Ward, having eaten his luncheon and gulped down a most horrible quantity of beer, lit a cigarette, and sat down by the fire. "You must think me a most awful brute for having got out of this row," he began. I told him that if he felt as I did, he would think everybody in the world was a brute. "Well, you see," he went on, "I got the thing up and the Subby didn't send for me." "It was Dennison's fault," I said, for I saw no good in dividing the blame, "and if a man can't take his luck in these things he is no use to anybody. My luck's always vile, but that doesn't matter to any one except me, and I am used to it." He took no notice of what I said, and continued, "So I told the Subby it was my fault, but when I saw him I thought only Collier, Webb and Lambert had been nailed." I roused myself and looked at Ward, who was staring into the fire. "You are a fool," I stated, but I didn't mean it. "I had to do it or I should have felt awful," he said, and then he jumped up and banged round the room, tossing things about and failing to catch them. He stood in a new light, and it took me some time to digest what he had told me. Of all the men I had met since coming to Oxford I should have said that Jack Ward was the one who would watch his own interests most closely, and he had upset all my opinions by walking into a quite unnecessary row. "Why did you do it?" I asked him, and I added, "it isn't as if you could do anybody else any good," for it is at first very perplexing to find a man doing exactly the reverse of what you expect. "I have told you why I did it, I should have felt so confoundedly mean if I hadn't. But while I was with the Subby I wish I had known that he had nailed you as well, because I might have told him that you hate drinking. A don seems to me to have the fixed idea that freshers naturally drink too much, at least that was the impression the Subby gave me." "What happened to you?" "I'm gated for a fortnight, and he talked a lot of tommy-rot." "Well, I think it is most frightfully decent of you," I said. "Oh, shut up," Ward answered, "I can't stand that. I have never done anything of the kind before and shan't again. I simply couldn't have faced you men if I hadn't owned up, and that ends it." At that moment Dennison walked in wearing an enormous overcoat and a Wellingham scarf round his neck, he looked as beautifully pink as ever, and I hated the sight of him. "This is such a blighted day that I am going to watch a footer match," he said, "it amuses me to see thirty people tumbling about in the mud, and we can go and play pool at Wright's when we have had enough, if you will come."