“Oh, I like that!” said Tom; “it's worth learning how to play tennis, and how to speak the truth. You can't learn either by thinking of yourself ever so much.”
“You must know the truth before you can speak it,” said Hardy.
“So you always do in plenty of time.”
“How?” said Hardy.
“Oh, I don't know,” said Tom; “by a sort of instinct I suppose. I never in my life felt any doubt about what I ought to say or do; did you?”
“Well, yours is a good, comfortable, working belief at any rate,” said Hardy, smiling; “and I should advise you to hold on to it as long as you can.”
“But you don't think I can very long, eh?”
“No: but men are very different. There's no saying. If you were going to get out of the self-dissecting business altogether though, why should you have brought the subject up at all to-night? It looks awkward for you, doesn't it?”
Tom began to feel rather forlorn at this suggestion, and probably betrayed it in his face, for Hardy changed the subject suddenly.
“How do you get on in the boat? I saw you going down to-day, and thought the time much better.”