nd 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 v