“Not very long,” said Sam, “but I daresay it would sound better after dinner. What would you say now to asking me to dine to-night at your club? We could go up to that library place afterwards. There’s never anybody there, and I could tell you the whole thing.” Sam knows the ways of my club nearly as well as I do myself. There is never anyone in the library in the evening. I gave the required invitation. We dined comfortably, and I got a good cigar for Sam afterwards. When the waiter had left the room he plunged into his story. “You remember the day I was hauled up before that old ass of a magistrate. He jawed a lot and then fined me £3 4s. 6d., which you paid. Jolly decent of you. I hadn’t a shilling in the world, being absolutely stony broke at the time; so if you hadn’t paid--and lots of fellows wouldn’t--I should have had to go to gaol.” “Never mind about that,” I said. “You’ve paid me back.” “Still, I’m grateful, especially as I should have missed the spree of my life if I’d been locked up. As it was, thanks to you, I walked out of the court without a stain on my character.” “Well, hardly that. You were found guilty of riotous behaviour, you know.” “Anyhow, I walked out,” said Sam, “and that’s the main point.” It was, of course, the point which mattered most; and, after all, the stain on Sam’s character was not indelible. Lots of young fellows behave riotously and turn out excellent men afterwards. I was an undergraduate myself once, and there is a story about Sam’s father, now a dean, which is still told occasionally. When he was an undergraduate a cow was found tied up in the big examination hall. Sam’s father, who was very far from being a dean then, had borrowed the cow from a milkman. “There were a lot of men waiting outside,” said Sam. “They wanted to stand me a lunch in honour of my escape.” “Your fellow-rioters, I suppose?” “Well, most of them had been in the rag, and, of course, they were sorry for me, being the only one actually caught. However, the lunch never came off. There was a queer old fellow standing on the steps of the court who got me by the arm as I came out. Said he wanted to speak to me on important business, and would I lunch with him. I didn’t know what he could possibly have to say to me, for I had never seen him before; but he looked--it’s rather hard to describe how he looked. He wasn’t exactly what you’d call a gentleman, in the way of clothes, I mean; but he struck me as being a sportsman.” “Horsey?” “Not the least. More like one’s idea of some kind of modern pirate, though not exactly. He talked like an American. I went with him, of course.” “Of course,” I said, “anyone with an adventurous spirit would prefer lunching with an unknown American buccaneer to sharing a commonplace feast with a mob of boys. Did you happen to hear his name?” “He said it was Hazlewood, but----” “But it may not have been?” “One of the other fellows called him Cassidy later on.”