He must have known the
one and I expect he guessed the other, but at any rate my intention was
to begin fair. Then whatever happened he would not be able to say that
I had not warned him.

But he made me so nervous that I did not get the right words, and I
made him look more like a poker then ever. "Thanks, most awfully," I
began, and it was a bad beginning, "for all your advice. But I want to
tell you that I do the most stupid things without meaning to do them.
I mean that they only strike me as being stupid after I have done them."

Mr. Edwardes made noises in his throat which sounded like a succession
of "Ahems," and I floundered on: "I am afraid it is very hard for me
not to like amusing myself as much as possible, but of course I will
try to work and all that sort of thing as well." He stood up when I
got as far as that and smiled at me, but I cannot say that he seemed to
be pleased. "I thought I had better tell you, so that you would know,"
I added before I left him, and I went away with the hopeless feeling
that I had made a complete idiot of myself. I hated Mr. Edwardes as I
went back across the quadrangle, for I felt that I had tried to take
him into my confidence and that he had responded by getting rid of me.

When I reached my rooms my luggage had arrived and I let off steam--so
to speak--by having a dispute with the man who had brought it. I did
not get the best of that dispute, but I did make an effort to practise
the economy which my people had advised, and Clarkson saw me in a rage,
which must have been very good for him. For a solid hour I unpacked
things which I had thought beautiful in my study at Cliborough and put
them about my room, but somehow or other most of them did not seem as
beautiful as I had thought them, and there was a picture--I had won it
in a shilling raffle, and been very proud of it--which filled me with
sorrow. It had been painted by the sister of a fellow at Cliborough,
and when he was frightfully hard-up he arranged a raffle, and everybody
said I was jolly lucky to win it. I was even bid fifteen shillings for
the picture by the original owner, but as I suspected that he wanted to
get up another raffle I refused the offer. When I saw the thing
hanging on my wall I wished that I had not been such a fool. Having
got the thing I did not like to waste it, but if some one would have
come in and stuck a knife into it I should have been very pleased. The
name of this burde