"You'd better leave this wretched lunatic alone; but if you stand there talking until you spoil the pockets of your waistcoat I shan't help you."
He took his fingers from his pockets and rearranged his tie. "You disappoint me greatly," he said, and strode out of the room.
Our footer match that afternoon was against Oriel, who play soccer better than rugger, so we beat them without much trouble. Fred didn't play for them, because the captain of the 'Varsity team objected to his team playing in college matches, but he watched the game and came back to tea with me afterwards. I wanted to give him a cheque for the fifty pounds I still owed him, for I had just got my year's allowance, and I thought I ought to pay him. But he would not listen to what I said, and only tore up my cheque when I gave it to him. "It's no use," he said, "you will only be short at the end of the year."
That, I knew, was the truth, for economy was a thing which evaded me, however zealously I pursued it.
"But I hate owing you money," I said, "and by the end of the year something may have happened."
He only laughed, and told me that if I couldn't borrow money, which he did not want, from him, I must be a fool, and before I could say any more Jack Ward appeared. Fred and he did not seem to be very pleased to see each other again, and since they always got on my nerves I went into my bedder to finish dressing.
"Been staying with Godfrey this vac?" I heard Jack ask.
"No; have you?" Fred answered.
"Rather not," Jack said; "I've had no time to stay with anybody. I'm trying to become a decent oar, and reading history—it simply takes all the time I've got. I rowed a bit at school, but have never touched an oar for two years until last July."
"It's rather a grind, isn't it?" Fred said; but from that moment he seemed to change his opinion of Jack, and if I could be a fool about some things I feel quite certain that Fred had been bothering his head about nothing for a very long time, which was not very sensible of him. I don't believe that Jack ever understood why Fred disliked him, and after he had pulled Nina out of the river the second time, I think he began to regard her solely as a safe and easy way to a Humane Society's medal. If Fred would only have believed that there are some things which cannot stand repetition, I should have been saved a lot of trouble.