The Argosy — page 57: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Our First Term at Oxford. 47 discredit, sit, for a young fellow of your years to be found abroad by your proctor at midnight ? ” “But I could not help being !Jate, sir, last night; and I was not abroad for any purpose of pleasure. I had been staying with a poor fellow who is sick: dying, in fact: and—and it was not my fault, sir.” ‘Take care, young man,” said he, glaring through his spectacles. ‘“There’s one thing I can never forgive if deliberately told me, and that’s a lie.” ‘“‘T should be sorry to tell a lie, sir,” I answered: and by the annoy- ance so visible in his looks and tones, it was impossible to help fancying he had found out, or thought he had found out, Gaiton in one. “What I have said is truth.” “Go over again what you did say,” cried he, very shortly, after looking at his paper again and then hard at me. And I went over it. ‘* What do you say the man’s name 1s?” ‘Charles Tasson, sir. He was our scout until he fell ill.” ‘Pray do you make a point, Mr. Ludlow, of visiting all the scouts and their friends who may happen to fall sick P” ‘‘No, sir,” I said uneasily, for there was ridicule in his tone, and I knew he did not believe a word. ‘‘I don’t suppose I should ever have thought to visit Tasson, but for seeing him look so ill one after- noon up at Godstowe. ‘‘He must be very ill to be at Godstowe!” cried Dr. Applerigg. ‘‘ Very |" ‘“ He was so ill, sir, that I thought he was dying then. Some fly- man he knew had driven him to Godstowe for the sake of the air.” ‘But what’s your motive, may I ask, for going to sit with him? ” He had a way of laying emphasis on certain of his words. ‘¢ There’s no motive, sir: except that he 1s lonely and dying.” The Doctor looked at me for what seemed ten minutes. ‘ What is this sick man’s address, pray?”’ I told him the address in Stagg’s Entry ; and he wrote it down, tell- ing me to present myself again before him the following morning. That day, I met Sophie Chalk; her husband was with her. She nodded and seemed gay as air: he looked dark and sullen as he took off his hat. I carried the news into college. *€ Sophie Chalk has got her husband down, Tod.” “Queen Anne’s dead,” retorted he. “Oh, you knew it!” And I might have guessed that he did by his not having spent the past evening in High Street, but in a fellow’s rooms at Oriel. And he was as cross as two sticks. “What a fool she must have been to go and throw herself away upon that low fellow Everty!” he exclaimed, putting. his shoulders against the mantelpiece and stamping on the carpet with’ one heel. q “Throw herself away! Well, Tod, opinions vary. J think she was _