e a human being, I mean a man who lets you know something about
him and does not barricade himself against you. But a man who puts up
the shutters in front of his virtues and faults bothers me most
terribly, and I always seem to be bumping my head against something
invisible whenever I see him, which is a most disconcerting performance.

Mr. Edwardes was also Murray's tutor, but Murray was not afflicted, as
I was, with the desire to know people more than they wanted to be
known, and he told me that if I would only take Edwardes as I found him
we should get on together splendidly. In spite of Jack Ward, I saw
Murray every day, and the more I knew of him the more I liked him. He
was in my room one evening after Ward had arranged that we were to have
a freshers' wine, and I asked him if he was coming to it.

"I can't go unless I am asked," he said, "and I shan't go now if I am
asked."

I resolved to say a few things to Ward, but I did not know what to say
to Murray.

"Ward is asking everybody he wants, isn't he?" he inquired.

"Yes it was left to him and Dennison, I believe."

"Then I am not likely to be invited, for he and I never could do
anything but have rows with each other at Wellingham."

"What about?" I asked, for Murray had never said much about Ward to me
and I wanted to hear his side of the quarrel.

"It isn't worth repeating," he answered. "I was head of the school and
Ward thought a friend of his ought to have seen. He thinks I am a smug
because I have to work, and I suppose I think he is a fool because he
thinks I am a smug. He is a queer sort, and it is hopeless for me to
try to be friends with him, even if I wanted to be, and I don't."

"He is a fairly good cricketer, isn't he?" I asked, for I had
discovered that when Murray had once made up his mind no efforts of
mine would change it.

"Yes, he would have got into the XI. quite easily only he was so slack,
and the master who looked after our cricket couldn't stand him. It was
rather a swindle that he didn't get into the team all the same."

"I hate slackers," I said, and to prove it I set to work on some Homer
for Edwardes. Murray got his books and we slaved together for nearly
two hours, when a most timid knock sounded on my door, and a man came
in who seemed to be most fearfully nervous. He was carrying a gown and
a cap in his hand, and he looked at Murray, who was not at all an
alarming sight, as if he had encountered a wild man fro