Tom banged the door after him and went off to his museum, and there was nothing left for Ted but to follow his advice and begin working, which he did in a savage spirit. Like many rather silent, rather serious people, he found a great stimulus in the presence of some one who, like Tom, was hardly ever serious, and never silent. He made periodical attempts to take Tom in hand, but, like most people who had tried to do so, his efforts were not very successful. Tom had loafing in the blood, and his ambitions did not run in the lines of Triposes. At the same time it was owing to him that Tom had not at present failed very signally in college examinations, for Ted had succeeded in making him work, if not steadily, at least intermittently. Tom’s fits of intermittent work had not, it is true, occurred very often, but when they did occur they lasted sometimes for a week, of eight-hour days, and left him idler than ever. But, from Ted’s point of view, a widely supported and seemingly rational one--that men came up to the university partly at least to work, and that examinations were the criterion whereby the success of nine terms of residence was judged--these intermittent fits were better than nothing, and when they were induced just before an examination they led to results which, though superficial, were, according to the standard he measured them by, tolerably satisfactory. Tom never professed to feel the least interest in what he was working at, but pressure would sometimes make him work; and a very vivid memory, though one of short range, enabled him to reproduce the results of his week’s cramming.
But Tom’s influence over his friend was of a much more personal and vital kind. Ted looked on to the time when Tom should go down, and leave him, as he hoped, to a permanent university life, with blankness. He formed few friendships--and he had never been intimate with any one before. Tom’s healthy, out-of-door sort of mind, coupled with his artistic and picturesque ability, and his personal charm, had for him a unique attraction. You may see an even further development of the same phenomenon sometimes in the lower animals. A staid senior collie will often strike up an intimacy with a frisky young kitten, though it is hard to understand what the common ground between them is. The collie is not happy without the kitten, but unfortunately the kitten is quite happy without the collie--in fact, it would find the continuance of its exclusive society a little tedious.