"You may call it what you like," I continued, "but if you get up a row and then haven't the pluck to see it out I call it a dirty thing to do."
I thought that must be enough to rouse Dennison, but he actually smiled at me and told me to go on.
"Of course I did not recognize you and Foster, but when I saw those people had buttoned on to the wrong man I said we ought to go back. I wish that we had gone back," he answered.
"They found out Foster's name, and one of them, an awful man called Tom Harrison, says he is going to get compensation from him because you hit Susan in the eye with a pea and hadn't the decency to stay there and own up to it. There's the dinner bell, and I'm about sick of you fellows."
"I hit Susan in the eye," Dennison said reflectively. "Was Susan Tom Harrison's inamorata?" he asked.
"Talk English and I may answer you. It doesn't matter a row of pins who Susan was as long as she has a black eye," I replied.
"It is evidently no good speaking to you until you have calmed down. You remind me of a damp squib, all fuss and no result. I am going to dinner," Dennison said, and went out of the room without looking at either Ward or myself.
"I shall do something awful to that brute before I have finished with him. He makes me mad," I said, and Ward walked across the room to me.
"I am most horribly sorry about this," he began, "and I will come back straight from the Sceptre and see you. Be in at nine o'clock."
"You didn't shoot at those people, did you?" I asked.
"No; but well, you see, Dennison is better than I am at getting in for a row, and I am better at getting out of it."
"He's a low-down hound," I asserted, and after promising to be in at nine o'clock I seized my gown and went away. As I went into the hall I met Collier, and during dinner I expressed my opinion of Dennison very freely. There are times at Oxford when you regret most tremendously that you have left school, and this was one of them.
"A fellow like that would be kicked at any decent school," I said.
"He was kicked at Charbury until he managed to become a sort of blood. He played racquets very well," Collier added, as if by way of an excuse.
"Why do we put up with him?" I asked viciously, for I could see him making Lambert and Webb shout with laughter at the table opposite me.