"Oh, Buller," Vaughan interposed, "really, you mustn't put such words into the Dean's mouth!"
"Well, I don't quite remember the old boy's lingo, but, at any rate, the Dean thought Crabbe was making a fool of himself. 'I think I can settle it,' says I to the Dean. 'I wish you would,' said the Dean; so off I go to Crabbe's rooms. He came in just as I got there; I wish you could have seen him--a frock-coat, top-hat, flower in his button-hole, his hair plastered down. And only last year, it was, that he got up as a Socialist, with a red silk handkerchief in his hat! But now he shook hands with me up in the air; was most affable and condescending; assured me he was glad to see his old pals--especially friends from London. Oxford people were very well in their way, but narrow, and rather donnish. Didn't I notice it in coming from London?
"Well, this was almost too much from Crabbe, but I thought it would be more sport to draw him out a bit. So we got to talking; I didn't let on I knew he was engaged, but after a bit I began to talk about marriage and love and all that in a general sort of way. Old Crabbe swallows it all, talks a lot of literary stuff. 'Fall in love, Buller,' says he, 'fall in love, and live! Let me read you what thing-a-majig says,' and he gets down a book--who did you say he was? Browning, yes, that's the man--he gets down a book of Browning's and begins to read--you ought to have seen him, his face got pink; and at the end he says, with a proud smile, as if the poem was all about him, 'Isn't that ripping, Buller, isn't that brave, isn't that the way to take life!'
"'Smoke? Oh, do certainly,' and Crabbe sits down looking rather foolish. But after a moment, he says in an easy sort of way, 'Ah, I meant to ask you about all the chaps in London--getting on all right? any of them married?'
"'Married!' says I, 'O Lord, no; _they_ don't want to dish themselves.'
"'Dish themselves,' says Crabbe, 'why, what do you mean?'
"'I mean what I say; if you get married without any money, you're dished, that's all--I mean practical people, who want to get on.'
"Then Crabbe began to talk big; one shouldn't care only for success--it might be practical, perhaps, but he did not mean to sacrifice the greatest thing in life for money.