says them under the table. So I talked
and shouted loud enough to drown Dennison's remarks, for it would never
have done to put him out of sight during the dinner. I suppose that
being unable to get any fun out of me, and having Collier, who did not
like to speak much at meals, on the other side of him, he must have
found some fresh amusement, for he became very quiet as the evening
went on, and there was only one thing which ever made him silent and
that was the kind of thing which makes most people talk.

He was, however, capable of asking Lambert to propose the toast of the
evening, but nothing would make Lambert stir before some one had
proposed the royal toasts, which Dennison had forgotten; and three or
four men who did not want any one to talk except themselves shouted,
"No speeches," until Bunny Langham got up and surprised every one by
making them laugh. He did not stick to his subject very much, but he
managed to make everything he said ramble round in an odd sort of way
to an apology for Dennison's forgetfulness, and if only he had been
sitting on the other side of me I should not have been compelled to
shout during the whole of dinner, for I believe he would have been able
to help me in answering the gibing remarks which had been made to me.
Dennison smiled across the table at Langham, but his smile looked as if
it had been glued on to his face, and if I had been in his place I
should have thrown something solid, like a pine-apple, at Bunny.

My penance, however, was to come, and when Lambert at last got up to
finish off the business of making fools of Jack Ward and me, I thought
of pretending that my nose had begun to bleed and of hurrying out of
the room, only it seemed to be rather a weak thing to do. So I just
sat there and imagined that everybody was looking at me, which made me
feel most uncomfortably hot. Lambert admitted afterwards that he was
in his very best form that evening, and I think he must have been, for
I never heard anybody talk such a lot of nonsense in all my life. I
looked at Jack Ward once, and he was evidently having a very bad time,
but every one else except Collier, who was sleepy, seemed to think that
Lambert was amusing. He referred to Jack in a patronizing way as "our
young hero," and said that my mind had been so completely upset by this
brave deed that for some days I had been a cause of considerable
anxiety to my friends. When he made that remark I took a very ripe
p