“Oh, but it's a crying shame, this whole business!” and young Allyn, leaning back in his chair, looked the picture of anger and chagrin.
“You seem like a self-respecting fellow,” said the doctor, scrutinizing him closely; “perhaps it is your first time, too.”
“Yes, it does happen to be but, as though there was little or no credit in that, there is some excuse for Ted—he is younger than I and easily led; but for me there is none whatever.”
“You ought to know,” said the doctor dryly. “And your friends in the room yonder, are they at all responsible for this first time of yours and young Harris's? Come, Mr. Allyn, don't wait for me to question you. If you are as anxious as you claim to hush this affair up, you must make a clean breast of things with me. I can, of course, be of service to you in the matter.”
“Really, Dr. Arnold, there is not much to tell beyond what you already know. We belong up at Oxford, of course, and Harris here has plenty of money and plenty of friends—not always the best, I am sorry to say. The two men in the other room there are known around town as jolly good fellows; neither of them are college men, but they have dogged Harris's footsteps ever since they came to know him, a year or so ago, and have done all in their power to drag him down. To-night they have come pretty near making an end of both of us. I've warned Harris against them time and again, but when they planned this afternoon to drive up to Nuneham in Harris's trap for a champagne supper, I took to the scheme, and I hadn't the moral courage to decline myself or to persuade Ted to do so.”
“How do you and Harris happen to be in Oxford anyway, now that the term is over?” queried the doctor.
“We thought we were having too good a time to go home.”
“And you have found out your mistake?”
“Yes, sir;” and the pain and mortification on young Allyn's face assured the doctor that the lesson of the hour was being well taken to heart.
“Where does Harris live, Mr. Allyn?”