"As a senior member of the University," I added severely, "I believe it is my duty to report you to the Proctors for smoking while in academic dress."

Freak"s repartee was to offer me a cigarette.

"Let us take a walk down Trinity Street," he continued. "I have to go and see The Tut."

"Who?"

"My Tutor. Don"t get fossilised all at once, old thing!"

I apologised.

"What are you going to see him about?" I enquired. "Been sent down?"

"No. I am going to get leave to hold a dinner-party consisting of more than four persons," replied my friend, quoting pedantically from the College Statute which seeks (vainly) to regulate the convivial tendencies of the undergraduate.

"Ah," I remarked airily--"quite so! For my part, such rules no longer apply to me."

Fatal vaunt! Next moment d.i.c.ky was frantically embracing me before all Trinity Street.

"Brave heart," he announced, "this is providential! You are a G.o.dsend--a _deus ex machina_--a little cherub sent from aloft! It never occurred to me: I need not go to The Tut for leave at all now! It would have been a forlorn hope in any case. But now all is well. _You_ shall come to the dinner. In fact, you shall _give_ it! Then no Tut in the world can interfere. Come along, host and honoured guest! Come and see Wicky about it!"

As The Freak hustled me down All Saints" Pa.s.sage, I enquired plaintively who Mr. Wicky might be.

"Wickham is his name," replied The Freak. "He is nominally giving the dinner. We are going to--"

"Pardon me," I interposed. "How many people _are_ nominally giving this dinner? So far, we have you, Wicky, and myself. I--"

"It"s this way," explained my friend. "Wicky is nominally the host; he will do the honours. But I have dropped out. The dinner will be ordered in your name now. That"s all."

"Why is Wicky nominally the host?" I enquired, still befogged.

"We are all giving the dinner--seven of us," explained The Freak; "all except yourself and The Jebber, in fact. Wicky has to be host because he is the only man who is not going to the dinner disguised as some one else. Now, do you understand?"

"There are one or two minor points," I remarked timidly, "which--"

"Go ahead!" sighed my friend.

"Who," I enquired, "is The Jebber? And why should he share with me the privilege of not paying for his dinner?"

The Freak became suddenly serious.

"The Jebber," he said, "is a poisonous growth called Jebson. He is in his first year. He owns bags of money, which he squanders in the wrong manner on every occasion. He runs after Blues and other celebrities, but has never caught one yet. On the other hand, he is rude to porters and bedmakers. He gathers unto himself bands of admiring smugs and tells them of the fast life he lives in town. He plays no games of any kind, except a little billiards with the marker, but he b.u.t.tonholes you outside Hall in the evening and tells you how much he has won by backing the winner of the three o"clock race by wire. I think he has a kind of vague notion that he is sowing wild oats; but as he seems quite incapable of speaking the truth, I have no idea whether he is the vicious young mug he makes himself out to be or is merely endeavouring to impress us yokels. That is the sort of customer The Jebber is."

"And you have invited him to dinner?" I said.

"Yes; it"s like this. We stood him as well as we could for quite a long while. Then, one evening, he turned up in my rooms when half a dozen of us were there--he is on my staircase, and I had rashly called upon him his first term--and after handing out a few fairy tales about his triumphs as a lady"s man, he pulled a photograph from his pocket and pa.s.sed it round. It was a girl--a jolly pretty girl, too! He said he was engaged to her. Said it as if--" The Freak"s honest face grew suddenly hot, and his fingers bit ferociously into my arm. "Well, he began to talk about her. Said she was "fearfully mashed on him!" That fairly turned our stomachs to begin with, but there was more to come.

He confided to us that she was a dear little thing, but not quite up to his form; and he did n"t intend to marry her until he had sown a few more of his rotten wild oats. And so on. That settled me, Tiny! So far I had not been so fierce about him as the other men. I had considered him just a harmless bounder, who would tone down when he got into the ways of the place. But a fellow who would talk like that before a roomful of men about a girl--his own girl--My G.o.d, Tiny! what would you do with such a thing?"

"Kill it," I said simply.

"That"s what we nearly did, on the spot," said d.i.c.ky. "But--well--one feels a delicacy about even taking notice of that sort of stuff. You understand?"

I nodded. The reserve of the youthful male on affairs of the heart is much deeper than that of the female, though the female can never recognise the fact.

"So we simply sat still, feeling we should like to be sick. Then the man Jebson gave himself a respite and us an idea by going on to talk of his social ambitions. He confided to us that he had come up here to form influential friendships--with athletic bloods, future statesmen, sons of peers, and so forth. He explained that it was merely a matter of money. All he wanted was a start. As soon as the athletes and peers heard of him and his wealth, they would be only too pleased to hobn.o.b with him. Suddenly old Wicky, who had been sitting in the corner absolutely mum, as usual, asked him straight off to come and dine with him, and said he would get a few of the most prominent men in the "Varsity to come and meet him. We simply gaped at first, but presently we saw there was some game on; and when The Jebber had removed himself, Wicky explained what he wanted us to do. He"s a silent bird, Wicky, but he thinks a lot. Here are his digs."

We had reached a house in Jesus Lane, which we now entered, ascending to the first floor.

d.i.c.ky rapidly introduced me to Mr. Wickham, who had just finished luncheon. He proved to be a young gentleman of diminutive stature and few words, in a Leander tie. He was, it appeared, a c.o.xswain of high degree, and was only talkative when afloat. Then, one learned, he was a terror. It was credibly reported that on one occasion a freshman rowing bow in a trial eight, of a sensitive temperament and privately educated, had burst into tears and tried to throw away his oar after listening to Mr. Wickham"s blistering comments upon the crew in general and himself in particular during a particularly unsteady half-minute round Gra.s.sy Corner.

He silently furnished us with cigarettes, and my somewhat unexpected inclusion in the coming revels was explained to him.

"Good egg!" he remarked, when d.i.c.ky had finished. "Go round to the kitchen presently. Have dinner in these rooms, Freak. May be awkward for the men to get into College all togged up."

"You see the idea now, Tiny?" said d.i.c.ky to me. "Wicky is going to be host, and the rest of us are going to dress up as influential young members of the University. We shall pull The Jebber"s leg right off!"

"Do you think you will be able to keep up your a.s.sumed characters all dinner-time?" I asked. "You know what sometimes happens towards the end of--"

"That"s all right," said The Freak. "We are n"t going to keep it up right to the end. At a given signal we shall unveil."

"What then?" I enquired, not without concern.

"We shall hold a sort of court martial. After that I don"t quite know what we will do, but we ought to be able to think of something pretty good by then," replied The Freak confidently.

Mr. Wickham summed up the situation.

"The man Jebson," he said briefly, "must die."

"What character are you going to a.s.sume?" I enquired of The Freak.

"Athlete, politician, peer, scholar--?"

"I am the Marquis of Puddox," said my friend, with simple dignity.

"Only son," added Mr. Wickham, "of the Duke of Damsillie. Scotland for ever!"

"A Highlander?" I asked.

"Yes," said The Freak gleefully. "I am going to wear a red beard and talk Gaelic."

"Who are to be the other--inmates?" I asked.

"You"ll see when the time comes," replied d.i.c.ky. "At present we have to decide on a part for you, my lad."

"I think I had better be Absent Friends," I said. "Then I need not come, but you can drink my health."

Mr. Wickham said nothing, but rose to his feet and crossed the room to the mantelpiece. On the corner of the mirror which surmounted it hung a red Turkish fez, with a long black ta.s.sel. This my host reached down and handed to me.

"Wear that," he said briefly--"with your ordinary evening things."