y case, you have no business
to hurt the people who care for you, even if you think they ought not
to be distressed. I don't say it is immoral, but I say it is a low
business from beginning to end."

Jack, who bore signs of his overnight experience, gave Howard a smile.
"That's all right!" he said. "I don't object to that! You have rather
taken the wind out of my sails. If you had said I was a sensual brute,
I should have just laughed. It is such NONSENSE the way these men go
on! Why I was lunching with Gretton the other day, and Corry told a
story about Wordsworth as an undergraduate getting drunk in Milton's
rooms at Christ's, and how proud the old man was of it to the end of
his life. Gretton laughed, and thought it a joke; and then when one
gets roaring drunk, they turn up their eyes and say it is unmanly and
so on. Why can't they stick to one line? If you go to bump-suppers and
dinners, and just manage to carry your liquor, they think you a good
sort of fellow, with no sort of nonsense about you--'a little natural
boyish excitement'--you know the sort of rot. One glass more, and you
are among the sinners."

"I know," said Howard, "and I perceive that I have had the benefit of
your thought-out oration after all!"

Jack smiled rather sheepishly, and then said, "Well, what's to be done?
Am I to be sent down?"

"Not if you do the right thing," said Howard. "You must just go to
Gretton and say you are very sorry you got drunk, and still more sorry
you were impertinent. If you can contrive to show him that you think
him a good fellow, and are really vexed to have been such a bounder, so
much the better. That I leave to your natural eloquence. But you will
be gated, and he will write to your father."

Jack whistled. "I say, can't you stop that?" he said. "Father will be
fearfully upset."

"No, I can't," said Howard, "and I wouldn't if I could. This is the
music, and you have got to face it."

"Very well," said Jack rather glumly, "I suppose I must pay the score.
I'll go and grovel to Gretton. I was simply beastly to him. My frank
nature expanded in his presence."

Howard laughed. "Well, be off with you!" he said. "And I will tell you
what. I will write to your father, and tell him what I think."

"Then it will be all right," said Jack, greatly relieved. "Anything to
stop the domestic howl. I'll write too. After all, it is rather
convenient to have a cousin among the Dons; and, anyhow, you have had
your innings