gan. "I wanted you and Foster to like each other, because he is the
greatest friend I have, and I like you. And when I had been saying
what a good fellow you were, you go and make a most infernal row in a
pub on Sunday afternoon and then bolt. I saw you in that confounded
cart, and I ought to have told Foster that I knew you were the fellow
who bolted. But I didn't."

Ward sat staring in front of him, and did not speak for some time. "I
don't think I could ever be friends with Foster," he said at last; "he
hated me at sight; but it is deucedly good of you all the same. I will
write him a note and tell him I was the man. I was going to do that,
anyhow."

"You weren't the man," I asserted; "it was that little brute, Dennison."

"He doesn't count," Ward said.

I was disposed to agree with him on that point, but I thought that he
and I had better go round and see Foster in the morning, instead of
writing a note. He did not like this at first, but after some talking
he said that he would come, and on the next morning we went round to
Oriel. We made Foster look a most awful idiot, but that could not be
helped. I know that if two men came to me simply bulging with
apologies, I should look for the nearest window.

Fred hardly said anything but "All right" and "For goodness' sake don't
say a word more about it," but it showed that Ward was not as bad as he
thought him. I stayed behind after Ward had gone so that I might put
things a little more straight, but Fred would not listen to another
word. "You were in a vile temper yesterday afternoon, and now I know
the cause. That's enough, so shut up. You seem to have become a kind
of guardian to Ward," and then he stopped suddenly, for it struck him
that he had said one of those things which funny people say, and he
would never have done that on purpose. I assured him that I knew he
had said it accidentally, but it stopped us talking about Ward,
because, when you hate puns, it is most discomforting to make one
suddenly. I made a pun once--I can still remember it, because if I had
performed this feat intentionally I should have deserved all I got.
What I did get was a dig in the ribs from Collier and the remark, "You
are a wag," and then I had to repeat it to his three cousins, one of
whom was deaf and none of whom understood it, though they all laughed.
It was a Latin pun.

I am one of those people, Oliver Cromwell was another, to whom
important things happened