"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.