Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate Part 37

CHAPTER XX

THE HEDONISTS

Fred Foster's people came back from India during the summer, and he spent all the vac with them, though I tried to make him come to us for the shooting. He had, however, got an idea that Nina did not want him, and nothing I could do was successful in removing it. I told him that Nina had been greatly improved by Paris; I did not like the expression, but I did not see why he should think it ridiculous. Still, if he meant to be obstinate it was no use wasting time in writing letters at which he gibed, so I left him alone.

Jack Ward managed to appease his father, and having done it he set out on a campaign which for thoroughness beat anything I have ever discovered. He went off at the end of July to stay with a tutor who coached him in history and rowing, and he stayed with him until the Oxford term began. The tutor was a rowing blue who did not, from Jack's account of him, mind how little work his pupils did as long as they were ready to go on the river, but Jack a.s.sured me that he had read for four or five hours every day. To start with a history coach two years before his schools struck me as being magnificent, but Jack would not hear a word against his way of spending the vac.

"He may not know much history," he said to me when we got back to Oxford, "but he's a rare good sort, and he says I'm a natural oar.

Besides, he's a sportsman."

"What's that?" I asked, for I used the word "sportsman" to mean so many things.

"He doesn't bother people; you can play cards if you like, and he has a billiard table. He is a nailer at cork pool."

"Is he?" I said, and asked no more about him, for I have a horror of nailers at any sort of pool, having once been hopelessly fleeced by some of them.

"I won a pot," Jack went on gaily, "in the scratch fours at Wallhead regatta--I rowed in two regattas. Not so bad; and now I've got to go down to the river every day and be coached by men who don't know the difference between an oar and a barge pole. Well, it's all part of the game."

"What's the game?" I asked.

"Look here, G.o.dfrey, something's happened to you. You've gone stupid; it's _your_ game. To buck St. Cuthbert's up, get rid of these confounded slackers, squash them flat, and we are going to do it, you see if we don't. Dennison was drunk last night or pretended to be, and he and his gang invaded a lot of freshers and then asked them all to breakfast. That crowd are no more use to a college than a headache.

Fancy coming to Oxford to be ragged by Dennison!"

"It does seem rather futile."

"Futile!" Jack exclaimed scornfully, and then proceeded to say what he called it; "but if you have given up caring what happens I shall chuck up the whole thing," he concluded.

"I have not given up caring, but I have tried once and got laughed at for my trouble. I don't believe you can squash men like Dennison when they once get into a college; they are like black beetles, and you can't get rid of them unless you kill them."

"We can try," Jack said.

"I tried, and most men thought me a fool. The only thing to do is to leave them alone; but the worst of it is that we can't help meeting Dennison at dinners and things. He smiled on me the other day as if I was his best friend."

"He didn't smile at me."

"I think he hates you; I can't get properly hated, when I try to show Dennison I loathe him he smiles. There's something wrong with me somewhere."

"You are too rottenly good-natured."

"I never thought of that," I said.

"That's it," Jack declared; "I saw Lambert hitting you on the back in the quad this morning."

"I told him that if he did it again I should throw Stubbs' Charters at his head," I replied in self-defence.

"But, don't you see, Lambert would never hit me on the back. He is one of the most gorgeous slopers we have got, and tw.a.n.gs his banjo for Dennison to sing what they call erotic ballads. You've not got enough dignity."

"Steady on," I said, for with too much of one thing and not enough of another I was beginning to think that it was about time for him to discover something of which I had the proper amount.

"Don't get angry," he returned, "I only meant to explain why your shot to buck the college up failed. You're too popular, that's it."

I spoke plainly to him.

"It's no use talking like that," he went on; "say you'll help me, and we'll have a go at squas.h.i.+ng this ragging lot. It wouldn't matter so much if they could do anything decently, but they are the very men who ought to go and bury themselves because they won't try to do anything.

Let us do something first and then have a good wholesome rag, but for heaven's sake let us shut up until we have done it."

Jack had only just left my rooms when, as if to prove what he had said, Lambert strolled in and asked me if I would let him have lunch with me.

My table-cloth was laid and I couldn't tell him that I was lunching out, so I told him that Murray was coming. He replied that he liked Murray, and since that had failed I said that I was going to play footer and had very little time, but he answered that he would not be able to stay for more than half-an-hour. Meals with Lambert were apt to get less simple as they went on, for he had a habit of saying that he wanted nothing and then of demanding port with his cheese and liqueurs to save him from indigestion, but I could not get rid of him, so apart from making up my mind that his luncheon should be as short as possible, I left him alone.

He read the paper for a few minutes and then asked me if I did not like his waistcoat. It looked to me like some new kind of puzzle, so I asked him if he had the answer in his pocket, but he was looking at it thoughtfully and did not answer.

"Nice shade, isn't it?" he said presently.

I thought that there was more glare than shade about it and told him so.

"It's unique," he declared, and at last I was able to agree with him.

"Have you called on that man Thornton?" he asked, and stood up so that he could see his waistcoat and himself in the gla.s.s.

"I never call on anybody. I have had a lot of freshers to meals, but I don't know Thornton; he is supposed to be cracked, isn't he?"

"Of course he is. We've got a splendid rag on. I thought of it, and Dennison is going to work it out. Do you think this coat fits properly in the back? I met Collier this morning and he swore it didn't."

"What's the rag?" I asked.

Clarkson came in with a message from Murray to say that he could not come to luncheon.

"That's a good job," Lambert remarked.

"I thought you liked Murray," I answered.

"He would not have cared about our rag. I don't suppose Collier knows when a coat fits, he's so fat that a petticoat would suit him better than a pair of trousers."

"Here's lunch," I said, and as soon as I had got him away from the spot where he could examine his clothes, I asked again what was going to happen.

"Thornton is absolutely green, Dennison will be able to do exactly what he likes with him."

"Poor brute."

"I can never make out why you pretend to hate Dennison, he wouldn't mind being friends with you; besides, it makes things very disagreeable for me."

"I don't pretend anything," I said.

"At any rate it's very stupid of you; you are both Mohocks, and ought to be friends."

I thought he had come on a peace mission, so, to prevent waste of time, I said what I thought of Dennison.

"You make a mistake about him altogether," he said. "Got any port?"