you removed his smile. We had tea
together, and I did work hard, but he refused to be offended, and told
me that I was far too good a sort to be wrapped up in old prejudices,
which were the laughing-stock of everybody who really thought about
them. Oxford, he said, was the place for a good time and not for
airing ridiculous fads which were all right at school, where there was
nothing else to do but pretend to like a fellow for ever because you
had happened to like him for a few weeks. And he also told me that
being a blue, I ought to take my proper position in the college, and
not to go about with men who were no use whatever.

In return I told him some beautifully plain things, but when a man has
the terrific impudence of Dennison, he makes me too angry to be
coherent. I let him know, however, that I intended to choose my own
friends and that I thought a blue, if he was also a bounder, might do
his college more harm than good. To which he replied that if a man was
a bounder he found it exceedingly difficult to become a blue. When
Dennison went away I rushed off to see Murray, and although he did not
pretend to like Jack, he agreed with me that ten Wards in a college
would not make it as unpleasant a place as one Dennison. After this
attempt to get me on his side against Jack, Dennison left me more or
less alone, but he smiled upon me whenever he saw me, and to Webb,
Lambert and a man called Learoyd, who were at that time his particular
friends, I believe that he described me as a lunatic who might be of
use in the future.

I was very energetic during this term, and at the same time very quiet.
The weather was so bad that astronomical people said that the sun had
got spots upon it or had gone wrong somehow; at any rate we hardly ever
saw it, and we lived in a deluge of rain. The Torpids had to be
postponed, nearly every footer match was scratched, and the people who
had been talking about water-famines for the last two years held their
peace. Oxford seemed to be a most cheerless place, and Collier slept
nearly the whole term. However, I most strenuously did labour, but I
should never have stuck to it had not Murray helped me, and the result
was that after we had been up five weeks I found myself in high favour
with Mr. Gilbert Edwardes.

It is a dreadful thing to please your tutor if you do not happen to
like him, because he asks you to breakfast by way of showing his
pleasure, and at meals I could not put