Ward sat staring in front of him, and did not speak for some time. "I don't think I could ever be friends with Foster," he said at last; "he hated me at sight; but it is deucedly good of you all the same. I will write him a note and tell him I was the man. I was going to do that, anyhow." "You weren't the man," I asserted; "it was that little brute, Dennison." "He doesn't count," Ward said. I was disposed to agree with him on that point, but I thought that he and I had better go round and see Foster in the morning, instead of writing a note. He did not like this at first, but after some talking he said that he would come, and on the next morning we went round to Oriel. We made Foster look a most awful idiot, but that could not be helped. I know that if two men came to me simply bulging with apologies, I should look for the nearest window. Fred hardly said anything but "All right" and "For goodness' sake don't say a word more about it," but it showed that Ward was not as bad as he thought him. I stayed behind after Ward had gone so that I might put things a little more straight, but Fred would not listen to another word. "You were in a vile temper yesterday afternoon, and now I know the cause. That's enough, so shut up. You seem to have become a kind of guardian to Ward," and then he stopped suddenly, for it struck him that he had said one of those things which funny people say, and he would never have done that on purpose. I assured him that I knew he had said it accidentally, but it stopped us talking about Ward, because, when you hate puns, it is most discomforting to make one suddenly. I made a pun once--I can still remember it, because if I had performed this feat intentionally I should have deserved all I got. What I did get was a dig in the ribs from Collier and the remark, "You are a wag," and then I had to repeat it to his three cousins, one of whom was deaf and none of whom understood it, though they all laughed. It was a Latin pun. I am one of those people, Oliver Cromwell was another, to whom important things happened on a certain day. Tuesday was my day, I forget which his was, but it does not matter, because it is to be found in histories and almanacs. My day is not a matter of interest to anybody, but all the same I was born on a Tuesday, and things which I have had special reason to remember or regret have generally happened to me--so my mother says--on the same day. And it was on a Tuesday that I lunched with the Warden and began a curious sort of friendship with him. I suppose that I ought not to talk of a friendship between a man like the Warden, who was a mighty man of learning, and myself, but after all he gave me one of his books, and wrote in it, "To my young friend and quondam companion." "Quondam" was rather a pity, perhaps; it sounds pedantic, and the Warden was no pedant, unless he wanted to snub people.