"That big bull-dog has had his eye on me for ages," he said, "ever
since I dodged him one night last term in the Corn, and I know that he
has been saying that he would catch me some day." He stopped for a
minute, being still rather breathless, and Collier asked him where he
had been. "Directly I went out of the Sceptre he started off after me,
and I made up my mind I would give him the deuce of a time before I had
done with him, so I ran like blazes down the High, and when I turned
round by Magdalen to see if he was coming I saw the brute in the
distance. So off I went again, and when we got to the running-ground I
heard him panting and swearing and shouting a hundred yards away. I
let him get a bit closer and then went on towards Iffley; but I got a
most horrible stitch, so I went as hard as I could for a bit, and then
climbed over a gate and sat down under a hedge. I waited until he had
gone past, and then came back to college. It is the easiest thing in
the world to score off a bull-dog, they are simply the stupidest men in
the world."
"He must have got a long way past Iffley by now," Collier said.
"I don't care where he is, but I shall have to look out that he doesn't
get level with me," Dennison replied.
"You will always have to wear a cap and gown now," Learoyd remarked.
But Dennison took no notice of this advice.
"Where's Lambert?" he asked; "everybody else seems to be here except
him and that fool, Bunny Langham."
"We don't know, he has not come in yet," Collier answered, and at that
moment there was a rap at the door, and as soon as Lambert got into the
porch I put my head out of the window and told him to come up to Ward's
rooms. As he walked across the quad I saw that he had been having a
rough time of it, for his clothes did not look as immaculate as usual.
He was carrying an overcoat over his arm, and his shirt and collar had
given way so badly that the first thing he did when he got into the
room was to go to a looking-glass, and see how he could improve the
appearance of things. A lot of men asked him where he had been, but he
had forgotten that any of us had seen him start after Dennison, and he
answered that he had just been for a stroll. "I like to have a walk by
myself after a noise," he added; "the heat of that room made me feel
absolutely ill."
Then Ward could not restrain himself any longer, and told Dennison that
we all knew Lambert had been running after him, and that there had been
no proctor and bull-dogs in the High.
"Coming suddenly out of a hot room into the open air always affects
me," Lambert said. "I made up my mind I would catch Dennison if I ran
until my legs gave way."
"It's all a silly lie," Dennison exclaimed; "I was chased by the big
bull-dog; I should have seen that shirt, which was white when you
started."
"I had on an overcoat," was Lambert's reply.
"Did you go to Iffley?" Collier asked.
"Iffley? Good heavens, no, I never went any further than Magdalen
Bridge."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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