so quickly that I could never find any one else who
did not know it, which was simply nothing less than a fraud.

But as soon as I had got fairly into my tale I saw that both Foster and
Murray were interested, and at the end of it I asked them what I was to
do.

"Do you think he meant that he wouldn't have anything more to do with
you, or that he just wanted to show you that he would leave you to
decide what was to happen next?" Murray asked.

"I don't know what he meant," I answered. "He seemed to be in a rage
with the whole of Oxford, only it was not a noisy sort of rage but a
kind of smouldering business, and perhaps I only imagined the whole
thing."

"What was he like to look at?" Foster inquired.

"Pale and dark, and he looked unwell without looking unwholesome," I
replied.

"I saw him," Murray said, "and I thought he would have been rather nice
if he hadn't been so nervous. He has got great big eyes and about half
an acre of forehead."

"He wore a flannel shirt and a turned-down collar, and looked clean," I
told Foster, for I thought he had better know everything.

"Ask him to lunch and Murray and me to meet him," Foster suggested.

"I can't ask a senior man to lunch, it would show that I thought it
didn't make any difference in his case, and I think he would be on the
look-out for things like that. Besides, he wouldn't come."

"I should leave him alone," Murray said.

"I shan't do that, it would make me feel a brute," I replied.

"Find out where he lives and I will come with you and see him. I know
your father, so it will be all right," Foster proposed.

"He has called on me, so he can't mind me going to see him, and I
should like to take you with me. I'll let you know as soon as I have
found out where his rooms are;" and then, as it was getting late,
Foster came down with us to the lodge, and I was half out of the door
before I remembered to ask him about his footer.

"I am playing against Cooper's Hill on Wednesday," he said; "but I
shall be kicked out if I don't play any better than I did on Saturday."

As we walked up King Edward Street Murray did nothing but talk about
Foster, and since I was always delighted whenever I could get any one
on that subject I did not look half carefully enough where I was going.
Murray was in cap and gown, but I was not wearing what is sometimes
magnificently called "academical attire," but had on a cloth cap. It
had never occurred to me that we were like