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JACK WARD AND DENNISON
The morning following the wine was no morning for me. Of course I awoke with a headache, but that was nothing in comparison with a general feeling that the day was not likely to be a peaceful one. I lay awake and thought over matters as well as I could until Clarkson came in to put my bath. Then I pretended to be asleep, but out of the corner of my eye I saw him looking at me and I conceived a great dislike for him. He seemed to think I was a curiosity of some kind. He tidied my room, and having finished he asked if I should be taking breakfast. I sat up in bed and inquired why he supposed I did not want breakfast, and my question, I flatter myself, surprised him considerably. I told him to get me twice as much breakfast as usual and to be quick, but while I was dressing I wondered how I should eat it, so I went into Murray's room and persuaded him to breakfast with me. Murray had already begun to eat, but when I explained to him that this was a little matter between Clarkson and myself, and that it would not do for me to be scored off, he agreed to come. Clarkson, however, was a difficult man to defeat; he provided enough breakfast for four men, and though I bustled him as much as I could and was very dictatorial, I could see that he was quietly amused. Murray ate for all he was worth, but the amount of food which Clarkson carried away for his hungry family was evidence enough to prove who had won the battle.
Conversation did not play any conspicuous part in that meal, but I told Murray that if everybody at the wine had been as sensible as Ward we should have got through without any row. "My opinion of Ward has changed," I said more than once, for Murray was not inclined to give him any credit and he certainly deserved some.
At ten o'clock I went to a lecture, and when I returned I found a note from the Sub-Warden asking me to call upon him at noon. It was precisely what I expected, but the prospects of another row depressed me. The morning was dark and rainy, and my room was so dismal that I stood on the ledge outside my window and leant against the parapet. It was neither a comfortable nor a very safe position, but it suited my mood. I looked down on the back quadrangle below me and watched for something interesting to happen. I had not been up long enough to know that my wish was not likely to be gratified, nothing exciting ever does happen in Oxford during the morning, or if it does I was always unfortunate enough to miss it.
A man in a scholar's gown hurried across the quadrangle, rushed up a staircase, and came back with a note-book in his hand. The Warden came out of his house and stood upon his doorstep as if he was trying to remember what he wanted to do. Then he turned round and went into the house again. Miss Davenport, the Warden's sister, a lady who was reported to be talkative and in love, came out and observed the weather. Two minutes afterwards she appeared in a mackintosh, which was thoroughly business-like. She was most obviously bent on shopping. Two men, regardless of the rain, strolled out of the front quadrangle and shouted for Dennison, who did not come to his window. I told them that he was probably in bed, and they answered that I should fall over if I did not look out. It was all most painfully dull, and I was just going in when the Subby appeared and went into the Warden's house. I could guess the reason for that visit, and waited to see no more. I sat down by the fire and tried to think out what I should say to the Subby, and what he would say to me. I did not know much about him except that his name was Webster, and that he was a great authority on Etruscan pottery, facts which did not help me much. He also had one of the finest stamp collections in the world, but I had never collected anything for more than a week at a time. I felt that he was a difficult man to gauge, because he had never been what I considered a sportsman. His appearance at any rate was not imposing, and I was depressed enough to feel thankful for very small mercies. If dons only remembered what men feel like after their first wine, they would scarcely be hard-hearted enough to inflict further penalties upon them. But it was the vocation of the Subby to keep order in the college, and some one had told me that rowdy men were his pet abomination. He regarded St. Cuthbert's as the intellectual centre of Oxford, and Oxford as the intellectual centre of the world. No wonder the poor man looked serious and seldom smiled, for he must have had a lot to think about. He covered up his eyes with enormous spectacles, and the lower part of his face with a straggling moustache and beard, you got neither satisfaction nor information from looking at him.
It was nearly twelve o'clock before I saw any of the men who had been at the wine, and then Ward and Collier came into my rooms. I was still sitting by the fire, and Ward, who would have gibed at my gloom under ordinary conditions, simply told me that I didn't look very cheerful, and sat down on the edge of the table, which tilted up and nearly placed him on the floor. Collier threw himself into the nearest chair, and pulling a pipe out of his pocket, carefully rubbed the bowl of it, but showed no anxiety to smoke, and considering that I felt as if I should never smoke again, I was not surprised.
"I should like to flay Lambert, Webb, and Dennison alive," Collier said quite solemnly.
"I've got to go to the Subby in ten minutes," I said, and Collier's face brightened.
"I didn't think you would have to go," Ward remarked; "what an infernal nuisance, and why has he sent for you?"
"I tried to rescue the stupid man from Lambert and Webb, and got entangled in his blessed arm. He was as sick as blazes, and I shall hear more stuff about being an exhibitioner," I answered.
"The man's a fool," Collier said, "but the biggest ass in the place is Dennison. He knew the Subby was out to dinner, and wouldn't be back till goodness knows when, but he must go on and kick up a row on that piano after he knew the Subby was in his rooms. And the beauty of it is that Dennison hasn't been sent for. I call it a confounded shame. We have just been round to see him, and the brute is still in bed as fit as anything, and thinks it the best joke he has heard for ages. He wouldn't see much humour in it if he went and smelt my rooms."
"Who has been sent for?" I asked.
"You, Collier, Lambert, and Webb," Ward replied.
"Not you?"
"I have seen the Subby already. I met him in the quad and asked if I might speak to him."
"Was he furious?" I inquired.
"I tried to explain things to him; he was not altogether furious, but stuck on a sort of injured dignity business which was rather funny."
"It isn't likely a man would want to be danced down-stairs by Lambert and Webb," Collier said; "I wonder they didn't break his neck, and it would have been a thundering good job if they had smashed themselves."
I got up and seized my gown, leaving Collier to continue his wishes for the destruction of Lambert and Webb if he felt inclined. At any other time they would have amused me, for Collier was generally difficult to move in any way, and he was quite funny when his indignation could be roused.
I am not going to describe my interview with the Subby at any length. He listened patiently to what I had to say, but if a man came to me and said that he had caught hold of me by accident I confess that I should think it a poor sort of story. I could not tell him that I was trying to save him from Lambert and Webb, because that would have been contrary to what I should have expected them to say about me, if the positions had been reversed. The Subby ought to have guessed it for himself and rewarded me, but he had been so hustled that it was perhaps too much to expect him to guess anything. My reputation for work seemed to have been of the worst. There was no denying that the Subby and I had been entangled, and it was no use for me to say that it was his fault. I spoke of it as a very unfortunate occurrence, and I assured him most warmly that it should not happen again. Assurances of that kind do not, I should say, count for much. He was so occupied by the importance of what had passed, that I could not make him see that the future was also important.
