n Foster came into my rooms and said he
had been waiting for me at Oriel until he was tired of doing nothing.
He seemed to be rather angry, but soon cooled down when he saw me
hurrying up to get ready, and even proposed that we should give up our
walk and just lounge round the Parks. But I did not feel as if
lounging would do for me, and I told him that I knew a splendid little
inn about six miles off, where we could get luncheon. He did not need
much persuasion, and we went down Brasenose lane and the High as if we
had never lounged in our lives. But before we got to the turning to
Iffley we had begun to walk at a speed which did not altogether prevent
conversation.

I think I must have been setting the pace, because I had a great deal
to say to Fred, and did not know exactly how to begin. He was the
greatest friend I had, and I wanted him to like Ward, but I knew that
when once he had made up his mind about people he very seldom changed
it. He had liked nearly everybody at Cliborough, but when he disliked
anybody there was something rather huge in the way he had nothing to do
with them. And he had a habit, which would have annoyed me in any one
else, of being nearly always right. It was such a complete change for
him to come from Cliborough, where he was easily the most important boy
in the school, to Oxford, where he was practically nobody at all, that
I wondered how he would like it. So many freshers who have been
important at school think they can bring their importance with them,
but they make the very greatest mistake. A fresher who thinks a lot of
himself, and lets other men know that he does, is not likely to do
anything but get in his own way. Foster never had put on any side, but
he had been accustomed to manage things at Cliborough, and I asked him
how he liked being nobody again, as he had been when he first went to
school.

He did not answer me at once, and I had a suspicion that he did not
care about the change, but I was wrong.

"I like it," he said at last; "there is no bother and fuss, and I like
beginning again and being sworn at when I miss the ball. I want to get
my blue most awfully, but I don't suppose I have got the ghost of a
chance; I never pass at the right time, and everybody here seems to me
to be always off-side."

I assured him that he must have a chance for his blue or he would not
have played so often.

"They look more and more sick with me every time," he answered, "and