"This is such a blighted day that I am going to watch a footer match," he said, "it amuses me to see thirty people tumbling about in the mud, and we can go and play pool at Wright's when we have had enough, if you will come."
I did not intend to tell Dennison that I was ill, so I said I would go if Ward would come with us, and as soon as we got into the Broad and the rain fairly beat upon us, I began to feel much better and more capable of being disagreeable to Dennison. I was in the state of mind which makes one anxious to be unpleasant, the sort of mood in which horrid people abuse servants or try to kick animals, and I was glad to have Dennison, who deserved every rudeness imaginable, at my disposal. But the worst of feeling so thoroughly disagreeable is that you are ashamed of yourself so quickly. I am either violently angry or not angry at all, and it is the people who are good at sulks and call them dignity who get their own way in this world. I once tried to be dignified at home, and I am not inclined to repeat the experiment; my father told me not to be a fool, my sister walked about as if wrestling with suppressed laughter, and my mother offered me various medicines. Rudeness is my rôle, its intention is not so easily mistaken.
So I hung on to Dennison very earnestly, and though Ward did all he knew to keep the peace, I had managed before we reached the Parks, to convince both of them that our walk was a mistake.
We went to the far end of the ground where very few spectators were standing, for an Oxford crowd always collect behind the goal of the visiting side, hoping magnificently that by those means they will see most of the game. It is very noble of them, but they are sometimes disappointed, and this happened to be one of the days on which those who were behind the 'Varsity goal-posts saw a good deal more than they wanted. For the day was made for the Richmond XV., who were big, bulky men, very heavy in the scrimmage, and the three-quarter backs on both sides spent most of their time trying to keep warm. Dennison said he was bored to death, and I told him Richmond never were any good outside the scrum and were playing a jolly good game. He answered that he was not a Football Encyclopaedia, and I assured him that he never could be anything half so useful. We kept up this kind of conversation for some time, while Ward stamped his feet and asked us to stop.
"How long have you been gated for?" I asked Dennison suddenly, springing the question upon him as had been the habit of one master at Cliborough when he was going to ask me something very embarrassing. Ward hit me in the ribs with his elbow, and Dennison pretended not to hear, so I moved a little further from Ward and repeated my question. "The Subby didn't send for me," he replied; "I wasn't caught and I made no row to speak of."
"Oh well, if you like to get out of the whole thing it has nothing to do with me," I said, and the thought suddenly struck me that if I really goaded Dennison into giving up his name I should feel a brute for the rest of my existence. What I wanted to do was to prove that Ward was worth about ten of him, but it is very uphill work trying to convince a man that he is only a fraction of the fellow he thinks himself, I have often seen people going sorrowfully away from tasks of that kind.
"There is no question of getting out of it," Dennison said quite calmly, "because I have never been in it."
"No question at all," Ward put in.
"At any rate you arranged it," I retorted.
"And the very deuce of a job it was," he replied.
"Of course it was," Ward said, and though I imagined I was out of elbow-shot I got another blow which did nothing to improve my temper.
"It's like this," I began, "Ward went to the Subby and said——" But Ward burst in with, "By Jove, that is about the tenth time that man Foster has fallen on the ball, and now I believe he's hurt."
For quite two minutes Fred lay on the ground, and I forgot all about Dennison and the exasperating mood I was in. At last he got up and moved about in a dazed condition, while some people clapped and others, more enthusiastic than anxious, began to shout, "Now then, 'Varsity." The game went on again, but my desire to be nasty had vanished, and I found that I had moved away from Ward and Dennison. When I returned to them I found that my interrupted remark had created a greater disturbance than I had expected. Dennison was fuming like anything, and so far was he from thinking that Ward and I had a grievance against him that he was treating himself as a thoroughly injured man.
"It is a pretty low down game," he was saying to Ward, when I came back, "for you to go and give your name up to the Subby and tell me nothing about it. What do you think everybody will be saying about me? Marten has been talking to me as if I was a pick-pocket, while you were standing there and thinking yourself a sort of tin hero. If you want to know what I think you are, my opinion is that you're a confounded fool, but since you have done this I must go and see the Subby when I get back to college."
This is only an expurgated copy of what Dennison said, as a matter of fact he called Ward and me much worse names than a pick-pocket, and qualified them with adjectives too violent to be recorded.
I looked blankly at Ward, who had his head down and looked thoroughly ashamed of himself.
"It is one of the few times in my life," he said, "when I have tried to do the right thing, and it seems to have been all wrong."
There was only one line to take, and I started on it at once. "That's rot," I began, "because you suggested the whole thing, and if you felt like owning up to it no one else has any right to swear at you. Dennison is altogether different, and if he goes to the Subby everybody else will have to go. We are like a lot of school-boys."
I thought my last remark a sound one, for Dennison pretended to despise boys, because he said they always got up so late for morning school that they had not time to wash properly. There was always a faint smell of scent about Dennison, which did not make me take much notice of his opinion about school-boys.
I cannot even now tell whether he was really angry or whether he was just pretending a rage to put us into a hole. I did find out afterwards that he knew all the time that Ward had given up his name, so if he pretended one thing I do not see why he should not have pretended another. But the result was the same whether he was shamming or not. Ward and I implored him not to go to the Subby, for quite ten minutes during that damp and shivery afternoon we besought him to leave things as they were. And at last with great reluctance he gave way, and to please us he said that he would forgive Ward for having done rather a mean thing, and he pardoned me for having been so rude. Of course we were most properly taken in, but that was the fate of most men who had much to do with Dennison, and I was so glad to be at peace once more that it did not occur to me then that Ward and I were two colossal idiots.
I went round to see Foster after the match, but found that he was going to dine early with the Richmond team, so he did not tell me anything except that he had got a splitting headache. Each time I had been to see him for the last fortnight he had either been out, just going out, or had a room full of men with him. Whenever he had come to see me the same kind of things had happened, so we had not managed to have one respectable talk together. I determined that this was most unsatisfactory, so after dinner I wrote him a note, asking him to go for a walk with me on the following day, and then I went to see Jack Ward. My opinion of him had been changing all day, and as I went to his room I felt that whatever Foster and Murray said about him, he was at bottom a splendid sort. Roulette was going on in his rooms, and the usual crowd were playing. Ward was banker, and he did not even ask me to play, but roulette is a very difficult game to watch without playing, and after black had come up six times consecutively, I thought it must be red's turn. It was not, however, and five times I lost my money; then I had sense enough to stop for a bit until the numbers began to fascinate me, and I picked nineteen, being my age. A lot of people may say I was old enough to know better, but it is so easy to make remarks of that kind, and until they find something a little less stale, they will never do any good. I stood by the table at first, and then sat down and made up my mind to get my money back. I tried everything in turn, but luck was dead against me, and Ward once or twice said he wished I would win something. In the end I lost nearly six pounds, and went back to my rooms a sorrowful man. Before I went into my bedder I looked at my cheque-book,