"Doesn't Adamson ever speak to you?" I asked, for he was captain of the 'Varsity XV.
"Yes, but it is generally to tell me not to do something. He is an 'internatter,' you see, and I don't think he ever forgets it, he seems to me to stick on more side than any one I have ever met. Most of the men are all right, but Adamson is a first-class bounder."
"He swore at me pretty freely in the Freshers' match," I said.
"I heard him," Foster returned, "but although you played abominably then, you are really much better than Sykes of Merton, who has been playing back for the 'Varsity lately. He does the most awful things."
"He can't be worse than I am. I now play three-quarters and am thinking of chucking the game altogether. It is such a horrid grind."
"Don't be an idiot, they are bound to spot you here sooner or later," Foster said, but he knew as well as I did that I could never stop playing any game just because it was too much trouble.
"I have made an idiot of myself, already," I replied; and then I told him all that had been happening at St. Cuthbert's during the last few days. I made out myself a bigger fool than I really had been, because I wanted to show him that Ward was a much better fellow than he thought.
"You have a real gift for getting into rows," he said, when I had finished; "you seem to have got all the dons on your track already."
"That doesn't worry me," I answered. "I have only got to work and keep quiet, and the Subby will think I am as like a machine as he is."
"And you have made up your mind to work?"
"I mean to do a reasonable amount," I replied cautiously.
"It is most awfully difficult to work. I have done precious little, and I went fast asleep at a lecture the other morning."
"Oh, that's nothing," I assured him. "I started cutting my logic lectures altogether until I got dropped on. I didn't understand a word the man was saying. There is heaps of time to work, Mods are nearly a year and a half off. What do you think of Ward, after the thing that happened last night?"
I had to plunge right at it, for Foster had not said a word after I had told him Ward wanted to give me back my money.
"Don't let us talk about Ward," Foster answered, "you know I don't like him."
