I crammed my note into an envelope and looked at Fred, who was gazing, rather stupidly I thought, at a photo of Nina which she had sent me a few days before.
"How many did you make against Surrey this afternoon?" I asked him.
Murray began to laugh, which suggested to me that I was asking an awkward question. "Was it another blob?" I inquired.
"I made a hundred and two," Foster said, and looked quickly at me and then again at that wretched photo. I expect he was very anxious not to seem too pleased with himself, but there was no reason why I should not be as pleased as I liked, and for a minute I forgot all about Mr. Edwardes. I told Fred that he was simply a certainty for his blue, and Murray again seemed to be amused.
"I have got it," Fred said quietly, and he stepped away from me, fearing that my delight might be painful to him.
There is an extraordinarily small choice of things to do when you are very delighted; just talking seemed to be hopelessly futile, and even shouting was not satisfactory. But I had to do something, so I opened a bottle of port, which I knew both Fred and Murray disliked, and made them drink some of it. After Murray had tasted his and congratulated Fred again, he put his glass down by the large bowl which I had bought on my first expedition to the shops of Oxford, and presently fears of dyspepsia gripped him so furiously that he emptied the wine into the bowl, when he thought I was not looking. It was '63 port given me by my father, and if he had seen Murray getting rid of it in this way I am sure that there would have been trouble; but I, not being oppressed by a knowledge of vintages, just filled Murray's glass up again and kept an eye on him to see what he would do with it. I might, however, have spared myself the trouble, for he had no intention of pretending to drink two glasses, though he told me afterwards that some curious impulse had compelled him to get rid of one, and he had decided that it would be safer in the bowl than elsewhere. In fact, he wished me to believe that he had done this as a compliment to Foster, but I could not follow his line of reasoning.
I sat and talked for a long time about the rottenness of the Cambridge bowling—which, by the way, I had never seen—and the runs Fred was sure to make in the 'Varsity match, until he tried very hard to stop me saying anything more about cricket, and Murray set me going on another subject when he remarked that it had not taken me long to read my essay.
"Edwardes has gone completely cracked," I stated. Fred had often heard me express a similar opinion about masters at Cliborough, and was not inclined to think seriously of Edwardes' condition, but Murray had curiosity enough to ask me what had happened. "You saw the beginning of my essay," I said to him, "and there was nothing in it which could offend a baby in arms, was there?"
Murray said that as far as he knew I had been most modest, and he added, quite unnecessarily, that the only criticism he had to make upon it was that I had been asked to give Cicero's impression of Roman society, and had preferred my own. I was not going to set myself up against Cicero even to please Murray, so I took no notice of his remark, and went on with my grievance very slowly, for a grievance does not get proper treatment if you spring it upon people; they just say "What a confounded swindle," and go on talking about their own affairs. I had been badly treated, and I intended to make the most of it, so I did not mind being a bore if I could extract a little surprise and sympathy from Fred and Murray.
"I took a lot of trouble over this essay, I changed my style——"