather be bottom than bottom but one or even two, there's something dignified about being absolutely last."
"Take a sedlitz powder and become a philosopher," Dennison suggested.
"I always thought your philosophy was founded on something confoundedly odd," I returned, "and now I know all about it."
"I suppose you think that very witty," he replied, and he almost lost his temper, "but though I may not be much of a philosopher I am a first-rate doctor, so when a man wants medicine I tell him so."