do something, for I should have received them with
pleasure. But their threats never came to anything, for as the days
passed by and every one knew how completely they had been scored off,
their desire for revenge seemed to wane. Ridicule smothered them, and
try as they would to live it down, their influence, as far as the
college was concerned, disappeared entirely. Some of the set pulled
themselves up and became more or less silent, while others continued to
shriek at night, and to go to the theatre for the purpose of making a
row, which seems to me to be nearly the end of all things.

In a week the Hedonists were almost forgotten, and when the storm had
blown over, Murray was not so anxious that I should have all the credit
of having caused it. But by that time no one cared to know who had
thought of preparing Thornton for the dinner, and Murray treated me as
if I had robbed him of something. I think he must have been working
too hard, or suffering from some secret illness, for I had already told
a hundred men that it was not in me to make a plot of any kind, and
that if I had been responsible for this one it would never have been
successful. Murray's indignation came too late to have any effect, and
as I thought he was quite unreasonable I made no attempt to pacify him.

After things had settled down again no one could help seeing that the
fall of Dennison and his friends had done no end of good to the
college. The men who can be only described as absolute slackers do not
often get the chance of having any influence in a college, but for some
reason or other Dennison had become the fashion among a certain set in
St. Cuthbert's, and if we were ever to do anything properly again it
was time for the fashion to change. There are many ways of making
yourself conspicuous in Oxford, and Dennison chose the one which the
majority of men never have been able to put up with. I think St.
Cuthbert's during my first two years had most unusually bad luck; we
were suffering, like the agricultural interest, from years of
depression, and we tobogganed down the hill instead of trying to pull
ourselves to the top of it again. I suppose other colleges have their
troubles, but while I was at Oxford no college had such a desperate
struggle as St. Cuthbert's.

My interviews with The Bradder during the first two or three weeks of
this term were most strictly business-like. I was afraid that he would
speak to me of the Hedonists