his mind about people he very seldom changed it. He had liked nearly everybody at Cliborough, but when he disliked anybody there was something rather huge in the way he had nothing to do with them. And he had a habit, which would have annoyed me in any one else, of being nearly always right. It was such a complete change for him to come from Cliborough, where he was easily the most important boy in the school, to Oxford, where he was practically nobody at all, that I wondered how he would like it. So many freshers who have been important at school think they can bring their importance with them, but they make the very greatest mistake. A fresher who thinks a lot of himself, and lets other men know that he does, is not likely to do anything but get in his own way. Foster never had put on any side, but he had been accustomed to manage things at Cliborough, and I asked him how he liked being nobody again, as he had been when he first went to school.
He did not answer me at once, and I had a suspicion that he did not care about the change, but I was wrong.
"I like it," he said at last; "there is no bother and fuss, and I like beginning again and being sworn at when I miss the ball. I want to get my blue most awfully, but I don't suppose I have got the ghost of a chance; I never pass at the right time, and everybody here seems to me to be always off-side."
I assured him that he must have a chance for his blue or he would not have played so often.
"They look more and more sick with me every time," he answered, "and each match I play in I expect to be the last. The only thing which riles me is that you never know what they think about you, and the fellow who writes the Oxford notes for The Globe said last week that the 'Varsity XV. must be badly off if they could not find a better three-quarter than the Cliborough fresher, or some rot of that kind. All the men at Oriel who know about things are either cricket or soccer blues, so I don't hear much about rugger there, though every one is nice enough and wants me to get into the XV."
"Doesn't Adamson ever speak to you?" I asked, for he was captain of the 'Varsity XV.
"Yes, but it is generally to tell me not to do something. He is an 'internatter,' you see, and I don't think he ever forgets it, he seems to me to stick on more side than any one I have ever met. Most of the men are all right, but Adamson is a first-class bounder."
"He swore at me pretty freely in the Freshers' match," I said.
"I heard him," Foster returned, "but although you played abominably then, you are really much better than Sykes of Merton, who has been playing back for the 'Varsity lately. He does the most awful things."
"He can't be worse than I am. I now play three-quarters and am thinking of chucking the game altogether. It is such a horrid grind."
"Don't be an idiot, they are bound to spot you here sooner or later," Foster said, but he knew as well as I did that I could never stop playing any game just because it was too much trouble.
"I have made an idiot of myself, already," I replied; and then I told him all that had been happening at St. Cuthbert's during the last few days. I made out myself a bigger fool than I really had been, because I wanted to show him that Ward was a much better fellow than he thought.
"You have a real gift for getting into rows," he said, when I had finished; "you seem to have got all the dons on your track already."
"That doesn't worry me," I answered. "I have only got to work and keep quiet, and the Subby will think I am as like a machine as he is."
"And you have made up your mind to work?"
"I mean to do a reasonable amount," I replied cautiously.
"It is most awfully difficult to work. I have done precious little, and I went fast asleep at a lecture the other morning."
"What was it about?"
"Logic."
"Oh, that's nothing," I assured him. "I started cutting my logic lectures altogether until I got dropped on. I didn't understand a word the man was saying. There is heaps of time to work, Mods are nearly a year and a half off. What do you think of Ward, after the thing that happened last night?"
I had to plunge right at it, for Foster had not said a word after I had told him Ward wanted to give me back my money.
"Don't let us talk about Ward," Foster answered, "you know I don't like him."
"I knew you didn't like him," I corrected, for I thought that what I had said ought to make a difference.
"You seem to be egging me on to swear at you, so that you may laugh."
"Oh, skittles," I exclaimed.
"You know perfectly well that you can't afford to gamble."
"That has nothing to do with it, because I am not going to gamble, Jack Ward himself asked me not to play roulette."
"But Ward belongs to a gambling set——"
"I suppose he can please himself about that," I retorted, and it was not altogether wise of me.
"And you will always be hearing racing 'shop,' and how much somebody won, nobody ever talks about their losses until they are stone-broke."
"How do you know?" I asked.
"Your father told me," was the answer, and instead of having got him into a hole I was badly scored off.
"Everybody has something nasty in him somewhere, Balzac said so, and he was the sort of chap who knew; if we were all perfect this wouldn't be earth," I said.
"By Jove, you have been thinking a lot," Foster replied, and he stood still in the road and laughed until I was very annoyed, for I have heard other people make remarks of that kind without any one else smiling.
"It is no use talking seriously to you," I said.
"Platitudes are not your line," he answered, and we were as far off settling about Ward as ever. I returned, however, to the main question with energy, for it seemed to me to be most important that these two men should not hate each other, if they were to be my friends. The gods did not endow me with tact, but they gave me so much courage that in a short time I can make any situation either very much better or very much worse. My mother once took in a paper which contained a Tact Problem every week, and she asked my sister and me to write down solutions and see if they were right; mine were wrong five times consecutively, so I gave up that competition, though in a negative sort of way I should have been of assistance to any competitor. I remember one of these wonderful problems was, 'At an evening party A tells B that C looks like a criminal. Shortly afterwards A finds out that C is B's husband, what ought A to do?' I said A ought to go and tell B that he liked criminals; but the answer was, 'A should do nothing.' I think it was that problem which persuaded me that I was wasting my time, I thought it too stupid for words.
I explained to Foster how difficult it would be for me if he would not change his opinion of Ward, and I talked so much that he said I had persuaded him that Ward was all right, but I had a kind of feeling that he said it for the sake of peace. The day was very warm for November, and at the end of six miles Foster was not so inclined to resist my avalanche of words as he was when we left Oxford. But I knew that having once said he would try to be friends with Ward, I could rely upon him. What he could not understand was the reason why I was so anxious for him to try, why in short I liked Ward, but I could not explain that; for if you once start explaining why you are friends with a man it
