I can with difficulty
imagine two men less capable of getting on together. Though I have not
seen Haddo now for years, I can tell you, in one way and another, a good
deal about him. He erred when he described me as his intimate friend. It
is true that at one time I saw much of him, but I never ceased cordially
to dislike him. He came up to Oxford from Eton with a reputation for
athletics and eccentricity. But you know that there is nothing that
arouses the ill-will of boys more than the latter, and he achieved an
unpopularity which was remarkable. It turned out that he played football
admirably, and except for his rather scornful indolence he might easily
have got his blue. He sneered at the popular enthusiasm for games, and
was used to say that cricket was all very well for boys but not fit for
the pastime of men. (He was then eighteen!) He talked grandiloquently of
big-game shooting and of mountain climbing as sports which demanded
courage and self-reliance. He seemed, indeed, to like football, but he
played it with a brutal savagery which the other persons concerned
naturally resented.
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