not until Mrs. Faulkner pulled my coat violently that I
remembered that she was sitting close to me.

"Did you make a bump?" I heard her asking me.

"No, Merton bumped us. We shall soon be sandwich boat," I answered,
for I spoke without thinking.

"Sandwich boat, my dear Godfrey, is this a picnic?" she returned, and I
did not know whether she was serious or only trying to be funny.

"There's not much picnic about it," I replied; "we've gone down four
places in four nights."

"But what is a sandwich boat. They don't have such things at
Cambridge."

"They do, at any rate my cousin rowed eight times in four nights and
nearly died after it. A sandwich boat is bottom of one division and
top of the other, so it has got to row in both; it's got nothing to do
with ham. Shall we go?"

Every one was leaving the barges, but Mrs. Faulkner remained in her
chair.

"Isn't that girl in mauve a perfect dream?" she said to me, but I
pretended not to hear. I had to wait for several minutes while dresses
and the people who wore them were criticized, and I am sure that
nothing but the National Anthem or force could have stirred Mrs.
Faulkner from her seat.

We found Nina and Fred waiting for us, and Nina said she had been
having a splendid time on the Oriel barge. But I could think of
nothing except that we were not the college we used to be, and I left
Fred to talk to both Mrs. Faulkner and Nina.

CHAPTER XIV

GUIDE, HOST AND NURSE

When I got back to my rooms after leaving Mrs. Faulkner and Nina I
found a note from Owen asking me to go and see him at once. Since he
had, until then, avoided me in every possible way I guessed that
something serious had happened, and when I got to his rooms in Lomax
Street, I found him in bed with a cough which ought to have frightened
his landlady instead of making her in a very bad temper. He was,
however, more worried about the interruption to his reading than
anxious about himself, and he said flatly that he could not afford to
have a doctor. I tried to cheer him up--but you can't cheer up a man
with a cough--and I told him I would come to him whenever he wanted me,
and made him promise he would send for me if I could do anything for
him. He did not seem to have a single friend in Oxford, and the
loneliness of the man made me feel absolutely wretched.

I went to a very confidential chemist who knew nearly every man who had
ever been at Oxford, and everything under the su