“it is about the toughest part of a man’s life, i do[148] believe,” said hardy, “the time he has to spend at college. my university life has been so different altogether from what yours will be, that my experience isn’t likely to benefit you.”

“i wish you would try me, though,” said tom; “you don’t know what a teachable sort of fellow i am, if anybody will take me the right way. you taught me to scull, you know; or at least put me in the way to learn. but sculling, and rowing, and cricket, and all the rest of it, with such reading as i am likely to do, won’t be enough. i feel sure of that already.”

“i don’t think it will,” said hardy. “no amount of physical or mental work will fill the vacuum you were talking of just now. it is the empty house swept and garnished, which the boy might have had glimpses of, but the man finds yawning within him, and which must be filled somehow. it’s a pretty good three-years’ work to learn how to keep the devils out of it, more or less, by the time you take your degree. at least i have found it so.”

hardy rose and took a turn or two up and down his room. he was astonished at finding himself talking so unreservedly to one of whom he knew so little, and half-wished the words recalled. he lived much alone, and thought himself morbid and too self-conscious; why should he be filling a youngster’s head with puzzles? how did he know that they were thinking of the same thing?

but the spoken word cannot be recalled; it must go on its way for good or evil; and this one set the hearer staring into the ashes, and putting many things together in his head.

it was some minutes before he broke silence, but at last he gathered up his thoughts, and said, “well, i hope i sha’n’t shirk when the time comes. you don’t think a fellow need shut himself up, though? i’m sure i shouldn’t be any the better for that.”

“no, i don’t think you would,” said hardy.

“because, you see,” tom went on, waxing bolder and more confidential, “if i were to take to moping by myself, i shouldn’t read as you or any sensible fellow would do; i know that well enough. i should just begin, sitting with my legs up on the mantle-piece, and looking into my own inside. i see you are laughing, but you know what i mean, don’t you, now?”

“yes; staring into the vacuum you were talking of just now; it all comes back to that,” said hardy.

“well, perhaps it does,” said tom; “and i don’t believe it does a fellow a bit of good to be thinking about himself and his own doings.”

“only he can’t help himself,” said hardy. “let him throw himself as he will into all that is going on up here, after all he must be alone for a great part of his time—all night at any rate—and when he gets his oak sported, it’s all up with him. he must be[150] looking more or less into his own inside as you call it.”

“then i hope he won’t find it as ugly a business as i do. if he does, i’m sure he can’t be worse employed.”

“i don’t know that,” said hardy; “he can’t learn anything worth learning in any other way.”

“oh, i like that!” said tom; “it’s worth learning how to play tennis, and how to speak the truth. you can’t learn either by thinking about yourself ever so much.”

“you must know the truth before you can speak it,” said hardy.

“so you always do in plenty of time.”

“how?” said hardy.

“oh, i don’t know,” said tom; “by a sort of instinct, i suppose. i never in my life felt any doubt about what i ought to say or do; did you?”

“well, yours is a good, comfortable, working belief, at any rate,” said hardy, smiling; “and i should advise you to hold on to it as long as you can.”

“but you don’t think i can for very long, eh?”

“no; but men are very different. there’s no saying. if you were going to get out of the self-dissecting business altogether though, why should you have brought the subject up at all to-night? it looks awkward for you, doesn’t it?”

tom began to feel rather forlorn at this suggestion,[151] and probably betrayed it in his face, for hardy changed the subject suddenly.