It was some minutes before he broke silence, but at last he gathered up his thoughts, and said, “Well, I hope I sha’n’t shirk when the time comes. You don’t think a fellow need shut himself up, though? I’m sure I shouldn’t be any the better for that.” “No, I don’t think you would,” said Hardy. “Because, you see,” Tom went on, waxing bolder and more confidential, “if I were to take to moping by myself, I shouldn’t read as you or any sensible fellow would do; I know that well enough. I should just begin, sitting with my legs up on the mantle-piece, and looking into my own inside. I see you are laughing, but you know what I mean, don’t you, now?” “Yes; staring into the vacuum you were talking of just now; it all comes back to that,” said Hardy. “Well, perhaps it does,” said Tom; “and I don’t believe it does a fellow a bit of good to be thinking about himself and his own doings.” “Only he can’t help himself,” said Hardy. “Let him throw himself as he will into all that is going on up here, after all he must be alone for a great part of his time—all night at any rate—and when he gets his oak sported, it’s all up with him. He must be looking more or less into his own inside as you call it.” “Then I hope he won’t find it as ugly a business as I do. If he does, I’m sure he can’t be worse employed.” “I don’t know that,” said Hardy; “he can’t learn anything worth learning in any other way.” “Oh, I like that!” said Tom; “it’s worth learning how to play tennis, and how to speak the truth. You can’t learn either by thinking about yourself ever so much.” “You must know the truth before you can speak it,” said Hardy. “So you always do in plenty of time.” “How?” said Hardy. “Oh, I don’t know,” said Tom; “by a sort of instinct, I suppose. I never in my life felt any doubt about what I _ought_ to say or do; did you?” “Well, yours is a good, comfortable, working belief, at any rate,” said Hardy, smiling; “and I should advise you to hold on to it as long as you can.” “But you don’t think I can for very long, eh?” “No; but men are very different. There’s no saying. If you were going to get out of the self-dissecting business altogether though, why should you have brought the subject up at all to-night? It looks awkward for you, doesn’t it?” Tom began to feel rather forlorn at this suggestion, and probably betrayed it in his face, for Hardy changed the subject suddenly. LXXXIX. “You don’t mean to say,” said Tom, “that it makes any real difference to a man in society here in Oxford, whether he is poor or rich; I mean, of course, if he is a gentleman and a good fellow?” “Yes, it does—the very greatest possible. But don’t take my word for it. Keep your eyes open and judge for yourself; I daresay I’m prejudiced on the subject.”