“Yes; but you forget we were up this morning before the world was aired. Good night, Brown.”
And off the two went, leaving Tom to sport his oak this time, and retire in wonder to bed.
Drysdale was asleep, with Jack curled up on the foot of the bed, in ten minutes. Blake, by the help of wet towels and a knotted piece of whipcord round his forehead, read Pinder till the chapel bell began to ring.
CHAPTER VII—AN EXPLOSION
Our hero soon began to feel that he was contracting his first college friendship. The great, strong, badly-dressed, badly-appointed servitor, who seemed almost at the same time utterly reckless of, and nervously alive to, the opinion of all around him, with his bursts of womanly tenderness and Berserker rage, alternating like storms and sunshine of a July day on a high moorland, his keen sense of humor and appreciation of all the good things of life, the use and enjoyment of which he was so steadily denying himself from high principle, had from the first seized powerfully on all Tom's sympathies, and was daily gaining more hold upon him.
Blessed is the man who has the gift of making friends; for it is one of God's best gifts. It involves many things, but above all, the power of going out of oneself, and seeing and appreciating whatever is noble and living in another man.
But even to him who has the gift, it is often a great puzzle to find out whether a man is really a friend or not. The following is recommended as a test in the case of any man about whom you are not quite sure; especially if he should happen to have more of this world's goods, either in the shape of talents, rank or money, or what not, than you.
Fancy the man stripped stark naked of every thing in the world, except an old pair of trousers and a shirt, for decency's sake, without even a name to him, and dropped down in the middle of Holborn or Piccadilly. Would you go up to him then and there, and lead him out from amongst the cabs and omnibuses, and take him to your own home and feed him and clothe him, and stand by him against all the world, to your last sovereign, and your last leg of mutton? If you wouldn't do this you have no right to call him by the sacred name of friend. If you would, the odds are that he would do the same by you, and you may count yourself a rich man. For, probably were friendship expressible by, or convertible into, current coin of the realm, one such friend would be worth to a man, at least 100,000L. How many millionaires are there in England? I can't even guess; but more by a good many, I fear, than there are men who have ten real friends. But friendship is not expressible or convertible. It is more precious than wisdom; and wisdom “cannot be gotten for gold, nor shall rubies be mentioned in comparison thereof.” Not all the riches that ever came out of earth and sea are worth the assurance of one such real abiding friendship in your heart of hearts.
But for the worth of a friendship commonly so called—meaning thereby a sentiment founded on the good dinners, good stories, opera stalls, and days' shooting you have gotten or hope to get out of a man, the snug things in his gift, and his powers of procuring enjoyment of one kind or another to miserable body or intellect—why, such a friendship as that is to be appraised easily enough, if you find it worth your while; but you will have to pay your pound of flesh for it one way or another—you may take your oath of that. If you follow my advice, you will take a 10L note down, and retire to your crust of bread and liberty.