ed cheering up, though how he was likely to
enliven me by eating when I had no appetite he did not tell me. As a
matter of fact cheering me up was only an excuse, what he really wanted
to do was to give me the explanation which he thought I must be
expecting. If he had known me better he would not have expected me to
wait for anything, had I imagined any explanation was necessary I
should have asked him for it at once. But I was not taking any
interest in explanations, my mouth felt like a cinder, and when some
man had met me in the quad and told me I looked "precious cheap," which
is an expression I detest, I had not the energy to retaliate.

Ward, having eaten his luncheon and gulped down a most horrible
quantity of beer, lit a cigarette, and sat down by the fire.

"You must think me a most awful brute for having got out of this row,"
he began. I told him that if he felt as I did, he would think
everybody in the world was a brute.

"Well, you see," he went on, "I got the thing up and the Subby didn't
send for me."

"It was Dennison's fault," I said, for I saw no good in dividing the
blame, "and if a man can't take his luck in these things he is no use
to anybody. My luck's always vile, but that doesn't matter to any one
except me, and I am used to it."

He took no notice of what I said, and continued, "So I told the Subby
it was my fault, but when I saw him I thought only Collier, Webb and
Lambert had been nailed."

I roused myself and looked at Ward, who was staring into the fire.

"You are a fool," I stated, but I didn't mean it.

"I had to do it or I should have felt awful," he said, and then he
jumped up and banged round the room, tossing things about and failing
to catch them.

He stood in a new light, and it took me some time to digest what he had
told me. Of all the men I had met since coming to Oxford I should have
said that Jack Ward was the one who would watch his own interests most
closely, and he had upset all my opinions by walking into a quite
unnecessary row.

"Why did you do it?" I asked him, and I added, "it isn't as if you
could do anybody else any good," for it is at first very perplexing to
find a man doing exactly the reverse of what you expect.

"I have told you why I did it, I should have felt so confoundedly mean
if I hadn't. But while I was with the Subby I wish I had known that he
had nailed you as well, because I might have told him that you hate
drinking. A don seems t