"But how did he manage that?" I asked, for my knowledge of racing being limited I did not understand how he could have backed the winner of this race and yet lost money.
"Why Dainty Dick started at three to one on, so he only won about thirty shillings, and he lost a fiver backing The Philosopher. I thought he had made a fortune by the way he was talking at dinner," Dennison answered.
For a moment Ward looked furious, and the exultant way in which Dennison told me what had happened must have annoyed him tremendously. I felt that Dennison with his seraphic smile was a much bigger idiot than Ward, so I said, "Well, I can't see where the joke comes in, I think it is thundering rough luck," which remark I considered rather noble, for I did think that Ward had been scored off beautifully, only Dennison gibing at him was such a sickening sight that I thought I would put off the few words I meant having with him about Dainty Dick until we were alone.
After Bunny Langham had gone we began to discuss the freshers' wine, but Jack Ward looked so down on his luck that I let him arrange what he liked, though as Collier said to me afterwards, Ward only thought he was deciding everything while Dennison really managed the whole affair and simply twisted him round his fingers.
"Dennison is as clever as a wagon load of monkeys," Collier complained, "he looks like a baby and is as cunning as a Chinaman. I wonder how we can put up with him."
I wondered, too, and I should think everybody else, except Dennison himself, found it difficult to explain his popularity. For he was popular, and since no other reason occurs to me I expect the fact that he was always ready to play the piano must have helped him, Lambert on his banjo was enough to depress a crowd of Sunday-school children at their annual treat, but Dennison played the kind of music which made Collier, Ward and me, who were not exactly musical, feel that we could sing quite well. At Cliborough I had established a record by being the first boy who had tried to get into the school choir and failed, but the man who made me sing "Ah, ah, ah," until I really could not go on any longer had told me that I should have a voice some day. Perhaps he said that out of kindness, but when Dennison played I always remembered it, and forgot that when I sang in church people sitting in front of me had been known to look round as if hymns were not made to be sung.
If discussion beforehand helps to make an entertainment successful our freshers' wine ought to have been a colossal success. For days the thing seemed to pervade the air and I got horribly tired of it, though Collier, who had been given rooms which compared with mine were palatial, had more reason to be sick than I had. Collier had not only a certain amount of space at his disposal but also a piano, and if either of us had been any use at guessing we might have known that his rooms would have been chosen. I may as well say now that if any one of the freshers who had been invited had also possessed a little sense Collier's rooms would not have been chosen, but the last thing we thought of was a row, until we got into one, which is one of the advantages of being a fresher.
Dennison and Ward finally asked about fifteen men to the wine, and on the appointed night we met in Collier's rooms. It was perhaps not so great a privilege to receive an invitation as we thought it was, because each man who accepted had to pay more than the thing was worth. However, there was no doubt that it was well done, Ward had been to Spinney's shop in the Turl and had benefited by Spinney's experience, and Dennison with the assistance of Collier's scout, and in spite of Collier's mild protests, had prepared the rooms in a way which made me wonder where the owner of them was going to sleep.
There was a tradition at St. Cuthbert's, and a tradition seems to me a very dangerous possession unless carefully watched, that no wine was complete without a large bowl of milk punch. Ward had been told this by Spinney, who took what he called a fatherly interest in St. Cuthbert's, though it must be an exorbitant kind of interest which makes a man recommend a lot of freshers, or anybody else, to mix punch with champagne and port. Spinney had also provided a terrific amount of fruit and other things, and if Collier's room had only been big enough to provide space for all of us and for what we were expected to eat and drink, I think our wine at the start would have been a most imposing display. As it was everybody thought it had been done well except Collier, who told me to look in his bedroom. I looked without seeing the bed, which was so piled up with superfluities that they nearly touched the ceiling.
"When this orgie is over," Collier said, "every one will have forgotten that I have to go to bed to-night."