"He's quiet and all right, and he has never pushed himself at all. I made him promise to come; he didn't want to, only it's his chance to get well and he must take it. You would have done the same thing."
"What's he like?"
"He's not exactly like any one else I know at Oxford, but——"
"Of course he isn't."
"I was going to say no one could possibly dislike him."
"I suppose he will have to come, but I want you to understand that in future I insist on knowing whom you want to ask here before you ask them. I am exceedingly annoyed, I shall go and see your mother."
I went with him, as when I am about I generally manage to absorb most of his anger, but after a few outbursts my mother soothed him, and in the end he even gave a grim sort of smile when I said that unless he had saved the Professor there would have been no bother about his son.
"Don't call that man a Professor," he said, "he's a humbug, he always was and always will be, and if it wasn't that I am sorry for a son who has such a father I wouldn't be talked over by you. But you have given your uncle something to think about," and that idea sent him smiling to the window.
One most splendid thing happened while Jack Ward was staying with us, for just before he was going away Nina fell into the river again and Jack was superb enough idiot to repeat his previous performance and jump in after her. I met them trying to get into the house by a back way, and from the look of them I saw that they were feeling rather silly. It is all very well to fall into one river, but when you start going overboard anywhere the thing becomes comical, and they fell from their high position as rescued and rescuer and had to put up with a good deal of wit, as we understood it at home. I didn't say much, because Nina was better than I was at saying things, but whenever I saw her I gave way to fits of silent laughter. I can't think how I thought of that dodge, it was so extraordinarily successful and so far above my average efforts, and as soon as I saw that it was working properly, I did not mind being called anything she liked. And my father, being particularly well just then, helped me by what, I was determined to believe, were very humorous remarks. Jack did not hear many of them, but the few he did hear must have upset him a little, for he tried to explain himself by saying that he would jump into anything to save a kitten, which from the look of Nina did not seem to satisfy her much. In the end I don't believe she was as sorry for Jack to go as I was. She could not stand being a family joke, and I, having suffered in that way many times, could have sympathized with her if I had not thought that it was much the best thing which could happen.
I felt dull after Jack went, for he was the sort of man who does brighten up a place, and he was never by any chance bored; besides, I was wondering how I could make Owen enjoy himself, because the only thing I knew about him was that he did not care for any exercise except walking, and I hoped that he would be reasonable about the distances he wanted to go.