ve said that, it is my blundering way
to say the thing I oughtn't; what I meant was that Oxford is not very
liberal to a man like I am, who is here by hard work, and not because
his fathers and grandfathers were here before him. It is impossible in
a place of sets--social, athletic, and all the rest--for a man who has
to work to keep himself, to be treated in the same way as you, for
instance, are treated. I am not what the world calls a gentleman."

"Oh, confound the world," I said, "it is always mixed up in my mind
with the flesh and the devil," and as Owen did not say anything for a
minute I asked him what college he was at.

"I am unattached, St. Catherine's if you like; we are called 'The
Toshers,'" he answered, and there was a note of bitterness in his
voice. "Of course," he went on, "I am boring you to death, but I must
say that I should never have come to see you if my father had not made
me promise that I would. He takes a tremendous interest in both your
brother and you; he knows the place your brother passed into Sandhurst
and where he was in the list when he went out, and last summer he
watched for your name in _The Sportsman_, and when you got any wickets
he was as pleased as Punch. He writes to Colonel Marten still."

I wished I could have said that my father had mentioned him to me, but
if I had I am certain that Owen would have seen that I was not telling
the truth. "My father," I tried to explain, "never talks about
anything he has done. If your father had saved his life I should have
heard of it a hundred times."

"You have the knack of saying the right thing, I shall never get that
if I live to be a hundred;" and then he stood up, and putting a hand on
the mantel-piece looked at the photographs of my people, but he did not
say what he thought about them.

"If I did say the right thing, it was a most fearful fluke," I said,
for I could not be silent. "I simply hate men who walk about patting
themselves on the back because they have had what they call success
with a remark."

He did not listen to what I was saying, but stood staring into the
fire; at last he turned round and held out a hand to me.

"I must thank you," he began; "and there is one other thing I have got
to ask you before I say good-bye. My father asked me to make you
promise that you would never mention what I have told you about his
life being saved by your father, or anything about him. It seems to be
a sort of compact