, and were
not very depressed if they were beaten. Collier, Lambert and Dennison
also played for the Busters, and a kind of truce had been patched up
between Jack and Dennison, because Jack said that it was too much
trouble to keep up a quarrel with any one whom he was always meeting,
and Dennison was at that time so occupied with other schemes that he
treated Jack as if he was his dearest friend.

Some senior men in the college were getting very dissatisfied with the
state of it, for they said that it was all right to have an occasional
rag if we had anything to rag about; but as we did not seem able to
row, play footer or cricket, we had better keep quiet. They did
nothing except talk, and Dennison played up to them with all his might;
he had got his half-blue for racquets, and they, not knowing him as
well as Jack, Collier and I did, thought that he was really keen on the
college. But, as a matter of fact, he howled with laughter when our
torpid went down six places, and said that if men were fools enough to
row they deserved to be laughed at, whatever happened to them.

No one wants to belong to a college which can do nothing but howl at
night, since the greatest slackers in the 'Varsity howl the loudest.
Dennison worked hard for popularity among senior men, but he cared
nothing for the college, and several of the freshers knew that if he
got a set round him who intended to manage the place, St. Cuthbert's
was doomed as far as athletics were concerned. He was made for some
college which is in the habit of having only one blue every ten years
or so, and may possibly treat him as if he is a very fine specimen when
they have got him.

We could not help doing well in the schools, because we always had
scholars who took Firsts with beautiful regularity; but no one thought
very much about it, since it was a thing to which every one in the
'Varsity was accustomed.

Even Fred Foster told me that it was a pity St. Cuthbert's was going
downhill so fast; but apart from being angry there was nothing for me
to do, except wait. Our dons, taken in the mass, wanted us to work and
be quiet; they did not care what happened to our eight or our eleven,
and when a man got his blue he was generally told that he must not
allow it to interfere with his reading. Unless dons meet
undergraduates half-way a college is bound, sooner or later, to suffer;
but a little humanity can do wondrous things. During my first year the
Warden wa