t them off until to-morrow morning." He looked at me for a
moment and sat down again. "Why does every one preach to me?" he
asked. "I shouldn't have thought you were that sort, though you are a
friend of Dick Murray's." He was not angry, but just hopelessly tired
of everything, and he looked so wretched that I felt really sorry for
him.

"I don't preach," I answered, "though if I could remember half the
things which have been fired off at me they would make a mighty fine
sermon. When people take any notice of me they think that I want
looking after and they begin to do it, the others leave me alone and
say that I shall come to a bad end."

He was evidently feeling so miserable about everything that I thought
he might like to hear these dismal prophecies about my future. I even
thought they might cheer him up, and make him see that we were in the
same boat. But I made a mistake, for he was annoyed at the idea that
my future could possibly be as great a failure as his.

"You wouldn't say these things if you really thought you were in a
hopeless muddle. I have gone through it all this term, and I know. I
have tried to laugh, and I have drunk until I didn't care what
happened, but it is all no use. I have made a mess of everything, and
there is no one to blame except myself. And then this utterly idiotic
row comes on the top of everything."

He sat looking in front of him, and did not seem to remember that I was
in the room, and the thought passed through my mind that I should be
glad to wring Dennison's neck. I asked him twice what row he was
talking about before he spoke.

"Hasn't Dennison told you?" he asked. "I left him about an hour ago,
and he said he would go and see you. I thought that was what you had
come here for, though of course nothing can be done."

"I haven't seen Dennison," I said, and added, "I never do if I can help
it," for Learoyd's statement that nothing could be done had given me no
satisfaction.

"You said that you had done an essay for Edwardes which you weren't
going to read. I hadn't done mine, so Dennison said you wouldn't mind
me using yours. He got it, and I went to Edwardes at six o'clock to
read it, but as soon as I started he began to jump about as if
something was stinging him, and after I had read about half a page he
kicked me out of the room."

"The man is mad after all," I said.

"No, he isn't, I wish he was," Learoyd continued. "This is what
happened: Colli