"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 I was chased 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.