I had just sat down to survey my labours when Murray came in and proposed we should go for a walk in the town, and as I was perfectly sick of my room I was quite ready to go. Although the time was barely four o'clock and the sun doesn't set for another hour in the middle of October, it was half dark and drizzling with rain as we walked down Turl Street and came into The High. But I had got rid of my gloom and was eager to spend money. I did not quite know what I wanted but that was not of much consequence. We went into a shop which seemed to be exactly the place for any one who wished to buy things, and did not care much what he bought. Before I came out of it I had bought two chairs, a standard lamp, a small book-case, an enormous bowl--which got in my way for two years until somebody smashed it--a tea-set, a small table and half-a-dozen china shepherdesses. I then went to other shops and made more purchases, while Murray looked on and smiled until I was waylaid by an accommodating man in the Cornmarket, who wanted to sell me a fox-terrier pup, and was ready to keep it for me if I had no place for it; and then I was told not to be a fool. That man's opinion of Murray is not worth mentioning.
When we got back to college it was past five o'clock, and between us we managed to find everything that was necessary for tea. I had a fire in my room, but Murray had not one in his; he had tea-cups, but I had none; while I had things to eat, which our cook at home had declared would be useful and I had most reluctantly brought with me. We were in the middle of this very substantial meal when Fred Foster came in, and from his glance round my room I saw that he thought it was a fairly dismal spot.
"Rather like an up-stairs dungeon," I said. "Have you got a better place than this?"
"It is bigger and not so stuffy," he answered; "but it won't make you very jealous."
"You wait until I have got all the things I have just bought, and then you will think this no end of a place," I remarked.
"If any one can get inside," Murray put in.
"It will be rather a squash," I admitted; "I've spent over twelve pounds already."
"That's just the sort of thing you would do," Foster said.
We sat and talked for an hour until Ward burst in, knocking and opening the door at the same moment.