im about the Hedonists, and finished up by saying that he
must go to see Thornton.

"What's the good of that?" I asked.

"I want to see if he isn't having a huge joke all to himself; if he is
we may as well help him with it."

As soon as Fred had gone away Jack persuaded me to go with him and call
on Thornton. He had got hold of a scheme which Murray and Learoyd had
started, and as its object seemed to be to score off Dennison I was not
going to be out of it. We found Thornton sitting in an arm-chair with
his feet on the mantelpiece, and Jack seeing that he was alone sported
the oak so that we could not be interrupted.

"I should think," Thornton said, as he pushed his chair back, "that I
must have had over thirty men in here to-day. There were seventeen
before twelve o'clock. I am thinking of putting a visitors' book in
the passage, so that they can write their names and go away. Are you
going to back me up to-morrow night?" he asked Jack.

"They have persuaded you to stand?"

"Dennison says it would be such a bad thing for the college if this man
Webb got in. Of course it is a great honour for a fresher, but I am
used to speaking; we have a debating society at home." He spoke as if
the whole thing was not in the least important, and ran his fingers
through his hair until it stood straight up on end. It was the sort of
hair which looked like stubble.

Jack was so discouraged that he did not know what to say, so I asked
Thornton if he expected to be elected.

"There doesn't seem to be any doubt about that; there are only about
thirty members, and quite half of them have promised to support me.
Webb of course is better known, but in some cases it does no harm to
keep oneself in the background until the last moment. Then I shall
speak." He seemed to think that his speech would settle everything
completely.

I wandered round the room waiting for Jack to bring forward his scheme
if he could remember it, but he was sitting on the table sucking at a
pipe which had no tobacco in it, so I drifted over to a book-case, and
nearly the first book I saw was an edition of _Omar Khayyam_. This
surprised me so much that I turned round to see if Thornton really
looked like a lunatic, but I got no satisfaction from him, for I had
once seen a man who might have been his brother, and then I had been
playing cricket against an asylum. He was lying back in his chair
gazing at the ceiling, and I pulled _Omar Khayyam_ ou