ould not have
failed to deserve all he ever heard, he was one of those pretentious
little people who can only be described by the word "perky," and his
side was simply terrific. But all the same, if a very small man goes
up to Oxford and guesses that it will be his fate to steer slow eights
during the time he is there, I should advise him to start a society for
the protection of coxes, and elect himself the first president. He
will not do the slightest good, but he will get some fun from being
president, and he will also be able to choose colours for the society
and wear a gorgeous tie, if there is any combination of colours which
has not already been annexed, and there can't be many left to choose
from.

It is the easiest thing in the world to start clubs if all you want to
get out of them is a remarkable tie and hatband, and I knew a man--by
sight--who started three clubs in two years. The first he called "The
Roysterers," and they were supposed to dine twice a term in waistcoats
decorated with R.D.C. buttons; the second he named "The Oddfish," a
club which was intended to be eccentric, and from the extraordinary
colours they adopted I should think they were aptly named. Their chief
function was drinking, and although I never went to any of their
carousals I believe they discharged it thoroughly. The third club
which this energetic man founded was not given up to eating and
drinking, but devoted itself to the discussion of moral and artistic
subjects. They called themselves "The Bumble-Bees," though I never
could understand the reason why they chose such a name, unless it was,
as Murray suggested, that after they had touched a thing there was no
sweetness left in it. I should not like to say how many more clubs
this man would have started had he been given the opportunity, but he
was sent down at the end of his second year, and I have met him since
in Florence wearing a Bumble-Bee tie and Oddfish ribbon round his
straw-hat. I regret to say that he belonged to St. Cuthbert's, and he
was really a nuisance, because there was so strong a feeling against
these miscellaneous colours during my first summer term that nearly all
the men who could do anything respectably wore black bands on their
straw-hats, and the effect was most dismal.

Dennison heard that my sister was coming up for Eights' week, and he
told me calmly that he should like to meet her. I may have imagined
that he considered this an act of condesce