y
helped me to put it right, but Dennison saw his chance and interrupted
me by saying, "We talk too much and think too little, is what you
mean," which was an exasperating remark when I had very nearly finished
without any bother. So I turned round and told him that I could say
what I liked without asking him. The President shouted "Order," but he
looked too sleepy to care much what happened.

"At any rate I suppose you cribbed it from last week's _Spectator_, and
I know it was 'Talk too much,' because I saw it."

"If Mr. Marten thinks he can improve upon anything taken from the
_Spectator_ he is at perfect liberty to do so," the President said very
sarcastically, and I felt badly scored off.

"It's all very well," I said to him, "but these interruptions have made
me forget where I have got to."

"About the bottom of your second cuff, I should think," Dennison called
out, and I could not stand that libel, so I addressed the rest of my
speech to him. It was, at any rate, fluent, and although the President
tried to stop me I had a merry if short innings before I finished.
Dennison was too much for me, he never lost his temper while I was so
angry that I forget exactly what happened, but when I met the President
in the quad on the following morning and apologized to him, he was kind
enough to say that he hoped I should speak again during the next term,
although as he would be reading hard he was afraid that he would not
have the pleasure of hearing me. He was a curious man, and I could not
help wondering whether he would have wished me to speak if he had not
been too busy to listen, but I did not care to risk asking him that
question.

The Lent Term at Oxford is rather a dull one for men who do not row,
run, or play soccer. In my time golfers were thought dull whether they
played golf or only talked about it. I did run in our college sports
because Collier said I wouldn't, and Collier ran because I said he
couldn't, the result was that we competed in a half-mile handicap in
which he received the munificent start of eighty-five yards, while I
had to worry through the whole distance with the exception of twenty
yards. Collier bet me five shillings that he would defeat me in that
race, and I thought I had found an easy way of making a little money,
but a half-mile is a long distance for two men without much wind, and
when I caught Collier up about two hundred yards from the finish we
agreed to cancel our bet and