﻿﻿﻿﻿A 'Varsity Man﻿NEW AND RECENT FICTION
Crown 8vo, 6s.
WILLOWDENE WILL
By Halliwell Sutcliffe
CINDERS
By Helen Mathers
HER MASTER PASSION
By Bessie Hatton
THE TAPU OF BANDERAH
By Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
A HONEYMOON IN SPACE
By George Griffith	■
'TWIXT DEVIL AND DEEP SEA By Mrs. C. N. Williamson	j
THE STRANGE WOOING OF MARY BOWLER
By Richard Marsh
THE INVADERS
By Louis Tracy
SENTENCE OF THE COURT
By Headon Hill
THE ETERNAL CHOICE
By E. H. Cooper
UNDER THE REDWOODS
By Bret Harte
DON OR DEVIL
By William Westall
A PATCHED-UP AFFAIR
By Florence Warden
Second Edition
THE CONSCIENCE OF CORALIE
By F. Frankfort Moore
JOAN BROTHERHOOD
By Bernard Capes
THE BRAND OF THE BROAD ARROW
By Major Arthur Griffiths
THE WHITE BATTALIONS
By F. M. White
GOD'S LAD
By Paul Cushing
Fourth Edition NELL GWYN
By F. Frankfort Moore
THE PLUNDER SHIP
By Headon Hill
Second Edition
THE WOMAN OF DEATH
By Guy Boothby
THE SPELL OF THE SNOW
By G. Guise Mitford
C. ARTHUR PEARSON, Ltd.﻿A 'Varsity Man
Passages in the Career of an Impressionable Undergraduate
By
Inglis Allen
London
C. Arthur Pearson, Ltd. Henrietta Street 1901﻿﻿Contents
CHAP.
I. THE MAUNDY-DALY AFFAIR II. THE EYES AT THE FAIR
III.	THE GIRL IN THE GARDEN HAT
IV.	NEMESIS AT A DANCE-SUPPER . V. A VISIT TO THE NEST
VI. THREE AT THE WELCOME CLUB VII. THE CLUB-TIE SCANDAL VIII. THE RUNAWAY GIRLS .... IX. AN ADVENTURE AT SLATER'S . X. CAMBRIDGE WINS .... XI. THE VALUE OF AN ANAESTHETIC XII. THE HANSOM-CAB AND THE OVERCOAT
XIII.	THE DETHRONEMENT OF THE ONE .
XIV.	THE REIGN OF THE MANY.
V﻿﻿﻿﻿A 'Varsity Man
CHAPTER I
the maundy-daly affair
When a young man is a freshman at a university, there are certain things which he cannot resist. Their name is legion; from straight-grained pipes to the outside of lecture-rooms. But there is one sign which marks a certain type of freshman more than any other, and that is a leaning towards the drama. We do not mean to say that he attacks his "Ha'igh" with frantic zeal, nor that he of necessity drifts towards Shakespeare and the O.U.D.S. But he books the corner seats in "the dresser" weeks in advance, and assiduously yells for " Speech!" on the last night of a comic opera, and the walls of his rooms look like the lobby of the Shaftesbury Theatre; which, by the way, is often merely a transient
7﻿A 'Varsity Man
phase, and is no more lasting in its effects than its predecessors of butterfly-collecting or catapult-shooting.
When the Youth was a freshman, he was smitten badly with the theatre epidemic. He went four nights running to the " Circus Girl," and entertained at lunch a select party of those engaged in the production, and, had he gone down suddenly—a contingency which was extremely probable—the menial at the professional entrance of the theatre would have found his income considerably decreased.
The Youth was pleasurably conscious of " going the pace rather," and had reached that stage at which he found it incumbent upon him to look extremely knowing when men mentioned "Jinny's," or other places which he had never visited—a defect which he would determine to remedy in the vacation. In short, he was suffering from a temporary attack of extreme youthfulness.
Possibly it was ordained that the Youth and
Eileen should meet for their mutual benefit. If
it was merely the result of chance, chance did
a really smart thing for once, and may con-
8﻿The Maundy-Daly Affair
gratulate herself. The affair did them a deal of good each in a different way. It fell out in this wise.
On the last day of the Easter vacation the Youth went to lunch with the Parfitts at their house on Hampstead Heath. The Parfitts were a family whose lunches met with the Youth's approval rather more than they did personally. But it was worth while being bored, with one of Parfitt senior's cigars in view after the ordeal, and as Parfitt junior—who wore red ties with a frock-coat, and was apt to extend the province of brown boots—was in the city, matters were rather more tolerable than they might have been. Mrs. Parfitt, who insisted on referring to the Youth as a " student," treated him with the respect due to this imaginary status, and the claret was eminently drinkable. After lunch Mrs. Parfitt excused herself, and retired for her nap; and the Youth was left alone with that lady's companion, who, whatever she might have been officially to Mrs. Parfitt, did not fulfil that function privately to the Youth. She tried to converse with him on congenial topics, and only succeeded in giving him the idea that he was
9﻿A 'Varsity Man
about twelve and a half; and when she asked him how long the holidays lasted, the Youth's abstinence from bad language was a brilliant testimony to the efficacy of a British training.
Consequently, the Youth, judiciously waiting until he had started another cigar, pleaded an engagement "to meet another man," and took his leave. He then began to walk slowly down the hill to Hampstead Heath Station.
This is where Eileen comes on the scene. Eileen and a friend were sitting on one of the seats at the side of the road which skirts the Heath.
Eileen was rather tall, and had fair hair and dancing grey eyes, and a turned-up nose, and was in that state described as "hair down." And she had very neat little feet, and her skirts fluttered very nicely round her ankles when she walked.
Eileen's friend wore spectacles.
And when Eileen and her friend sate upon the seat, behold, the Youth drew near. And the father of lies whispered in Eileen's ear, and said, " Make a fool of this young man " ; and his advice was as potent as it has been on other historic occasions.
10﻿The Maundy-Daly Affair
"I am going," said Eileen, "to talk to this young man."
" Good gracious, Eily!" gasped her friend staring through horrified spectacles.
" I am going to," repeated Eileen, leaning back and gazing at the approaching figure.
The Girl in Spectacles clasped Eileen's sleeve and begged her to take care what she was doing. At the same time she looked at the Youth, and, though still horrified, melted somewhat. The Youth was a comely enough youth, and wore an up-and-down collar, and a knitted tie, and a waistcoat with brass buttons, and his handkerchief was up his sleeve, as it should be.
The Youth, coming down the hill, saw the two upon the seat.
" Rather a nice girl," he thought, fingering his tie and examining the set of his trousers.
"A ripping girl," he amended, as he got
nearer, and then he discovered that both were
staring at him. The Youth, nothing embarrassed,
returned the stare, and in Eileen's eyes there was
a very merry twinkle, and something very like
a smile upon her lips. The Youth, by no means
displeased, looked back over his shoulder ; Eileen
11﻿A 'Varsity Man
had turned, and was still looking at him, with her smile somewhat more distinguishable.
" Dash it all! this is rather sound," he remarked, half aloud, and stopped at the next seat to do up his bootlace.
By this time Eileen was leaning right forward, and he distinctly caught a ripple of laughter.
"After that," thought the Youth, "it's as safe as houses," and he turned and walked deliberately towards the pair.
The Girl in Spectacles clung to Eileen, who leant back again and regarded the Youth with a fixed smile.
" I think," said the Youth, raising his hat, "that I have met you before somewhere."
The Girl in Spectacles turned still redder, and looked at the ground in discomfort. Eileen shook back a very pretty curl from her cheek.
" I don't remember," she said, continuing to smile.
" That is my misfortune," replied the Youth, who could, on occasion, say the right thing.
"Won't you sit down?" asked Eileen, making room for him.
12﻿The Maundy-Daly Affair
The Youth sat down with alacrity, and his heart was glad. He produced his Oxford card ; and Eileen, as was only proper, introduced him to the Girl in Spectacles.
The Youth, in turn, begged of the Girl in Spectacles that she would introduce him to Eileen, and his request was eventually granted, at Eileen's command, in a terrified undertone, and the Youth and Miss Eileen Maundy made known to each other.
Mrs. Grundy thus appeased, conversation waxed fluent.
" Do you ever go to the Regency," inquired Eileen.
" By Jove !—yes, rather," answered the Youth.
" I thought you would have recognised me," continued Eileen, nudging the Girl in Spectacles with her knee.
" Recognised you? " queried the Youth, becoming interested.
" When did you go to the Regency ? "
" After the boat race."
"Well, then, surely you must have been there for my song and dance," exclaimed Eileen, whose dancing as well as singing had hitherto been
13﻿A 'Varsity Man
purely academic. " Don't you remember Daisy Daly?"
"Good Gad!" cried the Youth, "are you Daisy Daly ? "
Eileen nodded, and smothered an incipient gasp from the Girl in Spectacles, with a well-timed pinch.
" I never should have known you!" exclaimed the Youth, absolutely dazed at this stroke of luck.
" People always say I look quite different on the stage," observed Eileen, thinking of " Beauty and the Beast" at her school breaking-up.
" Why, you're still on there ! " cried the Youth, with excitement.
"Yes, of course," returned Eileen.
"What time ? "
" The same time as usual," answered the damsel, with wisdom.
The Youth, in anticipation, abandoned an " At Home."
" May I see you home afterwards?" he urged, with eagerness.
Eileen demurred a good deal; her mother, she averred, invariably fetched her from the theatre.
14﻿The Maundy-Daly Affair
The Youth was going back to Oxford the next day. He ran this for all it was worth, with flattering raillery at fate that he had not met Eileen sooner.
" I'm afraid it can't be done," said Eileen, not unmoved by his tone. "You see, mother is very strict. D'you know that I'm known in the profession as ' the girl with the mother' ?"
" It's my last chance," pleaded the Youth. " Do try and work it. Surely you can shake her off for one evening!"
Again the father of lies whispered in her ear, and again weak woman hearkened.
"Very well," she said, "I'll do my best. You come round to the stage-door directly my turn is over."
The Youth thanked her effusively, and swore to be there. After a quarter of an hour's bliss, seeing no chance of getting rid of the Girl in Spectacles, he rose and reminded Eileen of her promise.
Eileen said that, should anything prevent her seeing him, she always took a walk over the Heath about the same time in the afternoon.﻿A 'Varsity Man
" It's simply ripping of you," he said as he bade her farewell and left her with her friend upon the seat.
When he had gone, the Girl in Spectacles turned to Eileen.
" I do think it unkind of you," she said, looking after the Youth's retreating figure. " I think you're simply horrid," she repeated.
" Don't be a fool, and come in to tea," said Eileen, and her bond-slave followed.
The Youth was walking down the hill to the station, and a great joy had come upon his heart, so that for a space he spake not. After a time he hit a seat with his cane.
"This is a fair snip!" he cried aloud.
When he got to the bottom of the hill he entered a post-office, and telegraphed an amazing lie to the unsuspecting hostess. In the train he simply bubbled over. " Daisy Daly, by Gad!" he exclaimed aloud to his empty carriage, and a man in the next compartment got up and looked over the partition. Such a slight embarrassment as this was nothing to a man who had got an appointment with Daisy
Daly in the evening; but for the rest of the
16﻿The Maundy-Daly Affair
journey he browsed on pleasant but silent thoughts.
That night the Youth arrayed himself in fine linen and a white waistcoat with brass buttons, and spoiled three dress ties before he had tied a satisfactory bow.
As he was about to leave the house, his brother, home on leave from Aldershot, let himself in with his latch-key.
" Hang on a bit if you're going to the Dale-hams to-night, and I'll come with you," he said.
The Youth lit one of his father's cigars with easy grace.
" I can't come to the Dalehams to-night," he remarked, and paused to take a few puffs. " I've got an appointment with Daisy Daly," he added, with marked nonchalance.
"Who's Daisy Daly?" asked his brother.
" My dear chap, surely you've seen Daisy Daly at the Regency," said the Youth with annoyance.
" Oh, perhaps—I may have," answered his brother. " Anyhow, you're a nuisance with
your beastly appointments."
17	B﻿A 'Varsity Man
The Youth left the house considerably nettled at his brother's failure to be impressed. But he thought of some of the other " freshers " at Oxford, and drew comfort from his reflections. In the lobby of the Regency he met Cardrake of Trinity.
" Hullo, Ashby," exclaimed that young man. " You're for the promenade, I suppose? "
The Youth assented.
" Come and do a supper with me afterwards," said Cardrake.
" Sorry, old chap," returned the Youth, " but I'm engaged. Fact is, I've got an appointment with Daisy Daly."
" That's first-class," said Cardrake. " Bring her along."
The Youth looked dubious.
" Well, you know, old chap, to tell you the truth, I don't think she'd come ; she's—er—hardly that sort. Only a kid, you know."
" Oh, I know those kids," replied Cardrake.
" I don't think she would, as a matter of fact; mater's awfully strict with her," said the Youth.
The Youth and Cardrake strolled about the
promenade, while two nasal persons, who were
18﻿The Maundy-Daly Affair
neither eccentric nor comedians, conversed between intervals of violence, about " the booze," with incidental allusions to whelks.
The Youth who, though young, was at bottom by no means a really foolish youth, was not a little bored by this exciting entertainment, and derived but little comfort from the performing cockatoos.
"What utter piffle all this is," he observed to Cardrake, impatient for the appearance of Daisy Daly ; and Cardrake assented.
" I bar these people," said he. " I came to see La Tartara ; devilish fine woman."
Eventually the time came for Daisy Daly's appearance. Daisy Daly was a singularly refined and clever little girl, whose song and dance were really a song and dance, and whose imitations showed distinct talent.
The Youth sat with suppressed excitement, pulling his handkerchief down his sleeve and pushing it up again while the usual few bars of music were played before the empty boards.
Then she came, and the Youth was quite startled to see how different Eileen looked on the stage. The eyes were the same and the
19﻿A 'Varsity Man
mouth was the same, but the hair and the voice seemed different.
Then he suddenly remembered that Eileen had told him that she wore a wig.
" Don't like her hair at all," remarked Car-drake, from beneath critical opera-glasses.
" Ah, that's a wig," said the Youth, feasting his eyes upon his enchantress. "Her own hair's clinking."
"Well, she's a bit of a juggins not to show it," answered Cardrake.
During some of the imitations, the Youth noticed more of a resemblance to the voice he had heard in the afternoon.
"Of course everybody is different on the stage," he argued to himself.
When the applause broke out at the conclusion of the turn, the Youth was conscious of a magnificent pride and complacence. The thought that he was the honoured one who was to see this favourite home was pleasing in the extreme.
" Ta-ta, old man. See you at Oxford tomorrow," he said to Cardrake, and left the theatre with huge elation. It was raining outside, but
that didn't hurt his opera hat, and he waited
20﻿The Maundy-Daly Affair
impatiently outside the stage door for about a quarter of an hour. Then he became nervous, and wondered if there was any other exit to the place. He stepped inside the entrance and asked the doorkeeper if Miss Daly had left the theatre.
" No, sir," said the man.
"You might give her my card, will you?" said the Youth, bestowing an emolument.
The janitor disappeared on his errand, and the Youth studied a pictorial almanac.
After an interval, the man returned.
" I gave your card to Miss Daly, sir," he said, "and Mrs. Daly was with her; and Mrs. Daly took it, and asked Miss Daly who it was, and she said she didn't know, and Mrs. Daly said, sir, that she herself was going to see Miss Daly home, and it was no use any one waiting."
"Oh, all right, it doesn't matter," said the Youth carelessly, with the silent addition of numerous expletives.
Between the stage door and the lobby the Youth exhausted the possibilities of the English language.
As he paused at the main entrance, undecided
21﻿A 'Varsity Man
as to how to spend the rest of the evening, Car-drake came out.
" Hullo, old man," he cried. " How about the appointment ? "
" She can't shake the beastly mother off," snarled the Youth, and Cardrake's amusement seemed to be out of place.
" La Tartara was ripping," said the latter, by way of consolation, and dragged the morose Youth off to supper.
Next morning at breakfast, the Youth rather congratulated himself that his brother was of so phlegmatic a temperament. He did not want to be asked what sort of a time he had had with Daisy Daly. But he remembered what Eileen had told him about her usual afternoon walk.
" I will see her this afternoon, or die in the attempt," he vowed to himself, though it is difficult to understand what more than ordinary perils can have beset a journey to that spot— even on a yellow omnibus.
For nearly an hour did the Youth lay himself
open to a charge of loitering in that exciting
neighbourhood, and then, as he sat upon the
22﻿The Maundy-Daly Affair
seat of yesterday, the Girl in Spectacles appeared round the bend, alone.
The Youth indulged in a silent but forcible monologue.
However, if the Girl in Spectacles was not the rose, she was at any rate near the rose, and the Youth greeted her effusively when she arrived.
"Couldn't Miss Maundy come?" he asked, with sincere regret.
"She — a — she had to go out with her mother," stammered the spectacled emissary. Few plain girls lie with ease.
The Youth immediately poured forth his explanations of last night's misfortune, and expressed agonised hopes that Eileen had not been visited by maternal wrath.
The Girl in Spectacles following this cue, obeyed instructions.
" I've got a letter for you," she said to the Youth, grabbing for the invisible pocket.
The Youth tore open the note with eagerness. It was in the scrawl characteristic of a pretty girl, and gave him the address of the Girl in Spectacles. Letters sent to this address would
23﻿A 'Varsity Man
eventually reach, his sincerely, Eileen Maundy (Daisy Daly).
The letter cheered the Youth somewhat. He questioned the Girl in Spectacles a good deal about Eileen.
" It's very good of you to have come down. It's no use my keeping you any longer," he said, before he left for the station.
The Girl in Spectacles sat still and watched him depart down the hill. Eileen found her there an hour later when she cautiously approached to fetch her in to tea. Eileen shrieked with laughter at the information she extracted from her friend.
" You don't seem to be in a very sweet temper, my dear," she said, later on, at tea.
The Girl in Spectacles was silent.
" You make me want to shake you sometimes," observed Eileen.
Meanwhile, the Youth was being borne to the
" Academic Centre," in the 4.45 from Pad-
dington, and was comparing notes with some
men of his own year on the Vac. He casually
mentioned his Daisy Daly affair. " By Jove,
that's rather useful," said a coming Rugger Blue,
24﻿The Maundy-Daly Affair
and the Youth smiled darkly, and the conversation passed on to cricket prospects.
The Youth, emboldened by the symbols under the signature of Eileen's letter, showered her with amorous missives, and appreciably increased his bill at Forrest's, that the heart of Eileen, and of her young brothers, might be made glad with chocolates. He dropped the formal " Miss Maundy," and his letters began "My dearest Eileen," and ended " Ever your loving Hugh," and the intermediate matter was drivel.
Eileen showed them to the Girl in Spectacles, and said, "What cheek, isn't it? but he won't stop writing," and wrote back a mass of un-grammatical superlatives — which she did not show to her friend—from his affectionate Eileen.
The Girl in Spectacles, who knew very little of youths, and was rather given to erotic serials such as appeared in The Home Brightener, taxed Eileen with continuing the correspondence, saying that it was carrying the matter too far, and trifling with the Youth's affections.
Eileen answered that she could not possibly be downright rude to him and tell him she didn't want to hear from him, and wrote him
25﻿A 'Varsity Man
a letter the same evening, arranging to see him at Hampstead during the next week.
The Youth told the man who sat next to him in Hall, and who held, among some, the reputation of being a man about town, that he was going to have a day with Daisy Daly. The man about town estimated the cost of the day—if the Youth did matters properly—at about four quid, and the Youth wisely suppressed any mention of Hampstead and threepenny 'bus rides.
Thus the Youth, without the leave of the powers that be, took a return ticket to town, and wasted a day that might have been more profitably divided between Cicero and cricket. Eileen met him " at the old place " of a fortnight ago, and the Youth was exceedingly affectionate, and Eileen suffered his " cheek" with laudable patience. Towards the end of the afternoon, she found herself getting rather tired of the joke, and answered the Youth's questions about the theatre with some reluctance.
Before they parted, Eileen warned him that the Girl in Spectacles was getting awfully disagreeable and horrid about his letters, and the
26﻿The Maundy-Daly Affair
Youth observed, wisely, that plain girls were always jealous of pretty ones. Eileen concurred with this analytical aphorism, and left him with many promises to write soon and send him her photograph, and the Youth returned to Oxford by the 9.15, and wondered, as he shivered on the platform at Didcot, whether Eileen was an exception to the rule, or whether the man about town had got false ideas about actresses and music-hall artistes.
Then the Youth began a fatal series of mistakes. It must be remembered that, at this time, the Youth was but at the outset of what may be termed his cardiac career; it was not until considerably after his act of heroism in the case of Maisie that he began to know the ropes, and that was another and a later affair. In this case, the Youth, as we have said, committed the mistake of a tyro ; he wrote too frequently and too forcibly, and made himself too cheap generally. Eileen put off answering his first letter after their interview until Sunday, when she would have more leisure ; before Sunday, she received another from him, and thought she would answer both when
she had more inclination ; when the third arrived,
27﻿A 'Varsity Man
she felt that the Youth was a nuisance, and by the fourth she appealed to the Girl in Spectacles.
" I think," she said, " that you're right about Mr. Ashby, and I want you to write and tell him that I don't want to hear from him any more."
Thus the Girl in Spectacles did the dirty work, and wrote a letter to the Youth, in which she put the whole thing very kindly.
The Youth had been surprised at first at Eileen's silence, but he was not long in thinking of an explanation. " That beastly spectacled girl," he thought, "has been intercepting my letters," and he raged at his powerlessness to do anything.
Then he met Maisie in Eights week, and a great change came over him, and life assumed for him a soft, pink hue, and he dreamt nightly of glorified punts and picnics with Maisie that knew no ending.
And when the Eights were over, and Maisie went back to London, the Youth became conscious of a delightful, reformed-rake kind of feeling, and felt silent at sunset and dolorous after dinner.
He unburdened his heart in a punt to his one 28﻿The Maundy-Daly Affair
particular friend, the Cynic, to whose paternal ear he confided nearly everything that took place, and one or two things that did not.
"One thing," said the Youth, "I shall have to chuck this Daisy Daly affair."
" Etpourquoi, mon ami ?" queried the cynical puntsman, who had once been for a day at Boulogne.
" Of course I must chuck it," replied the Youth ; "but I don't know how to get out of it; it will be rather difficult." The Youth, by the way, had carelessly omitted to tell his confidant of the cessation of Eileen's letters.
" My dear chap, it's simple enough; simply drop it if you want to," returned the Cynic.
" It's playing it a bit low down on Daisy if I chuck it up suddenly without any excuse," said the magnanimous Youth.
The Cynic wrung Cherwell water from his sleeve with deliberation.
"Flirtations, my dear Hugh," he observed
with remarkable spontaneity, "are like branches
which we grasp in lazy fingers as our boat glides
beneath them; but we have to leave go very
soon and let them fade into the distance, or one
29﻿A 'Varsity Man
of two things happen—either we break the branch, or the branch pulls us into the water." And the Cynic resumed his punting with some satisfaction, for he had had this metaphor carefully ready the whole afternoon, and for a long time had not been able to work it in.
" I suppose I shall have to chuck it," admitted the Youth ; " but I think it will be rather a job."
When he got back to the college from the river he found awaiting him in the lodge the letter from the Girl in Spectacles, stating Eileen's wishes. The Girl in Spectacles had let him down very easily, inserting reasons and obstacles unmentioned to her by Eileen.
The Youth was quite staggered at this sudden blow ; then he suddenly came to his senses. That Eileen should wish to cease the affair was, of course, absurd ; it was obvious that the Girl in Spectacles, after intercepting his letters, had adopted this means to save herself from detection on the part of Eileen.
" What blighters some girls are!" he said to the Cynic. "No man would do a thing like that. The worst of it is," he added, "it leaves me in a
30﻿The Maundy-Daly Affair
bit of a hole, as I don't know how the devil I'm to communicate with Daisy."
" Bit of a windfall for you," observed the Cynic, " as you want to get out of the affair."
" Oh, hang it," put in the conscientious Youth, " I don't want Daisy to think I've simply chucked writing after I promised to. That beastly spectacled girl ought to be slaughtered."
" I suppose it's jealousy on her part," suggested the Cynic.
The Youth answered with a subjunctive that was as good as an indicative.
After some deliberation, the Youth indited a politic letter to the Girl in Spectacles. He found it so difficult, he said, to realise that Eileen should wish to break with him for no apparent reason, but that if Eileen would herself write to him and tell him so, he could then believe his senses. There must, he concluded, be some mistake.
He showed this epistle to the Cynic.
" It's no good," he said, " my letting her see that I twig her game."
Meanwhile there had been alarums and excursions of a serious nature in Eileen's family. The little Maundys had partaken not wisely
31﻿A 'Varsity Man
but too well of some of the Youth's chocolates ; the unpleasant consequences which followed had led to investigations on the part of Mrs. Maundy, culminating in the capture by that lady of some of the Youth's most ardent epistles. A somewhat stormy scene ensued, and Eileen repented in sackcloth and ashes, and was cut off several parties and Earl's Court Exhibition. Thus, it was only natural that she should not have felt in the best of tempers towards the Youth, though nothing can have excused her sending him the following message on a post-card after the receipt of his letterby the Girl in Spectacles :—
" I won't have any more letters from you, and I never want to see you again.
" Eileen Maundy."
This post-card was delivered in the evening, when half the college were hanging about the lodge waiting for the post. The laws of honour pertaining to letters being null and void in the case of post-cards, Eileen's missive caused considerable amusement, and was no small consolation to those who had not received letters of their own.
32﻿The Maundy-Daly Affair
The Youth, who was going to the theatre with the Cynic, passed the lodge about ten minutes later.
" There's a card for you, Ashby," called out several obliging men.
The Youth read the card amid a howl of laughter. He blushed considerably.
" Rather a useful practical joke, that," he remarked, but with no success.
Outside he swore immoderately.
" The fair Daisy seems to have had you on rather," observed the Cynic pleasantly.
" My dear, good, blighted idiot," said the Youth, with heat, " don't you see the thing's a forgery ? "
" Good Gad !" observed the Cynic.
Once seated in the stalls, they compared the card carefully with one of Eileen's earlier letters which the Youth produced from his pocket.
" One of the smartest bits of forgery I ever struck," said the Youth.
The Cynic continued to examine the writings critically. Eventually he handed them back to the Youth.
" Very clever imitations," was his verdict;
33	c﻿A 'Varsity Man
" but quite obvious to any one who knows anything about handwriting. Just look at them's."
"They fairly give it away!" exclaimed the Youth. " What blighters some girls are ! "
This incident quite spoilt the Youth's evening.
" I can do," said he, "absolutely nothing. It's no use my writing and slanging the spectacled girl, or she'll simply turn on Eileen and give her away to her people."
For the next week the Youth was compelled to follow a policy of glorious inaction, and the mere thought of the Girl in Spectacles caused him simply to foam at the mouth.
"By Jove," he kept on repeating, "I mean to get even with her when I get up to town."
Matters were at this deadlock when an event occurred which gave the Youth an opening. A friend of his, who belonged to the Middlesex Volunteers (Bohemians), had come up to Oxford one Saturday with his corps for a field-day with the 'Varsity " Flea-shooters." The Youth had persuaded his Volunteer friend to stay over Sunday with him, and had put him up in College.
After dinner at the "Clarendon," on Sunday, 34﻿The Maundy-Daly Affair
the Youth became expansive, and related to his friend the Maundy-Daly affair in full, with discursive and unqualified allusions to the Girl in Spectacles.
" Daisy Daly!" exclaimed the Volunteer. "Why, she's singing at our smoker to-morrow night."
The Youth became suddenly and violently excited.
"Will you give her a letter from me?" he almost yelled.
" Like a shot," replied the Volunteer.
The agitated Youth insisted on returning to College at once. In his room he penned a letter to Eileen, in comparison with which his former epistles would have seemed formal and distant. In spite, he concluded, of her friend's forgery and perfidy, she was still believed in by her loving Hugh.
Then he impatiently awaited developments.
On Wednesday morning his scout brought him into his bedroom a letter from the Volunteer friend:—
" My dear Hugh,—I followed out your directions yesterday evening, and think I have worked
35﻿A 'Varsity Man
it all right for you, though I don't think you've much chance with the lady now she's seen our regiment.
" I got the other men to get Ma out of the way for a bit, and then advanced with the letter.
'"Miss Maundy, I believe,' said I.
" ' No,' said she. (She seemed quite bewildered, poor girl; it was my uniform that did it.)
"'Oh, well then, Miss Daly, if you prefer it,' said I.
" ' Yes, I do,' said she.
" I then gave her your letter just as the vigilant Ma appeared on the scene again, and she put it in her pocket. She's a ripper, and I envy you your luck ; but, my dear chap, you undergraduates had better take a back seat now she's seen some of ' G' Company in their war paint.—Ever yours, &c."
The Youth leapt out of bed with gladness.
" I've fairly got the spectacled girl on toast," he said to the Cynic at breakfast. " Won't there be ructions when they meet! I bet Daisy was surprised to get my letter like that."
A statement which Miss Daly, should she read
these lines, will possibly confirm.
36﻿The Maundy-Daly Affair
Then he resigned himself to wait for Eileen's letter. It didn't come at 10.30, so he waited anxiously for the post after Hall in the lodge. This delivery brought him two bills and a letter from home—without enclosures—and the Youth spent the evening walking about the High and kicking paper-boys.
After a day or two without news from Eileen the Youth felt that something must have gone wrong.
" I can't understand why she doesn't write," he said to the Cynic.
" Don't attempt to," returned the Cynic. M Women, my dear Hugh, are like Greek accents : no one can make head or tail of them, though many pretend to. Some are acute, and, unlike their circumflex sisters-"
"Oh, damn their circumflex sisters," said the irritated Youth.
This, however, did not bring him any nearer to his object. He was forced to come to the conclusion that all he could do was to wait for the vacation. This he did with some impatience, and eventually, after a somewhat unpleasant interview with his pastors and masters who had
37﻿A 'Varsity Man
old-fashioned prejudices about lectures and other played-out conventionalities, he returned to town.
On his very first fine afternoon he hied him to Hampstead, and ascended the hill with some excitement. The thought of the utter rout and confusion of the Girl in Spectacles brought a sparkle to his eye. He mounted laboriously the whole way to the Flagstaff without seeing any signs of Eileen. Then he turned and began to descend as he had done on that fateful afternoon of two months ago.
" If only they're there," he thought, " I'll fairly make rings round the spectacled girl, arrange to see Eileen this evening, if she can manage it, and then go and take a tea off the Parfitts."
And then, mirabile dictu, a wondrous portent met the eye. For there, upon the very seat where first the Youth had seen them, sat the Girl in Spectacles and Eileen—Eileen a " flapper " no longer, and looking still prettier than when first he had seen her.
The Youth quickened his step and his heart
beat high. "This is certainly destiny," he said,
almost aloud, and perhaps with some truth. The
Girl in Spectacles saw him coming and fixed her
eyes on the ground. Eileen gave one glance,
38﻿The Maundy-Daly Affair
and then turned very red and looked straight in front of her.
" That spectacled beast," thought the Youth, " has been telling lies about me."
He walked straight up to the pair and raised his hat.
4< Eileen, I want to speak to you," he said.
Eileen continued to stare straight in front of her.
" I don't want to have anything to do with you," she said, after a pause, the forbidden Exhibition still rankling.
The Youth cursed the Girl in Spectacles under his breath.
" One moment," he said, producing the fatal post-card from his pocket; " I think there's a misunderstanding. I want you to look at this charming piece of forgery."
The Girl in Spectacles looked up suddenly and clutched the Home Brightener very tight in her lap. The Youth stood in an attitude of ease, and looked at Eileen with a triumphant smile.
Eileen took the card, looked at it for a moment, and returned it to the Youth.
" Surely that card was plain enough," she said.
39﻿A 'Varsity Man
The Girl in Spectacles gave the Youth one look and then turned away.
The Youth stretched out his hand mechanically for the card.
" I beg your pardon," he said, and walked away down the hill.
Consequently, though the Youth found Maisie a great consolation, we may forgive him for prevaricating somewhat on being asked by the Cynic, when next they met, whether he had succeeded in shaking off la belle Daise.
After all, as he himself said, the Youth had no right to keep up an affair with an actress while he felt as he did towards Maisie.
Which was quite an unimpeachable statement.
40﻿CHAPTER II
the eyes at the fair
There seems to have been from the very earliest antiquity an almost inseparable connection between love and war: Venus and Mars were close friends.
The Youth, during the summer term, before the Maundy-Daly affair was "off," and while the Maisie of Eights week still filled his dreams, added another link to the chain which binds the two deities.
It is perhaps a truism to say that everything depends upon the point of view. When a man dines, his point of view alters in direct ratio to the quality of the dinner; to an undergraduate accustomed, but not inured, to the average College "hall," to dine at "The Quagger's" is to dine well.
The Youth, the Eightsman, and the Rugger Blue had dined at " The Quagger's " and waxed
4i﻿A 'Varsity Man
merry without much difficulty. When they left the dining-room they carried two bottles of No. 28 between them. The Youth was sentimental, the Eightsman jocund, and the Rugger Blue belligerent.
There was a fair in the Cattle Market. Possibly, under certain circumstances, they would not have gone there at all, and there was probably no definite reason why they should have found it more comfortable on the top of a hansom cab than inside, but then, as has been remarked, everything depends upon the point of view.
It was just after Eights week: the Eights-man had not yet recovered from the reaction consequent upon his enforced period of athletic asceticism, the Rugger Blue was determined to direct his off-term energies into some satisfactory channel, while the Youth, weighed down by the combined sorrow of the departure of Maisie and the epistolary slump in the Eileen affair, was not averse to drowning his care in revelry and the roundabout.
Together, these three banqueters tasted of
all the pleasures of the fair. Together, they
squandered money on impossible shots with
42﻿The Eyes at the Fair
rings at articles which they did not want. In turn, they showered coppers on the fawning guardian of the weight-lifting machine, while the Rugger Blue did doughty deeds, and the Eightsman insisted on showing the uninitiated lookers-on how to get "the body on to the beginning."
Arm-in-arm, they paraded the ground and threw confetti at unintroduced damsels. Loudly and irrelevantly the Eightsman informed perfect strangers that his boat had bumped Exeter, and the Rugger Blue exhorted the astonished bystanders to get their heads down and heel clean.
While they were engaged in abortive shots at imperturbable and, probably, screwed-on cocoa-nuts, the steam-organ round which the roundabout revolved, suddenly ceased its strident murder of the " Hallelujah Chorus," and embarked on a deafening mutilation of "The Belle of New York." This drew the three adventurers to the roundabout, and, side by side, they were borne through the petroleum-scented ether.
As the Youth circled round above the heads
43﻿A 'Varsity Man
of the crowd, seated upon one of the outside horses—a tailless, mustard-coloured charger with green patches—he suddenly caught sight, as he flashed past, of a pair of eyes which made him catch his breath in wonder. They were Maisie's eyes, those clear, grey pensive depths, and yet they were owned by an overdressed shop girl, accompanied by an amorous swain in a larger bowler hat.
The Youth, who was feeling sad and sentimental—'even on his variegated mustang—looked out eagerly for the girl next round, and was enchanted at the likeness she bore to the idol of his dreams. The eyes, as he had first noticed, were the same, and he observed that she had the same trick of looking dreamily away from her companion as he spoke to her. The Youth was much moved, and began to feel quite tender towards this shadow of his thoughts. As the horses slowed down, he caught her eye, and she smiled, flattered at this admiration from a 'Varsity man. Few Oxford girls get much notice from an undergraduate—for several reasons—and thus such notice, when it does come, is doubly sweet.
The Youth felt comfortably sorrowful and 44﻿The Eyes at the Fair
grieved that any one so like his ideal should be in the midst of such an un-ideal scene as a fair in the Oxford Cattle Market. He determined to speak to her.
" Buck up, Ashby! " yelled the Eightsman, as he clambered off his magenta steed; "we're going to have a whang at the hammer."
" I'll join you there," said the Youth ; " I just want to speak to a man I've spotted in the crowd."
" Right oh!" returned the Eightsman, as he and the Rugger Blue ploughed a violent path through the crowd.
The Youth, who had never taken his eyes off this girl who recalled Maisie so vividly, pushed towards her through the crowd.
The gentleman in the bowler was throwing wooden balls at an unoffending but tin-plated damsel, an unprofitable amusement which costs a penny a go. His fair companion saw the Youth coming, and her vanity was flattered. She smiled. The Youth raised his cap.
"I'm awfully sorry to see a sweet little girl like you here," he murmured with a romantic glance.
45﻿A 'Varsity Man
His charmer responded by cramming half a bag of confetti down the Youth's neck.
This annoyed the Youth; somehow it spoilt the sentimental nature of the situation.
It also annoyed the gentleman in the bowler, who desisted from his exciting occupation and glared at the Youth.
It is said that the Spartans were indifferent to the sufferings of the Helots, the Roman patricians arrogant towards the plebs, but nothing in ancient or mediaeval times has ever equalled the arrogance and indifference of an Oxford undergradu-
O	o
ate to an Oxford townee. The Youth, as we have said, was annoyed at the girl's action ; it dispersed the halo he had beheld around her; it also made him feel painfully conscious that he had made a fool of himself. But to the attitude of the townee he was, of course, indifferent.
Though they were still Maisie's eyes that danced before him, he laid his hand on her arm and smiled.
" You little wretch," he said, "I've a good
mind to kiss you for that," and turned away.
He had no inclination of following up his words,
although the illusion was already broken.
46﻿The Eyes at the Fair
The girl gave a short laugh; the townee dropped the wooden ball he held in his hand, and stepped up beside the girl.
The girl's laugh put the Youth on his mettle. He felt that she thought him booby—" soft," as her class call it. He turned back, resolved to do what he had not intended.
The girl giggled, and darted behind a stall. The Youth hesitated, and then decided not to make a scene by chasing the not unwilling siren. So he turned back again, and began to make his way towards the Rugger Blue and the Eightsman, uncomfortably aware that he had not shown to advantage. The swain in the bowler, who by this time was grinding his teeth with rage, naturally did not enter our undergraduate's thoughts.
However, even the Oxford townee will turn in time. The enraged gentleman in question put two fingers in his mouth and gave vent to a long-drawn whistle. He then shielded his mouth, and, in a loud voice, uttered the following weird formula —
" Billahree! "
The pass-word, or whatever it is, was answered from some distance in the crowd, and this seemed
47﻿A 'Varsity Man
to satisfy the gentleman in the bowler, who turned and addressed several words to his capricious companion.
The Youth found the Rugger Blue and the Eightsman waiting a turn by the hammer machine. A bulky undergraduate in a Norfolk jacket was just paying for his six shots, and the Eightsman turned to the Youth.
"We'll have half-a-dozen between us in turns," he said. " First," he added.
" After you," said the Rugger Blue, buttoning up his jacket.
This particular medium for expenditure was composed of a tall pole rising some thirty feet into the air. It was marked by a series of ascending numbers, and at the top there was a bell. The object was, by hitting with a heavy mallet an iron peg arranged in front of the machine, to cause a small metal knob to fly up a crevice in the pole and register, if possible, a high number. The stimmum bonum was, of course, to ring the bell.
The Eightsman took his shot and registered a comparatively small number, the knob only rising eight feet.
48﻿The Eyes at the Fair
The crowd, which had already gathered round the machine, gave vent to a buzz, half of amusement, half of disappointment.
Then the Rugger Blue strode forward in all his strength, like Ajax before the Achaean host, and a murmur of admiration went through the ranks of the bystanders. High above his head the hammer rose, and full sorely he smote the peg of iron, so that they that saw were amazed.
And the metal knob laboriously wobbled about four feet up the pole.
The crowd guffawed loudly, and the Rugger Blue laughed frankly.
As the Youth stepped forward and picked up the hammer, he saw looking at him from the crowd those same Maisie eyes which had lured him to make a fool of himself a short time before. He whirled the hammer above his head, shut his eyes, and put all his strength into the blow. The hammer missed the peg altogether, and made a deep impression in the grass.
A howl of laughter rose from the crowd, and, as it subsided and the Youth stepped back in confusion, a derisive voice remarked—
49	D﻿A 'Varsity Man
"'E's a strong 'un, ain't he?"
This was followed by another laugh from the crowd, and the Youth, looking up, saw a smile on the face of the siren of a few minutes before. Beside her stood the gentleman in the bowler, and the Youth could see from the latter's broad grin that he was fully appreciating the situation. The Youth fumed inwardly, and resolved to redeem his failure next time.
The Eightsman, who by this time had grasped the fact that more depended upon hitting the peg absolutely square than on the force of the blow, aimed with some precision, and sent the knob about twenty feet up the pole. A buzz of approbation followed.
The Eightsman generously gave his two companions the straight tip.
This time the Rugger Blue, combining mind and matter, sent the knob flying up to the top, where it rang the bell loudly.
Huge applause from the mob.
As the Youth grasped the hammer, determined to vindicate his honour, several of the crowd, who had obviously been suborned by the gentleman in the bowler, began to make offensive
5°﻿The Eyes at the Fair
remarks, and a wit in the front row, in a singularly clamorous plaid tie, irrelevantly expressed a tetrasyllabic desire for the arrival of the entire multitude.
All this was in no way conducive to calmness on the part of the Youth. Being by nature rather inclined to exaggerate things, he somehow felt that his honour depended upon this penny hammer-blow. He swung the hammer aloft and struck with all his force. The Youth was by no means a weak Youth ; in fact, a continued course of school and college footer had developed his muscles appreciably. But, as has been said, everything depended upon hitting the peg quite square. The Youth did not hit it quite square; as a matter of fact, his blow struck the peg quite obliquely. This was worse than missing altogether, since the latter event does not exclude the idea of possibilities. As it was, the metal knob rose about four inches and a half and stayed there with the appearance of a blatant smile.
A positive howl of execration was emitted by the mob. The Youth flushed painfully, and his attempt to laugh can only be described as bilious.
5i﻿A 'Varsity Man
He saw the smiling Maisie eyes again in the crowd, and was filled with homicidal fury towards the insolent proletariat. At the same time, the vulgarian in the plaid tie, in tones of unutterable scorn, recommended him to try Bovril.
By this time the Youth was hardly responsible for his actions, and, slewing round, he collared the offender and "hoofed" him harder than he had ever hoofed his fag at school.
Instantaneously the attitude of the mob altered from derisive insolence to determined hostility. The gentleman in the bowler forced his way up to the Youth and invited him to step outside.
The Youth, still very flushed, turned away with a forced calm, and told the townee not to make a fool of himself. This emboldened the jealous swain, who, once the Youth's back was turned, endeavoured to " hoof" him back in his own coin.
But as he lifted his foot, the Rugger Blue seized him by the neck with both hands. He looked about for a suitable spot for the deposit of his victim. There was a stall just by where people paid money in order to throw wooden
52﻿The Eyes at the Fair
balls at clay pipes. The Rugger Blue swung his man off the ground, and, whirling him in the air, hurled him across the counter and broke pipes with him.
" The gentleman seems," observed the Eights-man, as the townee lay on his back among the pipes, " to be interested in clays."
The crowd was awed for a moment by this Homeric feat. Then they burst out into fresh clamours against the Youth.
"That's right," they shrieked; "get the big 'un to fight for yer!"
The Youth turned in rather unreasonable irritation on the Rugger Blue.
" Confound it," he said, " I wish you'd leave me to settle my own affairs."
" My dear, good ass," returned that bulky hero, good-humouredly, " I only saved you from being hoofed by a townee;" and, linking his arm with the Youth's on one side and the Eightsman's on the other, proceeded to move off in the direction of the swings.
An infuriated group of townsmen followed close on their heels, and expressed frank opinions with regard to the Youth. This being overlooked by
S3﻿A 'Varsity Man
the trio, they became bolder, and began to hustle the three undergraduates from behind.
The Rugger Blue turned sharp round, and remarked that should such a thing occur again, maternal recognition of the offenders would be a difficulty, if not an utter impossibility.
Then a chivalrous townee boldly pushed one of his friends into the three young men. At the time of the occurrence there was barely breathing room in the crowd. In about a minute and a half the Rugger Blue, assisted by the Eightsman and the Youth, had cleared a twenty-foot circular space, and the townees lay around in heaps.
The Eightsman looked at the Rugger Blue and breathlessly remarked a resemblance to Ajax and the slaughtered sheep.
" I have not had such a really sporting time," observed the Rugger Blue, undoing his waistcoat and drawing his tie tight under his up-and-down collar, "since the Prince of Wales' rag in '97."
By this time the townees had begun to feel that their acquaintance with the Rugger Blue had already been sufficiently intimate. But they still continued from a safe distance to thirst in a clamorous manner for vengeance upon the Youth.
54﻿The Eyes at the Fair
The Youth had not yet had an opportunity to make himself feared ; the Rugger Blue had in the late engagement been rather too comprehensive in his operations, and consequently all the Youth and the Eightsman had got had been leavings. True, the Youth had, much to his own satisfaction, succeeded in peeling a townee from the Rugger Blue's back, and had, he felt certain, caused that gentleman to loathe life for the time being, but his own feat had been quite overshadowed by the prowess of the Rugger Blue, and the mob still showed some anxiety to try conclusions with the Youth alone.
When they reached the swings, one of the boats was just being vacated, and the owner vociferously invited our three friends to this new seduction. Now, the Youth had only once in his life been lured into a swing-boat, and the physical consequences had been disastrous and prompt. He intimated this to the others, and the crowd overhearing the remark, seized the opportunity for revolting and illustrative insult.
"Oh, all right then," said the Eightsman, mounting the car; " Danvers and I will have one together if you'll wait."
55﻿A 'Varsity Man
" Hang on a bit," said the Rugger Blue ; "we can't very well leave Ashby; he'll get mobbed."
As a matter of fact, this was exactly what the Youth was thinking, but the well-meant remark irritated him beyond description.
" Hang it all, Dan vers," he snapped, " I wish you'd let me take care of myself."
"All right, old man," said the Rugger Blue with a laugh, clambering into the boat. "If he still lives, give my love to the blighter in the bowl-u-ar."
Once the swing was well in motion, the townees plucked up courage and began to swarm around the Youth with ostentatious invitations to combat. The Youth leant back against the upright of the swing, and with an assumed nonchalance applied matches to a pipe which he did not want to smoke—which was as well, as there was no tobacco in it. He felt confused and nervous, and cursed himself for ever having gone near the hammer-machine or kicked the offensive townee.
Then the still truculent gentleman in the bowler, who had so impetuously visited the pipe-range, pressed forward.
56﻿The Eyes at the Fair
" Are yer going ter fight me?" he demanded, endeavouring to glue his nose to that of the Youth. " It's you I wanter fight, not yer friend. I don't wanter fight 'im."
The Youth replied that this was extremely probable, told the man not to make an ass of himself, and lit another unnecessary match. The Youth was no coward, but at the same time he did not enjoy this splendid isolation.
At this moment he observed, some distance off, the head and shoulders of Bromley, the St. Luke's giant, towering above the crowd. The Youth somehow, at this juncture, felt that a conversation with Bromley would pass the time pleasantly.
" Hullo, Brummies," he called, with a sickly attempt at casual cheeriness.
Unfortunately, Bromley's attention had just been drawn by some St. Luke's men in another direction, and he marched off towards them without having heard the Youth's hail.
"'Ullo, Brummies," echoed the crowd, with long-drawn scorn, and the gentleman in the bowler resumed his bellicose proposals. And then, suddenly, a change came over the Youth.
57﻿A 'Varsity Man
As his eyes left the retreating form of Bromley, they again rested on the little shop-girl who had been the source of all the mischief. Curiously enough, instead of filling him with annoyance at his folly and discomfiture, the sight inspired him with a wondrous spirit.
He forgot the way the girl had broken the spell of his illusion and caused all this trouble; he forgot that she was only a frivolous little Oxford shop-girl, and not the shadow of his ideal he had taken her for. All he saw was those shining Maisie eyes, and as though it were Maisie herself that he beheld, he suddenly became conscious of a glorious sense of knightly chivalry. He would fight against overwhelming odds for his ideal; he would perish—figuratively speaking—with her name upon his lips.
There are usually in every circumstance only
two courses to take—the wise one and the foolish
one. The wise would, obviously, have been to
wait for the Rugger Blue and the Eightsman,
and then if polemically bent, to have allowed
them to see fair play. Your true hero, however,
is of necessity a fool. The Youth feeling, as we
have said, knightly and chivalrous, naturally
58﻿The Eyes at the Fair
adopted the heroic and foolish course. The Rugger Blue and the Eightsman were high aloft in their aerial car. The Youth knocked out his still empty pipe with theatrical deliberation.
"Very well then, you dogs," he exclaimed, with melodramatic ferocity, "you say you want to fight, and, by Gad, you'll have to."
This change of front rather staggered the townees. Not being able to look into the workings of the Youth's mind and understand the sudden inspiration which possessed him, they were quite taken aback.
The Youth's knightly frenzy increased with his opponents' hesitation.
"Come on outside," he ranted, forcing his way through the crowd to the exit; "you say you want me to fight, and you'll find I mean to."
The townees, recovering from their amazement and exhorted by their bowlered leader, followed en masse.
The Youth strode ahead and ground his teeth, much to his own satisfaction. He retained his chivalrous mood as he passed out of the Cattle Market and stalked down George Street closely
59﻿A 'Varsity Man
followed by the oppidan party. The romantic nature of the situation appealed strongly to his artistic sense. For Maisie's sake he thought, as he strode on, he was about to fight the foe. Already in imagination his fists were crashing in the serried ranks of the townees, while a glorified and haloed Maisie floated in the air before his gaze. His feelings were melodrama of the most luxurious description.
But, as so frequently happens, prose broke in upon poetry in a flash. As he passed the theatre, an interval between Acts was just ending. The crowd of undergraduates, assembled on the steps and in the lobby, were turning into the house again, and the leather-lunged paper boys were contesting, with bloodshed, for half-smoked cigarettes in the road.
The sight of this familiar scene suddenly shot the Youth from romance to reality with a disagreeable bump. He felt his chivalrous frenzy begin to ooze away. The heavy footsteps behind him were no longer the tramp of countless armed foes but the slouch of a dozen hobnailed townees.
The sudden freezing of his courageous resolve 60﻿The Eyes at the Fair
filled him with shame and annoyance. By shutting his eyes determinedly, and laboriously conjuring up the lace of Maisie, he endeavoured to regain his lust for battle, but with little success. The chivalry feeling returned, it is true, but seemed transparent, artificial: a brutal background of mundane reality made itself felt. It was like reading " Marmion" in an unsafe hammock.
"Walk behind, you cattle," he growled with a forced ferocity, assumed more for his own benefit than that of the townees, as some of them pressed up alongside of him.
" Where are yer goin' to fight ?" clamoured several of them.
"You'll find that soon enough," growled the Youth, as he turned down the Turl.
The Youth's feelings, as we have stated, had
undergone no slight change during the last few
moments. When he had started from the fair
he had had a half-formed intention of meeting
the foe in B. N. C. Lane, where there would be
less publicity, and he could fight to the death
without interruption. So potent, however, was
the change that had come over him, that he
61﻿A 'Varsity Man
bad now almost unconsciously decided to do combat in the Turl, in spite of the increased risk of interruption. Should the Rugger Blue and the Eightsman or some other friends pass that way on their return from the fair and prevent him being a hero—well, it was a nuisance, but he would have to risk it.
He halted suddenly and put his back to Lincoln.
"Now, then, you blackguards," he shouted, buttoning up his coat, his blood warming to the theatrical situation, " come on ! "
Curiously enough, the townees' desire for battle was not obviously ungovernable.
" You curs!" he declaimed, folding his arms —he would have given his eyes for limelight— "you beastly curs."
Then a still further change came over the Youth. As he spoke, his eyes lighted upon the no longer bellicose gaze of the townee in the bowler. The sight of the man's features brought back to the Youth in a flash the reality of the situation. Again, in imagination, he saw before him those shining Maisie eyes, but they were no longer Maisie's own eyes, but the eyes of the﻿The Eyes at the Fair
giggling little shop-girl before whom he had cut such a foolish figure. And there before him stood her insolent companion. His desire was no longer for knightly deeds of prowess for Maisie's sake, but for a bloody vengeance on the swain of this empty-headed shop-girl—a vengeance which would show the girl that he was no booby after all. All this passed through his mind in a moment.
Suddenly he strode forward and seized the previously pugnacious gentleman by the collar.
"You're the man who wanted to fight," he said through his teeth, hauling the fellow ostentatiously into the middle of the road, "and, by Gad, you're in for it now."
A very noisy and martial brass band would have made the situation perfect, and the Youth was sensible of this in a semi-conscious way.
The townees as a whole seemed not displeased with this arrangement, and urged " Bert" to 4'go in at 'im."
The gentleman in the bowler looked as if he would be disposed to entertain peace proposals with some clemency. The Youth assumed an
inexorably pugilistic attitude.
63﻿A 'Varsity Man
" Orl right," remarked the gentleman in the bowler, after a pause, " 'it me, then; let's see yer do it."
Now, if a literal construction be put on a phrase of this kind, it would seem to imply fortitude and an absorbing curiosity as to the sensation of blows. In reality, however, the phrase is idiomatic, and invariably means : "I have not the slightest intention of starting a combat, and sincerely hope that you yourself hold similar views."
The Youth, however, refused to recognise the idiom as valid, and took the townee's words in a literal spirit. He led off with his left at the mark, and his opponent, ducking, escaped temporarily with the loss and partial demolition of his abnormal headgear. Now, the Youth was no boxer, but he had some notion of putting up his hands and was a straight hitter.
He felt his advantage over the townee, who did not seem to understand even these rudimentary principles. Again the Youth led off with his left, but fell short, as his man backed quickly on to the pavement.
The Youth immediately followed up, and had 64﻿The Eyes at the Fair
his man penned up by the wall. The townee aimed a despairing round-arm at the Youth's face. The Youth guarded, and was in the act of countering when he received a terrific blow in the eye from our friend of the plaid-tie, who had crept up behind him.
We have said that everything depends upon the point of view. There are few things that can alter a man's point of view, in more than one sense, more than a business-like blow in the eye.
The Youth's ideas of scientific combat vanished in an instant; his desire to vindicate his character in the eyes of a shop-girl was forgotten ; he became a blind madman, animated by but one desire—the pure lust of blood.
One eye had been effectively closed up by the townee; the Youth shut the other, and hit out right and left. He felt his blows go home on soft substances. A sickening smash between his shoulders took his breath for a moment, but caused him instinctively to better his position by getting his back to the wall and opening his serviceable eye.
On came the townees again, led by the gentle-
65	E﻿A 'Varsity Man
man in the plaid-tie. The Youth thought of the scene at the hammer-machine, and let out right and left straight from the shoulder. The plaid-tie left the perpendicular violently and gazed horizontally to heaven. On came a blurred mass of townees, and the Youth hit out among them. He felt himself getting weaker, and a kick from a hobnailed boot turned him sick. Still his fists shot out, but wildly and weakly. Then, with a dazed surprise, he became conscious that the townees were scuttling away. He saw a man in long gown approaching from B. N. C. Lane—a 'Varsity man, thank heaven—a scholar. The Youth began to see the glory of the situation.
" That's it; run away, you curs! " he shrieked after the departing townees. He drew himself proudly with his back to the wall, and deliberately allowed the blood to dribble down his chin from his mouth. He felt heroic, mighty, bloodstained, until he became aware of several solid and sombre men in bowler hats.
" Proctor'd like to speak to you, sir," said one of the bulldogs.
It is hard to feel a hero, a warrior, when a 66﻿The Eyes at the Fair
small man in spectacles is taking down your name and college in a note-book. And the next morning, when the Youth entered the quad, minus five shillings, on his return from the Junior Proctor, he did not altogether feel like the conquering hero that the Rugger Blue musically designated him from his window.
To feel a hero and a private schoolboy at the same time requires a mind with little sense of the congruous.
A very short time after this, while the June sky was still blue, and the Youth's eye a similar caerulean, a select party in the Youth's college came to the conclusion that one of the few things that could make life bearable would be to dress up the St. Luke's cox as a chorus girl, and to take him to tea with Marriner, who was short-sighted, and thought he was a "dorg." The Youth and the Cynic were elected as executive committee.
Consequently, one morning which should have seen these two officials at an Aristotle lecture at Balliol, saw them engaged in the purchase of feminine apparel at a small milliner's shop in the Corn.
The Cynic was indulging in whimsicalities to
67﻿A 'Varsity Man
an unbending manageress. " Sleeves this year," he was remarking, "are worn full, I believe; cut on the bias, with hem-stitched fichus on the passementerie." As he spoke a slim girlish figure descended the stairs at the back of the shop. At the same time the manageress stepped up into the window to get a hat which the Youth had pointed out to her.
" I read in the Lady's Pictorial the other day," continued the Cynic, " of a girl who was smartly gowned in accordion-pleated toques with-"
" Good Gad !" exclaimed the Youth.
He had suddenly turned round from the window and found himself confronted by the siren of the fair.
"Oh," exclaimed the girl, "what a terrible black eye he's given you."
" Who's given me ?" said the Youth with asperity.
" Why, Bert—the feller who was with me at the fair," returned the damsel.
The Youth gasped.
" Bert's so awfully strong," said the girl; " he goes to a gymnasium. But he said you stood up to him well."
68﻿The Eyes at the Fair
The Youth gurgled in inarticulate fury.
" Great Scot," he gasped. " D'you mean to say that you seriously think that-? "
The girl took not the slightest notice of the Youth.
" I don't think he'd have beaten your friend, though ; he's rather too big," said she, looking with admiration at the Cynic, who was what the Youth called weedy.
j The Youth had now more than one cause of disgust.
"My good girl," he began again, with heat, " do you seriously believe-? "
At this moment the manageress stepped down from the window and shot one glance at her apprentice.
The Youth and the Cynic concluded their purchases.
Outside in the Corn, the Cynic looked at the Youth's black eye. " I did not know," he observed, " that there was a lady in the
n
case.
The Youth broke out into infuriated protests at the inferred mendacity of the townee in the bowler.
69﻿A 'Varsity Man
" She seems to me," remarked the pleased Cynic, "to be rather a smart little girl."
"She seems to me," snarled the Youth, "to be an unmitigated idiot. All shop-girls are."
" Still, for a shop-girl, I think she's rather smart," repeated the Cynic with complacence.
" I loathe the class," returned the Youth testily. "They bore me to extinction." A self-inflicted penance which he had frequently borne with amazing fortitude.
70﻿CHAPTER III
the girl in the garden hat
Few young men are over fond of going away on a holiday with their people. Fond parents, unhappily, are rather touchy about these things, and should their sons manifest a disinclination to accompany them to the seaside, or the lakes, or abroad, or wherever it may be, there is apt to be a domestic slump of a serious kind.
The Youth was by no means more unselfish than the average young man in this respect, and was not over enthusiastic when his father announced to him, at the beginning of the Long Vacation, his desire that the Youth should accompany his family to Tulmouth during July. The Youth, as a matter of fact, had schemes of his own. Henley week—a prospective heaven with Maisie in a Canadian canoe—followed by a fortnight in Paris with the Cynic, held forward visions to him which a month at a seaside place﻿A 'Varsity Man
in Devonshire with his parents and sister could not offer.
He explained these plans to his father, who gently refused the Youth's bait about "picking up a bit of French"; and when the Youth hinted that family ties on a holiday would be irksome "for—er—all of us," Mrs. Ashby took over the argument and delivered a philippic against the young men of to-day, clinching her remarks with two proverbs and a reference to the patria potestas prevailing when she was a girl.
The Youth, wisely recognising these proverbs as a familiar storm-signal, felt that to contest the point strongly would hardly be politic, and by yielding gracefully effected a compromise, and succeeded in "doing" Henley, though his thirst for the cultivation of the Gallic tongue had to remain unassuaged. Thus, after three days of punts and paradise, the Youth joined his family at the desirable residence taken by them at Tulmouth.
Tulmouth was dull, though perhaps not quite so dull as the Youth had expected.
The mornings he usually spent with his father,
72﻿The Girl in the Garden Hat
and really had a good time. They would walk about two miles along the cliff to where it jutted out, looking like an abrupt ending to the coast, and there the Youth performed wonderful diving feats from the red rocks, which was distinctly pleasurable, especially when there were people watching from the cliff.
But the afternoons palled terribly. He was soon surfeited with cycle rides through Devonshire lanes with his sister, and fern-digging with a trowel was a dissipation which left him blast after a few days. The evenings indeed were rather more tolerable. A post-prandial cigar on the front, while the moon shimmered in a silver streak upon the ocean, was most conducive to thoughts of Maisie, and, for a few evenings, the Youth assumed a far away look in his eyes, and luxuriously soaked himself in a delightful, soft-music species of sadness. But he soon found that this kind of thing was not much to go upon for a month, and began to hanker for female society which was not consanguineous.
He longed for some nice sympathetic woman to whom he could talk about Maisie, or even some dashing seaside girl to flirt with, for, as he had
73﻿A 'Varsity Man
often remarked to the Cynic, "there's nothing makes you so fond of a girl as to flirt with others for a bit—just by way of contrast, you know."
But, unhappily, Tulmouth was singularly lacking in this respect; there was no genuine "holiday-resort" girls. True, there were girls enough, and pretty girls enough, but these were mostly residents, and there is no one so rigidly exclusive as the resident at a small seaside place in Devonshire. This fact the Youth had to acknowledge to himself after a time. In vain he strolled along the front in his college colours; in vain he lounged about in a flannel suit near the tennis-ground, and carelessly returned any balls that came in his direction. He was politely thanked.
It was then that the Youth began to curse himself for not being a smart cricketer; his vanity prevented him from offering himself to the Tulmouth club for a game, when he knew he was only a very moderate bat and a poor field, and thus the one great social sesame was of no avail to him. Consequently, after a fortnight at Tulmouth, the Youth had arrived at a stage of unqualified boredom.
74﻿The Girl in the Garden Hat
It was then that he first saw the Girl in the Garden Hat.
He and his father were walking eastwards along the cliff one morning on the way to their bathing-place, when the Youth espied moving through the branches several hundred yards in front a large straw garden hat dashed with red.
The Youth became interested.
The girls of Tulmouth as a rule wore trim sailor hats and white duck jacket; frequently they carried walking-sticks. The hat in front of him augured a wearer he had not seen before, and the Youth quickened his pace.
"We had better buck up, gov'nor," he said, "or the tide will be so beastly low."
As they drew nearer to the owner of the garden hat, the Youth became more and more interested. Underneath the large brown hat with its red poppies was a mass of soft dark hair, and the figure in the muslin dress was very slender and shapely. The girl was carrying a camp-stool, and in front of her ran two little girls of about ten years old, evidently her sisters.
The Youth rearranged the towels round his
75﻿A 'Varsity Man
neck, and shifted his white canvas hat further forward on his head. He was glad he had put on his "Torpid" blazer. He felt striking, stalwart, athletic.
He had been conversing with his father in a perfectly pleasant and natural manner about some general subject. As they overtook and passed the Girl in the Garden Hat, the Youth made some unnecessary allusion to the " 'Varsity," and "when I was rowing Number Four," in an absurdly unnatural tone of voice.
Mr. Ashby observed the proximity of the garden hat, and smiled quietly.
" It is a pity," he remarked clearly, "that they didn't think you good enough to put you in the Eight last term."
It was on occasions such as these that the Youth doubted the existence of paternal instincts in an otherwise indulgent parent. When they reached the promontory the Youth stood aside with filial politeness to let his father descend the winding-path down the cliff before him, and unfortunately dropping his towel and bathing dress, was compelled to turn round and pick them up.
This gave him a view of his new charmer sitting
76﻿The Girl in the Garden Hat
on her camp-stool at the edge of the cliff a little way back, while the two small sisters decapitated guiltless buttercups with a sunshade.
As soon as he reached the beach the Youth doffed his garments behind the usual rocks with some despatch, while his father undressed in a more leisurely and middle-aged manner.
To walk barefoot to the sea, down a sandy beach strewn thickly with stones of decidedly acute angles, is, to the sensible man, a slow and ungraceful proceeding. The Youth, who was in more than one sense a tender-foot, had for the past fortnight qualified as a sensible man in this direction at least.
To-day, however, conscious of the garden hat above, he raced over the jagged ground with a cheery shout—there were distinct possibilities of the martyr in the Youth's composition — and plunged into the sea with much manly vigour. Rising to the surface he proceeded to do the Trudgen stroke—he was, as a matter of fact, a singularly strong swimmer—at an unnecessary speed to an unnecessarily far out rock. He reached this at last, and clambered panting up its slippery sides, and stood like some Greek god
77﻿A 'Varsity Man
upon its summit. Then, previous to a dive, he scanned the cliff for an admiring garden hat.
It had gone.
Far away westward he espied a white figure returning to Tulmouth. The Youth sat down upon the rock and gave vent to several expletives. It was really extremely inconsiderate of the Girl in the Garden Hat.
After a time he dived in and swam back to shore. He crawled on all fours up the beach and joined his father under the rocks.
" I wish you wouldn't swim so far out, my boy," said his father, as a brown towel moved with the regularity of a piston-rod over his rubicund back ; " it's quite unnecessary."
Which was perfectly true; it had been quite unnecessary.
That afternoon the Youth spent playing tennis on the public courts with his sister at sixpence an hour. As the courts could only be described as Alpine in their conformation, and his sister occasionally—about once in a dozen times—served a ball in court, and never by any chance returned a stroke, the
Youth economically contented himself with only
78﻿The Girl in the Garden Hat
one hour of this seductive amusement, and, abandoning tea, spent the rest of the time before dinner smoking on the parade and keeping an eye open for a garden hat. His vigil was fruitless. Nor were there any signs after dinner of the charmer of the morning, though the Youth scanned all passers-by from the coign of vantage of a sheltered seat. And as a wandering minstrel rendered all thoughts of Maisie impossible by a chansonette about a knock-kneed kipper, the Youth went home to bed in an exceedingly bad temper.
Next morning, however, he met with better luck. As he and his father were about to descend the cliff to their usual bathing-place, the Youth caught a glimpse of a garden hat among the large rocks behind which he had been used to undress. When they reached the beach they found the Girl in the Garden Hat ensconced behind their rocks, camp-stool and all, while the two little sisters had turned their destructive energies to dead star-fish. The girl rose when she saw the Youth and his father.
" Please don't let us disturb you," said Mr. Ashby, raising his hat, " we can find some other place."
79﻿A 'Varsity Man
" It doesn't matter, thank you," replied the girl, and followed by the children she began to ascend the cliff. The Youth watched her make her way up the steep, and then turn and begin to descend a path which led to the beach on the other side of the promontory.
"A very nice-looking girl," commented Mr. Ashby, getting into his bathing-dress.
The Youth made a perfectly sincere reply.
" I think Edith might make her acquaintance," he added.
"You'd better ask her," said Mr. Ashby, with a laugh, and began laboriously to lessen the distance between himself and the sea.
This time the Youth descended with discretion, but once he had reached the waves—it was a windy day—he made for the same rock, performing great feats on the way, with much shouting to his father.
As soon as he conveniently could, he took a look at the beach the other side of the promontory.
The Girl in the Garden Hat was sitting looking eastwards with her back to the Youth, and
the two little sisters were making a fort for the
80﻿The Girl in the Garden Hat
waves to demolish. A second time the Youth's bathe was completely spoilt.
As he was clambering, up the beach to his clothes he heard a shout from his father, who was already dressing. Mr. Ashby was pointing out to sea. The Youth looked back and saw a brown and red object tossing on the waves. He turned and dashed down the beach with great speed, and not a little loss of blood. He plunged into the waves, and propelled himself with mighty strokes out to sea, towards the floating hat.
There was a splendid knight-errantry-mediaeval feeling about it. He turned over on to his right side. The girl herself and her little sisters were standing at the edge of the water and calling to somebody. The Youth glanced across the waves and saw a boatman in a blue jersey pulling with swift, jerky strokes towards the same brown and red object. Youth and boatman strove with all their power with the same object in view, but for different motives: the one for glory the other for gold—possibly copper. The Youth did not feel the joy of mighty chivalry. The boatman had the start and won.
81	F﻿A 'Varsity Man
The Youth turned and swam back with a doleful breast-stroke. He took one glance at the girl. She was opening a purse.
The Youth's father had an unpleasant faculty for seeing humour in serious situations. The Youth's father made jokes—breezy, blatant jokes —and the Youth broke a bootlace.
About half-way home they came upon the Youth's mother and sister, who had strolled out to meet them.
"We've passed such a pretty girl," said Mrs. Ashby.
"In a garden hat?" queried the Youth excitedly.
His mother assented. The Youth delivered enthusiastic views.
" I say, Edith, I wish you'd get to know that girl," he went on.
The Youth's sister laughed.
" No, hang it, I mean it," said the Youth. " I wish you'd get to know her."
" How can I, you silly boy ?" laughed his sister.
" Of course you can if you like," said the Youth.
82﻿The Girl in the Garden Hat
The Youth's sister refused to entertain his proposal seriously.
The Youth became annoyed.
"Should 'ems have 'ems girls in garden hats," said his sister.
"You needn't make an ass of yourself," snapped the Youth.
At lunch the Youth recurred to the subject again, and worried his sister again to make the girl's acquaintance.
His sister dropped her bantering tone and became suddenly dignified.
"I absolutely refuse to be a go-between," she pronounced, decisively.
" Who the deuce said anything about go-betweens?" said the Youth angrily. "I'm blowed if I'm going to give up all my afternoons to you if you won't do the slightest thing for me."
The Youth's sister made a few trenchant remarks about her brother's character.
The Youth's mother swooped down on the pair with a lecture on manners, winding up with " the-parents-in-my-day " business.
The Youth was somewhat frank to his parent.
83﻿A 'Varsity Man
The Youth's father was conjugally protective.
The Youth left the dining-room angrily, and pretended not to hear when his mother called after him to shut the door, but made up by slamming the front gate.
Possibly, though no doubt there were faults on all sides, the Youth had some excuse for being annoyed. Though he might have consoled himself with the knowledge that the same kind of thing was probably going on at the same time in two-thirds of the families in England.
At dinner there was;; still a cloud over affairs. Mrs. Ashby's ideas of pacificatory diplomacy could only be described as sketchy.
" I suppose," she said, with an air of firm disapproval, "that after spending the afternoon in your own private amusement"—the Youth had not found five hours in a sheltered seat an exactly reckless form of dissipation—"you will not object to taking your sister to hear the band ? "
Apart from objecting to this, the Youth, who
was fond and proud of his pretty sister, had
84﻿The Girl in the Garden Hat
intended in this way to atone for mutual friction.
Maternal diplomacy, however, to him savoured of bear-baiting.
"I don't suppose," said he, "it makes much odds whether I object or whether I don't."
This led to a renewal, in very much the same terms, of the scene at lunch, and when the Youth left the house after dinner, he left alone, and fell over the dog and swore immoderately.
The front, with its long line of gleaming lights and the dreamy music of " Allerseelen," soothed the Youth not a little. He sat down in the same sheltered seat facing the sea and trifled with a meditative cigar. He began to feel expansive and forgiving, and was just thinking of going back to fetch his sister when an important event took place.
The Girl in the Garden Hat — she wore her garden hat no longer, but to him she was still the Girl in the Garden Hat — came along the parade, and, pausing, sat down at the other end of the sheltered seat, a few feet from the Youth.
85﻿A 'Varsity Man
The Youth glanced cautiously at her, and held his cigar behind his leg lest its smell should drive her away. He was quite decided to speak to her, and yet sat in absolute silence for fully five minutes, during which he mentally, time after time, endured the effort of opening the conversation. Several times he turned towards the girl and cleared his throat, and then put it off till a few minutes later.
At last he gathered himself for a supreme effort and spoke.
"I hope — er — your hat wasn't — that is to say, I hope you got your hat all right ?"
This was a distinctly weak remark, as the Youth knew quite well that she had got her hat all right. However, he waited breathlessly for an answer, which came after a pause.
"Yes, thank you; I must thank you for swimming for it," said the girl.
" I'm afraid I was rather too late," observed the Youth, with-tentative jocularity.
" Yes," answered the girl, and relapsed into silence.
There was another pause.
"They're always shy at first," thought the
86﻿The Girl in the Garden Hat
Youth, and again plunged into conversation.
" Do you know," he said, leaning forward with his most engaging manner, "your face seems awfully familiar to me. Haven't we met before somewhere ?"
The girl rose suddenly, and the Youth whispered a curse.
" I think," said she, as she swept away, " that you have made a mistake."
Which was a very accurate description of the situation.
It will be acknowledged that on this unfortu nate day neither the Youth's home nor his foreign policy can be said to have carried all before it. For more than a week after the events related, there was considerable depression in both departments. Internally a domestic guerilla warfare was still waged, with a field-day on Sunday, while externally the Youth fled at the sight of a garden hat, and continued to curse his conversational folly.
At last he felt that civil hostilities at least had gone far enough. One day after a more than usually severe skirmish at lunch, the Youth sallied
87﻿A 'Varsity Man
out to a livery stable and hired a trap for the afternoon. When he drove back to "The Chestnuts," and, waving a whip of truce, requested the company of his mother and sister for a drive, an armistice was concluded, and the reconciled party drove through the Devonshire Lanes to a farmhouse, where, at the Youth's expense, they consumed considerable quantities of Devonshire cream. And after the distended Youth had touched his mother to the very heartstrings by yielding to her in driving very slowly down the hills, and getting out and walking up them—which means in Devonshire an average speed of about three miles an hour—and had helped his sister to tear up Nature by the roots whenever opportunity offered, a really touching reconciliation was effected, and Mrs. Ashby said that the Youth was not thoroughly wrapped up in his own selfish pleasures after all, and even went so far as to retract her midday remarks about passing the cruets.
It was really very sweet of Mrs. Ashby to try
to return one good action by another, but it
really would have been much better if she had
refrained. There is a proverb which tells us
88﻿The Girl in the Garden Hat
that the will is as good as the deed—a saying which, like the majority of its kind, is for the most part untrue, and altogether futile; that is the reason why we call people well-meaning when we wish to damn their character beyond all hope.
Thus, when the Youth and his father were on their way back from their bathe one morning, a day or two before the time fixed for their return to town, and saw, walking slowly on in front, Mrs. and Miss Ashby, accompanied by a figure in a garden hat, the Youth, with an unspeakable fear upon his heart, wished he had never hired that conciliatory trap. Slowing down, he made one wild attempt to escape, but his lie was a weak one.
"My dear Hugh," said his father, "your bathing dress is rolled up in your towel; I saw you put it there."
Then the Youth resigned himself to fate. They soon overtook the fair trio. The Youth shut his eyes and set his teeth. The innocent Mrs. Ashby triumphantly introduced her husband and her son.
Never was melodrama heroine's bearing more
89﻿A 'Varsity Man
dignified in the midst of enemies than that of the Girl in the Garden Hat as she looked proudly on the villainous Youth and his vile accomplices.
The Youth suddenly discovered that the summit of his ambition was to walk behind with his sister and pick flowers ; occasionally he opened a gate and pretended to be occupied with arranging his towel. In fact, the walk back to Tul-mouth was not an unqualified success. When they parted and Mrs. Ashby expressed a hope that they would meet again, the Girl in the Garden Hat bowed distantly and the Youth raised his hat with silent imprecations.
"As for Hugh," observed Mrs. Ashby at lunch, "after worrying us all for days to introduce him to the girl, he behaves like a positive zany."
The Youth writhed in impotent agony.
"When I was a girl," continued Mrs. Ashby, " I liked a young man to have a little confidence. I am sure any girl would rather a man were downright audacious than prove himself such a backward booby as you did today."
90﻿The Girl in the Garden Hat
A statement which the Youth was in a position to contradict. And yet he suffered in silence. But, as we have before remarked, the Youth possessed the makings of a martyr. But he lay very low for his last three days at Tul-mouth.
9i﻿CHAPTER IV
nemesis at a dance-supper
The Youth did not find things very inspiriting in London during August.
"If there is one thing I bar," he said to his father one morning at breakfast, "it is town out of season."
"You would bar it more, my dear boy," returned Mr. Ashby, as he brushed his hat previous to setting out for his chambers. " if you had a little healthy work on hand. My Long Vacation is very different from your Long Vacation."
And the Youth would take his meerschaum
into the drawing-room—Mrs. Ashby did not
get up to breakfast—and strum "Asthore" on
the piano and think of Maisie, which was a
not very successful proceeding, as sentiment is
summoned with difficulty after breakfast, and
92﻿Nemesis at a Dance-Supper
"Asthore" loses half its charm with the "three chord trick."
One day he received a letter from the Cynic. He had written to the Cynic from Devonshire, a letter full of Maisie, and Henley, and with references prior to the fatal evening on the parade—to the Girl in the Garden Hat. Towards the end of his reply the Cynic waxed metaphorical.
"You and your attachments, mon cher Hugh," he wrote, " are a family which is continually ' flitting.' You take with you your imagination— poor, cheap furniture it is too, but it has to find a repository. Time, the great Pantechnicon, will have to make many journeys with that furniture of yours, but one day Time will deposit it all in the middle of the road, and there you will be left, crying, with your poor, worn-out old furniture.
" Ah, well, my dear Hugh," continued the Cynic, "perhaps it is as well to have these fancies while you may. I myself once—but hilas, nous avons changd tout cela.
" Perhaps you would like to extend the field of your amatory experiences by coming to a dance
93﻿A 'Varsity Man
here on the 17th. I have told the Mater to send you a card. Toujours a toi.—Georges."
The Youth was annoyed at the Cynic's putting his grand passion for Maisie on the same level as previous fancies, but he accepted his invitation, and nine o'clock on the evening of the 17th saw him wrestling with a pair of dress gloves in the ante-room of the Smythes' house at Richmond.
Mrs. Smythe, a magisterial and square-built dame of the type which her admirers termed strong-minded, took him in hand at once, and, after the fashion of hostesses on these occasions, began to introduce him to all the people he did not want to know before he had a chance of seeing what people he did.
Then one of those extraordinary events occurred which made the Tulmouth and Richmond episodes epoch - making in their unpleasantness. Mrs. Smythe turned to a girl in pink.
" Mr. Ashby," she said, " Miss Venner."
The girl in pink was the Girl in the Garden Hat. The Youth bowed, and tried to formulate a prayer. There was an awful pause. Mrs.
94﻿Nemesis dt a Dance-Supper
Smythe — who had quite missed her vocation in not entering the scholastic profession—calmly took the girl's programme from her and looked at it.
"You had better take No. n," she said to the Youth, "it's the Washington Post. You have that open ? "
The Youth, under the stern eye of his hostess, found prevarication an impossibility. He stammered an affirmative.
" I am afraid," put in the Girl in the Garden Hat, and her tone would have made Nansen shiver—" I am afraid I never dance the Washington Post now."
"'Er—I don't either," suggested the Youth.
" Stuff and nonsense," said their hostess ; " it's a very healthy dance;" and her mouth settled into one straight line.
The nervous Youth inscribed a faltering hieroglyphic, and followed Mrs. Smythe as she singled out more victims. He felt decidedly dubious as to the health-giving properties of this particular Washington Post, but Mrs. Smythe was the rude type of person whom most people feared and obeyed. Before her even
95﻿A 'Varsity Man
her cynical son forbore to speak in metaphor, and lost about ten years in manner.
It has been remarked that it never rains but it pours. Though the absolute accuracy of this statement is open to question, it may be allowed that on this occasion it not only rained but poured, and the Youth was certainly out in it.
During his very first waltz he trod on the dress of his hostess' daughter. True, the lady in question said that it did not matter, as the Youth disentangled his foot from yards of her skirt, but she looked at him ; and if looks could kill, the Youth would have been an artistic piece of mutilation.
Then, later on, the Youth found that opposite No. 9 he had put down on his programme " Lil. Val.," which, being interpreted, is " Lilies of the Valley." On making a tour of the dance-room and conservatories, he found that this gave him a choice between about fourteen different ladies.
A not dissimilar youth, in a similar position with regard to only three of the sex, had embroiled two continents: the Youth discreetly
96﻿Nemesis at a Dance-Supper
avoided what would logically have been still worse consequences by retiring to the verandah and lighting a Lapika.
And when Miss Smythe, to whom his partner had complained of the Youth's defection, found him there towards the end of that dance with a strawberry ice, she gave him another lethal look.
" Perhaps your partner would have liked an ice," she remarked scathingly.
The Youth tried to enter into explanations.
" Perhaps it was for the best," he concluded, with a painful attempt at jocularity. " Probably the ladies' dresses are safer with me away," and he glanced smilingly at Miss Smythe's skirt.
"Very probably," returned the girl as she swished away.
The Youth threw away his cigarette.
" I think that Smythe's sister," he observed to an Oxford acquaintance who came out on to the verandah at this moment, "is about the most offensive young woman I have ever met."
"I am afraid," returned the other, " that I 97	G﻿A 'Varsity Man
cannot agree with you; but then, no doubt, I am prejudiced on the subject. You see, I've been engaged to her since last Thursday."
Entering the dance-room the Youth ran into Tommy Davis of Merton. " Hullo, Ashby," cried that cheery gentleman, "didn't know you were here. Having a good time ?"
" Um—fairish," replied the Youth. " How are you going ?"
"Simply clinking," said Tommy. "Just had a gorgeous Lancers; dark girl; fairly let me swing her off her feet; absolute ripper. Look here," he added, taking hold of the lapel of the Youth's coat, " what would you do if you were me ? She's simply full up to about the tenth extra, but for one of her dances she's engaged to some bounder she absolutely bars. What would you do ? "
" My dear chap, scratch him out and collar it yourself," advised the Youth.
"It's rather bad luck on the other chap," said Tommy.
" Oh, rot, my dear man," said the Youth. "It's no good being scrupulous at dances. It's his own look-out."
98﻿Nemesis at a Dance-Supper
" By Jove, I'm with you," cried Tommy, dashing off.
The Youth was not engaged for No. 10, but stood with his back to the wall and watched the maze of dancers. He caught a glimpse of the Girl in the Garden Hat whirling round the room in the embrace of a man in a ready-made dress-tie, with a red silk handkerchief stuck in his waistcoat.
"My Gad," he thought, "it's extraordinary what girls will consent to dance with," and then fell to wondering what her attitude would be when he claimed the next dance. But he resolved to face the fire, and mentally prepared himself for any tone she might be likely to adopt.
No. ii arrived at last, and the Youth made his way across the room to the entrance of the conservatory where the Girl in the Garden Hat was standing with the bad man with the scarlet handkerchief. The Youth paused, fearing the ordeal in the presence of a third person.
Then he pulled himself together.
"Oh, hang it," he thought, "a man who couldn't pull his own tie undone," and walked straight up to the pair.
99﻿A 'Varsity Man
" I believe," said he, "that this is our dance?"
" I don't think so," said the Girl in the Garden Hat. The Youth set his teeth.
"No. ii," he said. "I think we arranged that ? "
The girl looked him straight in the eyes.
"I think," said she, "that you have made a mistake."
The Youth's face turned the colour of the bad man's handkerchief. The phrase was cruelly familiar. He bowed slightly and turned to leave. In turning he nearly collided with Tommy Davis. Tommy's face was a study.
"My grand-aunt," he remarked under hid breath.
" Damnation," observed the Youth.
It would seem that by this time the Youth had been more than punished for what was, as Aristotle has it, not so much a definite sin as a tendency to err in a particular way. But no mercy was forthcoming from Fate—or the Girl in the Garden Hat.
After No. 13 a supper interval had been fixed
with a laudable disregard for superstition. This
desirable item had not been marked on the pro-
100﻿Nemesis at a Dance-Supper
gramme, but Mrs. Smythe had made a public announcement of the fact in a tone suggestive of a school treat.
The Youth postponed offering his services in this department to any lady in particular until he had found a partner worthy of that honour. Thus the supper interval found him partnerless. He wandered about and offered his services to several ladies, all of whom he found were already engaged.
The numbers in the dance-room began to thin
down, and Tommy Davis, who had been absent
in a suspiciously shady corner of a conservatory
with the Girl in the Garden Hat during Mrs.
Smythe's announcement, was hauled off by that
lady and introduced to a spectacled student from
Maggie Hall, with whom the sanguine Mrs.
Smythe fondly hoped that he would have much
in common. Thus the Girl in the Garden Hat,
who had cut an eminent physician and danced
No. 13 with Tommy, was left sitting by herself
at the entrance of the conservatory.
Suddenly the Youth became conscious that
he and his enemy—he thought of her so now
—were alone in the room.
101﻿A 'Varsity Man
" I'm hanged if I ask her to come down to supper," he said to himself, and began to hum a nervous tune. The Girl in the Garden Hat fanned herself and looked covertly at the Youth. She was proud—or obstinate—as you will—and she was hungry. This is not the first time that this combination has given rise to difficulties.
Then Miss Smythe, hostess'-daughter-like, rushed hurriedly across the scene. She saw the Youth and stopped.
"Haven't you any one to take into supper?" she asked, and then espied the Girl in the Garden Hat. She hurried the Youth across to the conservatory.
" Mr. Ashby—Miss Venner."
"We have been introduced," said the Girl in the Garden Hat.
"Will you let Mr. Ashby take you into supper?" said Miss Smythe, and dashed off. The Youth was annoyed. Miss Smythe's tone was unmistakably apologetic. He turned to the girl.
" I suppose you aren't very anxious to come
in to supper with me ?" he said.
102﻿Nemesis at a Dance-Supper
" It isn't likely to be interesting," said the Girl in the Garden Hat.
The Youth flushed.
" Look here," he said angrily, " I've no more desire to go down to supper with you than you have with me. I'm simply endeavouring to be ordinarily polite."
"Isn't it rather late in the day for that?" suggested his companion.
The Youth gave way to an impulse of tu quoque.
"Anyhow," he continued, "it's no use our standing and talking here."
" I could imagine nothing more undesirable," said the Girl in the Garden Hat.
The Youth drew in his breath and strode away. And it is a regrettable fact that it was only sheer etiquette which withheld him from striking a "defenceless woman."
The Girl in the Garden Hat had not meant
to carry things as far as this, for she was
hungry; but for that matter so was the Youth,
who had had no dinner. He strolled into the
billiard-room. There was a picture there of a
haunch of venison and a tankard of ale, por-
103﻿A 'Varsity Man
trayed with fiendish realism. The numerous unpleasantnesses of the evening began to tell on the Youth, and he commenced to swear with ease and skill.
After a time people began to troop through the billiard-room on their way back from supper. All were in indissoluble couples, and all seemed ostentatiously festive. Several of them appeared to the Youth to stare at him as he stood there alone, and he consequently made ghastly attempts to appear absorbed in the automatic marker. Ten minutes of this, however, began to be a strain on his nervous system, and he started to hurry about as if on some pressing errand. This pretence also, after a time, appeared weak, and he felt uncomfortably convinced that people were doubting his sanity. Still No. 14 had not struck up. At last the Youth grew desperate. Under his breath he swore a dread oath in which supper figured largely, and then slunk downstairs by himself into the supper room.
The last middle-aged banqueters were just
leaving, and the Youth tried to look as if he
were searching for a fan. Then, when once
the room was empty, he closed the door, col-
104﻿Nemesis at a Dance-Supper
lected all the food he could lay his hands on, arid retired into a corner behind a huge palm. There he cracked a bottle of George's Goulet —and the pop of the cork made him give a guilty start—to the perdition of the Girl in the Garden Hat.
We have said that Fate and the Girl in the Garden Hat were relentless. At this moment both came upon the scene, accompanied by Miss Smythe.
The Youth held a fork-full of p&ti de foie gras within an inch of his mouth, and shut his eyes when he heard their voices. The Girl in the Garden Hat was speaking.
" No, I can't say he absolutely refused, but he was very rude to me, and—well, yes, he did refuse."
The Youth sat tight behind the palm and held his breath.
"Good gracious," cried Miss Smythe, "his behaviour is simply disgraceful. I believe he has had too much drink."
The Youth hesitated whether to come out and discover himself to them or not, and while he yet wavered he was too late.
105﻿A 'Varsity Man
"Is he a great friend of your brother's?" asked the Girl in the Garden Hat.
" Ugh! some of George's friends are loathsome," said Miss Smythe. "As for this person, George's friend or not, I'll see he's never asked here again. Now, what will you have ? Some foie gras ? "
" Yes, please, I'm so hungry," said the Girl in the Garden Hat.
"Why, where on earth is it?" exclaimed Miss Smythe.
The Youth felt certain that he had never really fully understood what fear was till this moment.
Miss Smythe began to walk about the room.
" Never mind," called the Girl in the Garden Hat, " I'll have an oyster patty."
"But what can have become of that paid de foie gras?" said Miss Smythe.
The Youth sat in deadly terror while Miss
Smythe searched the tables. It was too late
now for him to make any move; his faculties
were absolutely numbed; he sat as one petrified,
unable to move hand or foot. And then the
inevitable happened. Miss Smythe came across
106﻿Nemesis at a Dance-Supper
to the sideboard just near the palm and discovered the Youth.
The Youth rose to his feet, and there was an awful pause. At last he spoke
" Er—will you have some paU de foie gras f" he asked, weakly, of the Girl in the Garden Hat.
She smiled sweetly.
" Thank you," she said, " if you can spare me a little."
The Youth held the dish while she helped herself, and, had his life depended on it, could have given no reasonable explanation of the situation.
" Can I—er—get anything else ?" he asked nervously.
"Thank you," said Miss Smythe—and she looked singularly like her mother—"I think we can manage by ourselves."
The Youth did not finish his supper, but returned to the dance-room. In the entrance he met the Cynic, who did not dance—"nowadays."
" How're you getting on, mon ami f" asked the Cynic.
107﻿A 'Varsity Man
" Oh, all right, thanks," said the Youth.
And when the polite Youth bade his hostess good-bye, he murmured vague formulas about an enjoyable evening.
Thus it must be acknowledged that with the exception of that one little mistake at Tulmouth, the Youth's behaviour had been blameless.
And yet his hostess's daughter would have it that the Youth was a boor. However, virtue is its own reward, they say.
A fact which makes its practice a rather unprofitable proceeding.
108﻿CHAPTER V
a visit to the nest
In the knowledge of not a few families there exists a bite noire in the shape of another household with which the aforesaid family have been intimate in their extreme youth, but which now appears to be neither desirable nor entertaining. The bete noire of the Youth's family resided at Hornsey, and its name was Twist. The Twists were wealthy, hospitable, and impossible. The Youth and his sister in their young days had been to the same kindergarten as the little Twists, and the Youth, hardly conscious at this age of social inequalities, had begun an impressionable career with a highly romantic attachment to Daisy Twist. Thus the Youth had insisted on his sister becoming sworn friends with the fair Daisy: teas were interchanged and party counterbalanced party, until eventually the
Twists and the Ashbys—somewhat to the dis-
109﻿A 'Varsity Man
satisfaction of Mrs. Ashby and even of Edith, who at the age of seven and a half had begun to develop those niceties of criticism which so distinguish the ungrown female from the un-grown male—had reached the goal of "family-friendship."
Now family friends are somewhat of a two-edged sword, and, like that weapon, are more easily taken up than put down. Mrs. Ashby, though she had struggled hard against the approaching intimacy, once that stage had been reached, had the good taste to refuse to allow the Twists to be neglected. At stated periods during his school holidays the Youth, who had thus made a rod for his own back, had been despatched upon his bicycle to " The Nest," Hornsey. During this time, however, he had managed at least to tolerate the Twists ; to their deficiencies he had been by no means blind ; the opulent vulgarity of Twist pere, the pathetic malapropisms of Twist mere, the ponderous frivolity of Daisy, and the lachrymose squabblings of her small sisters. Worst of all, his public-school mind, properly moulded at Cliffborough, revolted
at the awful proclivities of the local - schooled
no﻿A Visit to the Nest
Percy, who had leanings towards marbles and polo caps. But the orchard was a large one, the "grub" was good, and the magnitude and frequency of Mr. Twist's tips more than compensated for the phenomenal paucity of his aspirates.
But when he had left Cliffborough and had already passed " Smalls," and begun to smoke a pipe en famille, the fearful undesirability of the Twists was borne in upon him with overwhelming force. Mr. Twist, Mrs. Twist, Daisy Twist, and the children were all social excrescences ; but Percy, who actually prided himself on having " left school and begun work" two years before the Youth, was an utter impossibility. Once at the 'Varsity the Youth flatly refused to visit "those deadly people;" in vain Mrs. Ashby impressed on the Youth the fact that it was he himself who had started the intimacy.
" What I may have done at the age of eight," decreed the Youth, " is hardly so much my own responsibility as yours and the gov'nor's. You had no right to allow us to become familiar with absolute outsiders."
One day after lunch, not long after the unpleasant adventure with the Girl in the Garden
in﻿A 'Varsity Man
Hat, Mrs. Ashby folded up her napkin and looked across at the Youth.
"How do you propose," she asked, "to oc-cupy yourself for the rest of the day ? "
The Youth selected a Lapika from his case.
"My dear mother," he said, "one would have more chance of spending an entertaining afternoon in the middle of the Sahara than in London during August. There is absolutely nothing to do."
" Then I think this would be an excellent opportunity," observed his mother, " for you to go and see the Twists."
" Oh, carry me out," groaned the Youth.
" I think your behaviour to the Twists," said Mrs. Ashby, " is simply disgusting." ;
" Why it should be simply disgusting of me to decline to take a huge journey into the country in order to see people who make me feel ill, I really cannot see," said the Youth, throwing a match into the fender.
Mrs. Ashby rose and picked the wax vesta off the clean grate with an angry jerk.
" They are extremely kind-hearted, genuine people," she said.
112﻿A Visit to the Nest
" So doubtless, my dear mother," observed the Youth, "is the lady who cleans the stairs, but I don't want to travel miles to visit her in the bosom of her family."
Mrs. Ashby compressed her lips.
"Very well, then," she said, "I shall say no more about it. You can take a horse to the water, but cannot make it drink."
"The only time," remarked the Youth, "that I have ever taken that animal to the water I found that the real difficulty was to prevent him lying down in it."
" You know perfectly well what I mean," said Mrs. Ashby, with annoyance.
"That's just what I don't know," returned the Youth, trying to divert the conversation into the channel of a general argument. " What idiot ever wanted to force a horse to drink ?"
" I'm not going to argue with you about a proverb, Hugh," said Mrs. Ashby.
" Proverbs," observed the Youth sententiously, "are proverbially pointless; they were written solely in order to puff Sapolio and Fern Tree Burgundy."
" I am not going to argue with you," said 113	H﻿A 'Varsity Man
Mrs. Ashby, feeling herself to be getting out of her depth. " Are you, or are you not, going to defer to my wishes with regard to the Twists ? "
" I'll do anything you like to the estimable people," ventured the Youth, " except go and see them."
" Very well, then," she said, " I shall say no more about it."
" I wish," said the Youth aggravatingly, "that I were as confident as you are, my dear mother, that you will say no more about it."
Mrs. Ashby swept out of the room with silent dignity.
"Why will you try and annoy her so?" said the Youth's sister.
"My dear girl, what d'you expect me to do ?" asked the Youth.
" Oh, go and beard the Twists in their Nest for the sake of peace," answered his sister with a little grimace.
" I really don't see," said the Youth, " why I should waste half a day going to Hornsey, of all ungodly places, to see a family of hopeless bounders."
114﻿A Visit to the Nest
" But you said you had nothing to do," put in his sister.
" Well—er—no," said the Youth, rather weakly; " but hang it all, Edith, think of Percy."
" And Daisy," assented Edith with a shudder; "but you'd better go, just to please mother. Besides, perhaps you'll like the new governess."
" Er—what ?" exclaimed the Youth, suddenly looking up from the Sportsman.
" Just the type of girl you'd admire, I should think," said his sister : "a horrible person! "
"Horrible? In what way?" queried the Youth with interest.
" Oh, she possesses all the qualifications which usually captivate you, is excessively vulgar, and ready to ogle anything in trousers."
" That's a bit off," remarked the Youth. " Er —is she there now ? "
"She was very much there a week ago," said Edith.
There was a long pause while the Youth finished his cigarette.
" Where are you going ?" asked his sister as he rose.
"5﻿A 'Varsity Man
"Is mother lying down ?" asked the Youth.
" Oh, she won't be asleep yet," replied his sister.
The Youth yawned.
" I suppose there'll only be beastly sickness if I don't go over to Hornsey," he said, with his hand on the door-handle. "I'd better work 'em off now and have done with it," and he left the room without seeing his sister's smile.
The train journey from King's Cross to Hornsey is not an inspiriting one. Mrs. Ashby had proposed that the Youth should ride up on his bike, but the Youth drew the line there. He declined to arrive covered with dust and with his collar in a pulp, and when Mrs. Ashby had asked why that should matter, and who there was to see him, he had replied that of course he didn't mind about the Twists, but that it was—er—uncomfortable, Nor had he thought fit to obviate this difficulty by adopting Mrs. Ashby's suggestion of wearing a cricket-shirt and " that nice white woollen jersey " which he used for rowing at Oxford.
Seated in a first-class carriage—his mother
was going to refund his fare—he began to
116﻿A Visit to the Nest
wonder if even the speculative charms of a visionary governess could atone for the horrors of an afternoon in Hornsey. He congratulated himself at any rate that his visit was an afternoon one. In the old days a visit to the Twists was a kind of " stay-all-day" affair, and that hospitable family measured the sterling worth and want of affectation of a guest by the amount of solid comestibles he could assimilate in a given time. Thus a day spent at the Nest, to any one but an alderman or a Sunday-school child, was a sort of masticating purgatory. Dinner at 1.30 p.m. was a "two-hours'-solid " function, which left the guest a log of tumbling impotence ; a busy interval in the orchard would be followed at 5.30 by a " high tea," with scones and hot haddock; and the luckless guest, if he could not be persuaded to stay the night, would stagger off after a roast-beef and Yorkshire supper to catch the last train with his pockets full of gooseberries and Banbury cakes.
All this had been all very well when the Youth
was an Eton-jacketed fag at Cliffborough, and he
had established quite a reputation for sincerity
117﻿A 'Varsity Man
and virtue by the unaffected way in which he had passed up his plates for more. But to the Youth, an undergraduate with a digestion and an Epicurean knowledge of wines, "high tea" was an operation, and dinner at 1.30 with ginger ale an anything but merciful anaesthetic.
It was a hot afternoon, and the Youth thought of the impending meal, and groaned as he flicked his brown boots in the vestibule of the Nest, and felt uncomfortably convinced that he could smell haddock.
"They're all at tea, sir," said the maid-servant who opened the door, and at this moment Percy Twist came out into the hall, with the tail end of two sardines protruding from his mouth.
" Hullo, Hugh ! " he exclaimed ; " how's yourself?"
"How do, Twist!" observed the Youth, removing his gloves.
"Ma," called Percy, "here's Hugh Ashby."
The Youth followed Percy into the dining-room.
"What, Hughy!" called Mr. Twist from the head of the table ; "you're quite a stranger."
" Getting too grand for us now you're a full-118﻿A Visit to the Nest
blown collegian," remarked Mrs. Twist, and the Youth shuddered.
He shook hands with the simpering Daisy and two sticky olive branches. He paused at a decidedly good-looking girl with a healthy complexion and large black eyes, a good deal in use at the moment.
"That's Fatty," observed Mr. Twist. "Fatty, this is our young college swell."
The Youth responded to these old-world formalities with a look of polite admiration, and took a seat next to the Governess.
" Blushes a treat, doesn't she ?" added Mr.
Twist, and the family laughed. " 'Ave some » ^ »>
am r
The Youth somewhat endangered his past reputation for virtue by alleging that he had only just lunched, but would take some strawberry jam.
During tea he had but little chance of talking
to his fair neighbour, the conversation being
strictly general when it was not freely personal.
" We didn't see you rowing at Putney this
year," remarked Mr. Twist.
The Youth looked puzzled.
119﻿A 'Varsity Man
" In the Oxford boat," explained Mrs. Twist.
The Youth acknowledged that he was not a member of the 'Varsity Eight.
"How was it you weren't rowing?" asked Daisy ; " don't you like it ? "
The Youth affirmed that he had done a good deal during the Lent term.
" Then ow was it you weren't rowing in the race ? " asked Mr. Twist.
The Youth was compelled to acknowledge that he was hardly good enough for a 'Varsity oar, and mentally cursed their plebeian ignorance.
" Oh ! but you aren't very strong, are you ?" observed Mrs. Twist, who was always well-meaning. " It's a pity we didn't send Percy to college. I'm sure he'd have been a good one for that kind of thing."
" Yes, wouldn't he ?" exclaimed the Governess, darting an admiring glance at the son and heir, who was fiddling with the large pin of a scarlet satin Ascot tie.
The Youth stifled an oath with strawberry jam.
In the face of this vulgar misconception he
felt quite justified in asserting that it was an
120﻿A Visit to the Nest
impossibility to get into the 'Varsity boat without having been educated at Eton.
But there is an end to all things mortal, as has been remarked some time ago, and the Twists' tea, though high, was distinctly a thing of this earth.
An adjournment was made to the garden, and the Youth selected a chair next to the Governess.
"Care to stroll down the town, Hugh?" proposed Percy, appearing in a cap on which chess would have been a certainty and backgammon a probability.
The Youth wisely chose the companionship of the Governess in preference to the mad whirl of excitement suggested by a stroll in Hornsey. The other Twists were considerately tasting pears, and the Youth found himself, on the departure of Twist, junior, alone with the girl.
"What a nice colour your boots are," observed
that artless maiden, looking with admiration at
an unpaid-for triumph by Flack & Smith.
Now, Percy's boots were a beauteous yellow,
and the Youth observed the implied comparison,
121﻿A 'Varsity Man
and his opinion of his companion rose with a leap.
" It's always worth while," he remarked with some satisfaction, " to have a decent pair of brown boots."
" What a hideous cap that is that Percy wears," said the Governess, looking after that gentleman's retreating form.
The Youth confessed that he would not wear the said article if he were paid for it by the hour.
" I so much prefer a sailor hat," continued the girl.
"Oh! a straw?" queried the Youth.
" Yes, like what you have with you this afternoon," said his companion. " I saw you from the window as you came down the road. Were those your college colours ? "
The Youth replied in the affirmative, and hastened to add that though he did not think it was very good form to wear a club hat-band about town, he did not think it mattered in Hornsey.
" Oh, but I like club colours," cried the
Governess, " and yours are such pretty ones.
122﻿A Visit to the Nest
I wish I belonged to some club with nice colours."
The Youth uncrossed his legs, and turned his chair round to his companion's.
" Would you care to have a St. Valentine's hat-band? I'll send you one if you like."
The girl clasped her hands in ecstasy.
"Oh yes; how lovely," she exclaimed.
The Youth made the promise, and felt that he was getting on.
At this moment Mr. Twist appeared upon the scene with a box of cigars, which he put on the little rustic table beside the Youth.
" 'EIp yerself," he remarked pleasantly, and the Youth graciously lit a weed. " That's right, Fatty, you make up to Hughy ; he's the feller that gets the tickets for the theatres."
The Youth's father, who was acquainted with several actors, had often sent tickets by the Youth for the use of the Twists, finding this a convenient way of returning the hospitality given to his children.
The Governess darted a quick glance at the 123﻿A 'Varsity Man
Youth, who endeavoured to assume an expression suitable to his dramatic importance. Mr. Twist began to potter round a sunflower.
"Do you get many tickets?" asked the Governess in an undertone.
" Oh, a good many," answered the Youth nonchalantly. " You see I know several actors. Some of 'em are very good chaps."
" How lovely," said the Governess. " Then I suppose you're always taking some nice girl to the theatre ? "
" It has been known to occur," returned the Youth knowingly.
" Can you get tickets whenever you want them ? " asked the girl.
"Oh, pretty well when I like," answered the Youth magnificently. " But even if I can't, I've only got to book seats."
"Now then, Hughy," said Mr. Twist, mopping his face with a handkerchief suggestive of a workman's dinner, " what d'you say to a few grapes from the green'ouse ?"
The Youth, as a matter of fact, would have preferred to have nothing to say to the grapes,
and to have continued his conversation with
124﻿A Visit to the Nest
the Governess. However, he rose politely, and tried to look enthusiastic.
" Come along, Fatty," called Mr. Twist, and the three strolled down the path and entered one of the greenhouses.
Mr. Twist began to cut some grapes. The Youth and the Governess stood by the door.
"I'm afraid I don't get much of a chance of a talk alone with you," whispered the Youth.
" No; isn't it horrid," murmured the Governess, with a languishing glance. The Youth, metaphorically speaking, wagged his tail. He looked at Mr. Twist, busily plying his scissors, and then bent towards his companion.
" Can you get out by yourself ever ?" he whispered, with a telling look. " I could talk to you so much better by yourself."
The girl dropped her eyes and blushed prettily.
"Yes, sometimes, for very special things," she answered.
"D'you think you could make me a very special thing ?" asked the Youth softly.
" I think so," she murmured.
The Youth did more metaphorical tail-wag-ging-
125﻿A 'Varsity Man
" When can you manage it ?" he asked.
" Saturday afternoon," suggested the girl. "The end of the road."
"Thanks." The Youth straightened his back.
"Oh, but can you manage the afternoon?" asked the girl anxiously.
"Of course I can," answered the Youth, as Mr. Twist continued his operations and gathered up the grapes; " any time will suit me. Why not ? "
" There," said Mr. Twist, putting the fruit into a basket, "you must give those to your mother, with my love."
" She will, I am sure," replied the Youth, " be grateful to you for the grapes."
" Now, what do you say," suggested Mr. Twist, "to a few vegetable marrers ?"
The trembling Youth perjured himself beyond redemption as to the maternal superabundance in vegetables of all kinds. He was saved by the puffing appearance of Mrs. Twist.
"Miss Savage," she called, " I want you to
take Myrtle and Ivy round to Mrs. Roberts'
126﻿A Visit to the Nest
to spend the evening. You'd better say goodbye to Mr. Ashby. They've got a grand party on there," she explained to the Youth. " Punch and Judy, an' all."
The Governess held out a hand to the Youth. Mrs. Twist had joined her lord and master in the henhouse.
" Don't forget Saturday, will you ? " said the Governess in a pleading whisper.
The Youth pressed the outstretched hand. " By gad, she's rather keen," he thought.
The Governess departed down the path, and the Youth, allowing a decent interval to elapse, said that he must be going.
Mr. and Mrs. Twist were vigorous in their invitations to stay to supper.
"At all events," concluded Mr. Twist, "you must take some eggs."
The Youth was forced to this compromise, and departed at last from the Nest with his oval spoils, which he carefully arranged under the grapes in the basket.
Outside the station he met Percy Twist, with a friend in a grey cycling sweater. Percy insisted on stopping.
127﻿A 'Varsity Man
" Well, so long, old man," he said eventually ; "give my love to Edie."
" I will remember you to my sister," replied the Youth stiffly. He kept this promise on his arrival home.
"Oh, Hugh, you really ought to kick that youth," exclaimed the disgusted Edith.
" By gad, he wants it," assented the Youth.
"Did you see the Governess?" asked his sister.
" The Governess ? " repeated the Youth. " Oh yes, a dark girl."
" Well ? " inquired his sister.
"Well, what?" asked the surprised Youth.
"Were you very much struck ? "
"Oh, she wasn't bad," ceded the Youth; " nothing very particular."
"Poor little Hughikins," sighed his sister, " after all that long journey! "
" I don't know what you are talking about," said the Youth wearily, raising his eyebrows in the way people do when they understand perfectly.
128﻿CHAPTER VI
three at the welcome club
On the Saturday morning, the day fixed for his appointment with the Governess, the Youth got a hurried note signed "Ida Savage."
"We didn't arrange anytime for to-morrow," it ran. " I think I had better say the end of our road at 1.30. That will leave us a long time. I know it will be lovely. Love from," &c.
The Youth had been late in getting up that morning—a not unusual occurrence—and his father had already left for his chambers, and his sister had gone out, by the time he lounged into the breakfast-room and opened his letter.
" One - thirty !" he cried aghast. "Great Scot, how the devil does she think I'm going to lunch and get to Hornsey by 1.30."
"Did you call, sir?" said the butler, coming into the room.
129	1﻿A 'Varsity Man
"No," said the Youth shortly. "One minute, Sleuth; tell the cook to let me have some lunch at about twelve."
"The girl really seems deucedly keen," commented the Youth, helping himself to tepid bacon, " but it's getting a bit 'off' if she's wanting me to go tearing off to Hornsey often at 1.30."
Consequently the Youth partook of a lunch that was little more than a continuation of his late breakfast, and arrived eventually at the end of the Twists' road at about five minutes to the half hour. The Governess was already there. The Youth's breakfast opinions were doubly confirmed.
" She really looks most devilish smart, too," he thought, as he made towards her. She greeted him with effusion. "You are a good boy to be so punctual," she said, raising her eyes to his.
The Youth squeezed her hand, and felt that his early lunch had not been so much of a hardship after all.
Smart the Governess undoubtedly looked on this occasion, in a dashing Belle of New York kind of fashion.
!30﻿Three at the Welcome Club
Up to this time the Youth had hardly thought much as to how they should spend the afternoon.
"We'll go and get a quiet seat somewhere," he thought now, and looked towards the fields above him.
"I hope you haven't forgotten the hat-band?" inquired the Governess as they moved off.
" Oh no. I sent to Oxford for that after I saw you; you ought to get it about Monday or Tuesday."
They walked on for a few moments in silence. The Governess turned to the left at the end of the road.
"One minute," said the Youth, stopping; "that goes through the towny part of the place, doesn't it ?"
"It's the way to the station," said the Governess, in a surprised tone.
" The station ?" queried the Youth. " Oh yes, of course, I came that way. Still, don't you think it will be better up the other way?"
" What do you mean ?" asked the Governess, looking puzzled. They were now standing still at the corner.
131﻿A 'Varsity Man
" Such a beastly lot of people down there," advised the Youth.
" Why, what do you propose to do ?" asked the Governess.
" Oh, we might get a seat somewhere," said the Youth.
The Governess stood quite still and looked at the ground. The Youth began to feel nervous.
" She seems a bit sick," he thought.
After a rather long pause the Governess turned, and walked in silence beside the Youth up the hill.
"I say, are you sick about anything?" ventured the Youth.
" D'you propose to sit on a seat all the afternoon ?" she asked.
"Well, I don't see what else there is to do at Hornsey," replied the Youth. "What made you arrange as early as 1.30? "
The Governess made as though to speak, but checked herself. Conversation for the next quarter of an hour was a desultory monologue on the part of the Youth. At length they reached a seat and the Governess wearily sat
down at the Youth's request.
132﻿Three at the Welcome Club
The Youth ventured to slip an arm about her waist and to kiss an apathetic cheek. The latter performance he repeated once or twice.
" Oh, that will do!" cried the Governess, rising to her feet.
" What's the matter?" asked the Youth, in surprise.
" I shall have to be getting back," said the Governess.
" My dear girl!" expostulated the Youth, " is this what you mean by a long time together ? "
There was a pause.
"I don't feel well," said the Governess; "do you mind taking me back ? "
The Youth rose at once.
" Poor little girl!" he said. "I'm awfully sorry."
The Governess did not answer, and they walked back to the end of the Twists' road. Then she turned.
" Good-bye," she said.
" One minute," cried the Youth, retaining her hand. " When can you see me again ?"
" Oh, I can't tell you now," said the Governess, I33﻿A 'Varsity Man
withdrawing her hand, and she hastened off to the Nest.
The Youth stood and looked after her.
"I'm very sorry for the girl if she's ill," he thought; " but it's made it beastly rot for me."
" Damned rot," he said aloud, as he turned and walked to the station.
A few days later the Youth pointed to a basket standing on a small table in the dining-room.
" Isn't that the basket I brought from the Twists?" he asked. Mrs. Ashby replied in the affirmative.
" D'you want it taken back ?"
" It doesn't matter," replied Mrs. Ashby, " I'll send it."
" I don't mind taking it back for you," suggested the Youth, "if you'll pay my fare."
" The postage will cost a quarter of that," remarked the Youth's sister.
The Youth ignored this childish interruption.
" I'll go over after lunch," he said.
" Would you like me to go with you, dear ?" suggested the mocking Edith, with a caress.
"If you want to go," returned the Youth, 134﻿Three at the Welcome Club
"you'd better take the basket over by yourself, and save me the fag."
A bold stroke, which by no means convinced the mocking Edith.
On arriving at the Nest, the Youth was informed that Mr. and Mrs. Twist, with Daisy and Percy, had gone to Alexandra Park. Miss Savage, however, was in the garden with the children. The Youth found it necessary to deliver the basket to her in person.
He was greeted politely, but without effusion.
"I'm awfully glad you were in," he said, pulling a hammock chair to her side. "Are you quite well now ?" he asked, placing his hand on hers.
The Governess removed her hand.
"Quite well, thank you," she said.
" I wanted to talk to you," continued the Youth, taking her hand again.
The Governess rose and moved her chair.
4< I say, what the deuce is the matter ?" asked the Youth.
" Nothing," replied the Governess.
The girl's coldness fired the Youth.
135﻿A 'Varsity Man
✓
" I want to know when you can meet me again," he said.
The Governess said nothing.
"When do you think?" urged the Youth.
" I'm afraid I can't arrange anything," replied the Governess.
The Youth was conscious of a distinct feeling of annoyance.
" Why on earth not ?" he asked.
" Because it's too difficult to get out," returned the Governess.
"You didn't tell me that last time," said the Youth.
" Well, it is, anyhow," said the Governess.
Now possibly it may hitherto have appeared that the Youth was singularly obtuse with regard to the Governess. But it is the outsider that sees most of the game, and the Youth had the disadvantage of subjectivity. He had also been blinded to the truth by the hasty conclusions to which he had jumped at first. Now, however, he began to see light with a disagreeable clearness. He decided to test his discovery.
" I wish you could manage it," he said, 136﻿Three at the Welcome Club
after a pause, "as I want you to dine with me one evening and do a theatre."
The Governess clasped her hands in delight.
"Oh, how lovely. Will you really take me?" she cried, and then stopped.
The Youth was looking at her keenly, with an ironical smile.
" Oh, that does sound horrid of me, doesn't it?" she exclaimed confusedly.
The Youth took out a cigarette and pushed the protruding tobacco into its end. He tried to believe that he was cynically amused, and could only feel chagrined and humiliated.
" Oh no," he said, with a forced smile. " I rather admire your frankness."
"Oh, you must think me horrid!" pleaded the girl.
"Some people would, I suppose," remarked the Youth, lighting his cigarette; "personally, I feel very much amused."
He stayed long enough to enunciate a few profoundly cynical views, and then rose.
" Oh, I am sure you must think me horrid," pouted the Governess.
i37﻿A 'Varsity Man
" My dear girl," observed the Youth, with great carelessness, " I know perfectly well that it won't in any way affect you what I think," and shook hands with her and left.
Outside he threw away his cigarette.
" Mercenary little beast," he said.
Nevertheless, adverse fortune so stirred the Youth's blood that he decided to pursue the affair.
" Little devil! I'll make her keen on me for my own sake," he told himself, "if it takes the whole 'vac.'"
Accordingly, he inscribed an ultra-cynical note to the Governess, asking her what evening would suit her to dine with him at the Welcome Club, Earl's Court. The Youth's brother, who was up again from Aldershot, was a member of this club, and the Youth had extracted a promise of two tickets.
The Governess wrote back promptly accepting the invitation, though she felt quite ashamed of herself in doing so after her "horridness of last Tuesday," which the Youth was to take no notice of, as she had felt "put out" about many things. She named the following Friday
as her best time for the expedition.
138﻿Three at the Welcome Club
The Youth, who, to do him justice, was not in the slightest impressed by these explanations, asked his brother for two tickets for Friday.
"Of course, I don't know who it is you're dining; I hope she's all right," said his brother as he handed over the tickets.
" AH right ? " queried the Youth.
" Doesn't look a rank outsider or anything, I mean," explained his brother. "You see, I'm dining people there myself on Friday, and we may meet."
"Oh no," reassured the Youth, "she looks all right."
Friday evening, at seven, saw the Youth in evening dress at the end of the Twists' road.
After he had been waiting for some five minutes or so, he saw, to his surprise, two figures leave the Nest and advance towards him down the road.
" What the deuce-?" he began to himself
in astonishment.
As the figures passed a lamp-post he caught a glimpse of a St. Valentine's hat-band.
"Great Scot," he half gasped, "a Valen-J39﻿A 'Varsity Man
tine's ribbon with evening dress! And who the devil's she got with her ?"
His amazement was doubled when the two figures neared him, and he found that it was not .the Governess but her companion who wore the hat-band.
"Oh, Mr. Ashby, let me introduce you to my sister Flo," said the Governess hastily. "She's been spending the day with me at the Nest, and she's meeting some friends at the Exhibition, so I thought we might go as far as there together."
The Youth bowed stiffly. He was not over-pleased. He would have preferred a tete-a-tite with the Governess in the railway carriage. Besides, the Governess's sister was not by any means a desirable - looking person. She was fatter than her sister, and distinctly coarse-looking ; to tell the truth, she resembled nothing more than a photograph from a cigarette packet. To be seen with her, in fact, was a decided "give away." And her wearing the Valentine's hat-band was a piece of unpardonable insolence. The Governess saw the Youth eyeing
it on the way to the station.
140﻿Three at the Welcome Club
"Oh, I lent Flo my hat this evening," she said, putting her hand on his arm; "you don't mind, do you ?"
The Youth replied with the compulsory polite perjury.
In the train the Youth had a better chance of inspecting the unwelcome addition to his party, and was still more disgusted. The Governess's sister exactly resembled what the Governess would have looked like in the convex mirror "after dining at Pearce's."
"What time were you to meet the Smiths at the Exhibition ? " asked the Governess.
"At half-past seven," replied her sister. "I hope to goodness they won't have gone."
Flo spoke with a distinct twang, and the Youth felt intensely irritated. Why should he be saddled with this adipose incubus ? And he began also to have his suspicions. Flo had loosened her cloak and the Youth discovered that she was in —or, rather, out of—evening dress.
Now, the Twists did not, as a rule, dress— some members of that family did not even wash —for their "high tea," and the Youth drew the
obvious inferences, and was justly infuriated.
141﻿A 'Varsity Man
At King's Cross they crossed by the subway to the Metropolitan and thence took train to Earl's Court. Several times during the journey the Governess and her sister exchanged hopes that "the Smiths" would not have given Flo up. During these loud confidences the Youth turned his face to the window and addressed silent remarks to the tunnel.
Directly they reached the entrance to the Exhibition, Flo looked round.
"Oh dear," she said, "I'm afraid they've gone."
"What time were you to have met them?" asked the Youth sternly.
" At half-past seven," said Flo.
"Then it is hardly much use expecting to find them here at half-past eight," returned the Youth, somewhat rudely.
"You'd better walk with us through the gardens, and perhaps you'll see them," suggested the Governess to Flo, ignoring the Youth's black looks.
The Youth strode without a word beside the two girls to the Western Gardens. There he
turned to the Governess.
142﻿Three at the Welcome Club
" We shall have to be going in," he said; "we're beastly late already."
" But what am I to do with my sister? " asked the Governess.
" I really don't know what she proposes to do with herself," returned the Youth with some asperity.
" You see it's such a nuisance her missing her friends," explained the Governess.
" I agree with you unreservedly," replied the Youth.
"Couldn't we take her in with us?" wheedled the Governess.
"No, we could not," said the Youth with annoyance; " the tickets only admit two, and they can't be altered."
"What is to be done?" implored the Governess. " Poor Flo has had nothing since lunch."
The Youth was silent.
"Look here," proposed the Governess, "you go in with Flo, and I'll meet you both afterwards."
The enraged Youth declared that it was absurd, and the Governess insisted. Eventually the Youth was driven to the course he had feared and avoided.
143﻿A 'Varsity Man
" I shall have to see," he said, with suppressed choler, "if I can get the three of us in."
Boiling with rage he entered the Welcome Club with one of the tickets, and discovered his brother's party. He told his brother that he found he wanted one more ticket, and his brother accompanied him to the entrance. There was no time for explanations, and his brother gave the Youth one look when • he saw Flo.
" Was that your brother ?" asked Flo when they were seated at dinner. " What a handsome Johnny!"
The Youth will probably never forget that dinner. For years after the memory of it turned him sick—the battling hues of Flo's gown, her cheap jewellery, and above all her St. Valentine's hat, which she insisted on retaining throughout the meal.
Just as the coffee arrived the Governess leapt to her feet.
"Oh, look," she cried, "there's Oliver Jones,"
and she ran across the grass to the rail which
divides the enclosure from the gardens. The
Youth looked up and saw her shaking hands
144﻿Three at the Welcome Club
across the rail with a shopwalker-like individual with a large buttonhole.
At this moment the Youth's brother and his party passed the Youth's table on their way to the basket-chairs by the rail. The Youth looked straight in front of him, and from his innermost soul cursed the Twists, the Governess, Flo, and Oliver Jones, with rigid impartiality.
He saw his brother glance at the Governess and her companion. Then the Governess came back to the Youth.
" Oh," she said, " it's Oliver Jones ; such a darling. Can't we have him in ?"
Then the Youth at last forgot himself.
" No," he said ; " I'm hanged if we do anything of the kind." The Governess looked surprised.
"Oh, as you like," she said, "then I'll go out to him." Which she did, leaving the Youth to pay the bill and follow with Flo.
Outside he was introduced to Oliver Jones, who observed that he was pleased to meet him. And the Youth was left to roam the gardens with Flo and her hat-band, while the Governess followed with Oliver Jones. Of course, the Youth passed several 'Varsity men who knew
145	K﻿A 'Varsity Man
him by sight, and appeared violently interested in Flo's hat-band.
Nor did Flo disperse the gloom to any appreciable extent by her accounts of the " fellers " who had been " mashed on her." In fact, to cut a long story short, the Youth spent an evening of mingled shame, disappointment, boredom, and agony.
As they left the grounds at eleven o'clock the Governess stopped and turned to the Youth.
" You needn't trouble to see us home," she said, " it's such a long way, and Mr. Jones will take us. He lives at Hornsey." Which struck the Youth as quite credible.
He rather abruptly cut short the Governess's effusive thanks for " such a lovely evening," and jumped into a hansom, where he quite scared the surprised driver by his unceasing flow of violent language.
But positions were quite reversed when he reached home and his brother treated him to some of his most expressive regimental diction.
In vain the Youth entered into excited explanations.
" There is absolutely no excuse," said the 146﻿Three at the Welcome Club
irate warrior, "for appearing in the company of absolute outsiders in a place where you're likely to meet friends, let alone another man's club. I don't know what your pals at the 'Varsity think about these things, but in the Service we should call you a damned young cad."
" My dear, good fool," cried the Youth angrily, " any one would think you had never spoken to a girl who wasn't a lady yourself."
"I certainly don't introduce absolute howlers to my friends' clubs," returned his brother, " nor do I go about giving my regimental colours to every rousterer I meet."
" I tell you I never meant her to have them at all," cried the exasperated Youth.
His brother kicked his boots off.
" Then all I can say is," replied his brother, " you must have made an infernal young ass of yourself."
And unhappily it could be no consolation to the Youth to know that this, probably, was by no means an unique opinion.
H7﻿CHAPTER VII
the club-tie scandal
The average man will face danger for the girl he loves; it wants a hero to incur ridicule for her sake. According to this shewing, the Youth should have the V.C. Let the reader judge for himself.
If his own convictions were reliable evidence, the Youth was in love with Maisie. Maisie, to do her justice, considered his infatuation a youthful folly and nothing more. Perhaps she was right; the Youth, at any rate, by the sacrifice he made, shewed the strength of his own belief in the illusion.
The fateful day was a Sunday. Maisie was lunching with the Smiths in Brunswick Square; so was the Youth; the Youth made sheep's eyes at her across the mahogany, and offered worded worship after lunch in the drawing-room.
148﻿The Club-Tie Scandal
" Let me take you home afterwards," he pleaded; "I go your way, you know."
"My dear boy," returned Maisie, "I'm not going home. My brother is going to call for me, and we're going on to the Mandevilles in Cavendish Square."
The Youth silently anathematised the brother, and called down the wrath of Heaven on Cavendish Square.
" Hang it," he said, " I don't know the Mandevilles."
Maisie was inwardly relieved. Boys' love is amusing, and can often be made use of, but if taken in too large quantities, it becomes somewhat tedious.
" What a pity," she sighed, and the Youth felt briefly happy. In due course the brother arrived; he shook hands with some of the guests, and then joined his sister and the Youth. He carried a straw hat, and was wearing a club tie which positively cried out with a loud voice.
" I am not going to the Mandevilles with you in that awful tie," said Maisie decisively.
149﻿A 'Varsity Man
" What rot," replied the brother with feeling —" it's my football club. Doosid good tie, isn't it, Ashby ?"
The Youth answered evasively that he liked club ties.
" I appeal to Mr. Ashby," continued Maisie. "Ought my brother to pay a formal call on Sunday in a tie like that ? "
" As he's got on a serge suit and a straw, I don't see that it matters his wearing a club tie," hazarded the Youth.
" Well I do, when it's a tie like that," returned Maisie.
"Well then, you'll have to lump it," put in the brother fraternally, " because I can't change it now."
Maisie flatly refused to allow it. The Youth's spirits began to rise. Maisie was very wilful, not to say obstinate, and he began to see an abandonment of the Cavendish Square expedition. But his pleasure was short-lived. Maisie drew him aside.
" Kiddy," she said, using the nickname endearingly, "change ties with my brother, will you r
150﻿The Club-Tie Scandal
The Youth, who was wearing a frock-coat, stared at her aghast.
" Wear a club tie with a frocker ? " he gasped in horror.
" To please me," purred Maisie.
"Oh, hang it," said the Youth, "I couldn't do that."
" Ah, well," remarked Maisie wearily, " I never thought you meant what you were saying just now. You said you'd die for me."
" I'd rather die than wear a club tie with a frocker," said the Youth; and there was not much exaggeration in this statement.
" Oh, very well," said Maisie, turning away.
"Besides," put in the Youth lamely, "there's nowhere where we could change."
"You could do it perfectly easily in the hall," returned Maisie ; " but, of course, if you'd rather not do a little thing like that for me, it doesn't matter."
"But, really," said the Youth, "there's no need. Why shouldn't your brother wear a club tie ?"
" I do not wish it," answered Maisie, unreasonably and conclusively.
I5I﻿A 'Varsity Man
" O Maisie, my dear, sweet girl," said the Youth ardently, "you know I'd do anything for you; but to wear a club tie"—he was going to add, "and a club tie like that," but checked himself—" with a frocker—Great Scot! " he broke off in horror.
"Well, what would it mean?" said Maisie petulantly. "You're going straight back to St. John's Wood, I suppose ? It's merely a question of overcoming a silly fad for about half-an-hour; but if you don't care enough for me to-"
"Maisie," said the Youth, with the light of a holy resolve in his eyes, "you couldn't have asked a greater sacrifice of me. It's a frightful thing to do—ask any man—it's quite unnecessary ; but I love you, and if only to show you how much I love you, I'll do it."
"You're a dear boy," said Maisie in secret triumph.
The Youth followed his lady-love and her brother downstairs, like a lamb led to the slaughter. He had resolved to make this sacrifice, and sacrifice it undoubtedly was. The Youth was a gentleman; the Youth was an
*52﻿The Club-Tie Scandal
undergraduate, and, what is more, the Youth was a Youth.
" Take off that tie," said Maisie to her brother, when they reached the hall.
"What on earth-"
" You are going to change ties with Mr. Ashby."
The Youth was already removing his black tie with trembling fingers. To have parted with a limb would have been a lesser sacrifice.
"Oh, dash it all," said the brother, "I'm not going to let Ashby wear my tie with a frock-coat."
" Come on, my dear chap, let's have it," said the Youth, looking with a sickly smile at a creation that might have been designed from a humming-top.
The brother looked from his sister to the Youth, and from the Youth to his sister. Maisie was accustomed to be obeyed in her own family, as elsewhere.
" Claude, will you take oft that tie ?" she said imperiously.
Claude removed his tie without further objection.
i53﻿A 'Varsity Man
" It's very good of you, Ashby," he said, as he put on the Youth's tie, "but I must say you're a beastly juggins."
When the change was completed, the brother could not contain himself. " Oh, my grand-aunt," he yelled, "you do look an outsider," and he fell up against the wall and rocked with laughter.
The maid, who was waiting to open the street door for them, giggled audibly.
Maisie withered her with a glance.
"Claude," she said, "wait for me outside. I want to speak to Mr. Ashby a minute."
Her brother paused at the door, noticing the Youth's pained look.
" I say, old chap," he said, " I can't let you do this. It's a bit too-"
" Claude," broke in Maisie, " do what I tell you."
Claude did.
" Kiddy, dear," she said to the Youth, "you're a very good boy, and I'm going to reward you. You shall have the photograph you've been begging for so long; good-bye," and she swept out, leaving the Youth struggling between joy and misery.
154﻿The Club-Tie Scandal
"Are you going out, sir?" asked the maid, with unconcealed amusement.
The Youth left the house with a futile attempt at dignity. Outside he hailed a cab, with the look of a hunted animal, and told the man to drive to Gower Street Station. He found that by turning up the collar of his frock-coat and buttoning it up—it was eighty degrees in the shade — he could exchange the appearance of vulgarity for one of lunacy, which he considered preferable.
At Gower Street he took a third-class ticket to St. John's Wood; he reckoned that, in this way, he would lessen the chance of meeting acquaintances.
As he stood on the platform, seeking to efface himself as far as possible, he was hailed by an Oxford acquaintance.
"Which way are you going?" queried the latter.
" St. John's Wood," replied the Youth.
" Oh, then, we go together to Baker Street," said the other man; " I'm for Kensington."
Accordingly, when the train came in, the 155﻿A 'Varsity Man
Youth had to get in with the other into a second-class carriage.
" I say, what on earth are you buttoned up like that for ?" asked his ill-met acquaintance.
"I have got," said the Youth, "the devil of a cold," and thanked his stars that he was known to be rather subject to influenza.
" I never knew a chap like you for colds," said the other.
"It's these beastly heat waves," hazarded the Youth wildly.
Now, it is well known that the Underground Railway Company, with a watchful eye for evildoers, has a very considerable staff of ticket inspectors. It has also been noticed by habitual travellers by "the Sewer," that it is possible to travel for months by one's rightful ticket without encountering any of these gentry, but as surely as one, owing to mischance, or, perhaps, design, travels only for one occasion by the wrong class, so surely is one overtaken by the relentless hand of "Ate" in the guise of an inspector.
The Youth's case was no exception to the 156﻿The Club-Tie Scandal
rule. At Portland Road a gold-braided minion of the Company entered the carriage.
" One penny," he said, looking at the Youth's ticket.
Now the Youth's money was in his waistcoat pocket. There was no help for it; he had to unbutton his coat, and the club tie was revealed in all its splendour.
His companion stared at him aghast, and it suddenly dawned on the Youth that he could give no explanation of his appearance. So he merely sat still and felt sick, knowing that the story would be all round the 'Varsity in the Christmas term. The other made no comment, but remarked : " I didn't know you hadn't got a second-class ticket, or I wouldn't have got in here."
"No," answered the Youth lamely, cursing his helplessness. He thought of saying that the whole thing was being done for a wager, but he felt that the excuse coming as late as this would seem rather thin. So he simply gave no explanation whatsoever. At Baker Street he left the other man with a curt goodbye. But, as he left the carriage, he recognised
i57﻿A 'Varsity Man
a figure alighting from a first-class compartment —a familiar figure that brought his heart to his mouth. Sewell, the wag; Sewell, the college clown; Sewell who would set the club-tie story circulating through every common room in the University, who would post up comments about it on college notice-boards, and send ornate and exaggerated accounts of it to The /sis.
There was but one thing to do, and the Youth did it. He turned and bolted up the steps and over the bridge as fast as his legs could carry him, determined to take his seat in the other train before Sewell, whom he knew to live at Harrow, could reach it.
He saw the train was just going to start, and faced down the steps, but the ticket-collector slammed the barrier in his face with a distinctly perceptible smile.
"You might open the gate, I'm in a hurry," gasped the Youth.
The officer's smile broadened, but he said nothing.
"Confound you, open that barrier," yelled the Youth.
158﻿The Club-Tie Scandal
The ticket - collector glanced casually at a newspaper.
The infuriated Youth gave vent to a curse, not loud but deep.
Behind him was the approaching Sewell, before him six feet of wooden barrier.
"There's 'air," remarked an epigrammatic porter on the other side of the gate, who noticed his plight. The phrase is both vulgar and pointless, but it possesses a power of irritation that borders on the supernatural.
Hitherto the Youth had wavered ; the porter's subtle aphorism settled him. He rammed his hat over his ears, then with a scramble and a clatter was over the barrier. The ticket-collector dropped his paper and his smiler at the same moment, and made for the Youth. The ticket-collector was a little man ; the Youth took him with both hands under the armpits and deposited him on his back and made for the already moving train.
The epigrammatic porter was ready to receive him. On came the Youth at the run; the porter was no Rugby football player or he would have tackled low; as it was, he went for his man's
iS9﻿A 'Varsity Man
neck. The Youth handed him off in style, and sent the man of epigram reeling backwards.
The windows of the moving train bristled with excited heads; a schoolboy, looking out of the last carriage, drew a classical parallel loudly.
Secure in victory, the Youth seized the handle of the receding door; the schoolboy opened and reached a hand to help him in. But the dauntless porter was again to the attack, and grasped the tail of the Youth's frock-coat. Back fell the Youth into the porter's arms. " As
when two lions-," yelled the classical and
receding boy, but the rest of the allusion was lost as the train disappeared.
Then the Youth turned on his assailants. The porter's first attempt to tackle him had torn open his waistcoat, and the club tie, which was a long one, hung down to his waist.
The Youth saw this, and literally foamed at the mouth; the blended colours insinuated themselves into his brain; porters, platform, and station faded from his sight, and aggressive armies of imaginary club ties danced before his gaze.
160﻿The Club-Tie Scandal
" Bang " went his left into the porter's face, and down went the epigrammatist. On came his old opponent, the ticket-collector. The Youth let him have it with his right, and the man of tickets went down.
Then the Youth, by this time a raving maniac, saw a man standing by laughing. The man was wearing a club tie. This roused the Youth's worst passions. He made a rush and aimed a terrific blow at the hitherto inactive spectator. This time the man was a boxer; he ducked, and the Youth felt a sensation as if all his teeth were being pulled out at the same time. Then he remembered nothing till he woke up with a violent pain in his head, and found himself sitting in a hansom cab with a policeman at his side.
He slept, fragmentarily, at Marylebone Police Station that night. The one friend to whom he had applied for bail was out of town, and he had refused to communicate with his people, fondly hoping that he would thus keep from them any knowledge of the affair.
He saw the folly of this in the morning, after an unpleasant interview with a facetious
161	L﻿A 'Varsity Man
magistrate, whose witticisms were more offensive to the Youth than the fine that followed them.
The affair was a positive windfall for the halfpenny evening papers, which had posters on the subject.
" VIOLENT SCENE AT BAKER STREET STATION,
An Undergraduate Runs Amuck/'
read one, while another summed up matters in a still more ingenious headline—
" PATRICIAN HOOLIGANISM, Young Oxford Blood at Marylebone."
Their accounts of the incident showed various degrees of ornate embroidery, but not a single paper omitted to give a cruelly accurate description of the Youth's dress. "The prisoner," they said, " appeared in court in a frock-coat, with which he wore a club tie." One journal asserted that he wore his college colours.
All this made matters unpleasant for the 162﻿The Club-Tie Scandal
Youth next term at Oxford. "If he wants to fight porters," was the verdict of his college, "let him. But to give the 'Varsity away by
wearing a club tie with a frocker-" Further,
Sewell, who had been in at the death as it were, and witnessed with delight part of the conflict at Baker Street, gave vivid descriptions of the tie. "It was an object," he averred, "in comparison with which the Union Jack would look funereal."
And all this the Youth suffered patiently and without explanation. " Maisie's photograph," he thought, " will be my reward." He bought a big frame and hung it over his bed. " I will have it enlarged," he thought, "when it comes, and it shall hang here."
He wrote to her and reminded her of her promise. In a fortnight he got an answer in which she told him she was engaged. A postscript informed him that when she was photographed he should certainly have a copy.
" Forgive me," he wrote back, " for reminding you. I know you will keep your word, and I will wait."
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Which shews that, if the Youth was a hero, he was a very young hero indeed. He continued to wait.
"Hang it all," he said, "a promise is a promise."
Which, after all, is literally true.
164﻿CHAPTER VIII
the runaway girls
Of all the blessings which the gods have bestowed upon mortals there is none so thoroughly satisfactory as misery—of a certain type. We do not mean real tangible misery like unsatisfied hunger or a visit to the dentist's, but the evanescent pale blue article, which requires soft music and a full stomach to make it perfect— the misery of a disappointed love.
The worst of a reciprocal attachment is that, however much it may flatter your vanity, it is —or ought to be—a bar to other philanderings. Now when you have lost the only girl you ever loved, there are no inconvenient restrictions of this kind. Obviously the only thing to do is to embark on a career of promiscuous flirtation, in order to forget. These flirtations may be made very enjoyable while you are in the mood for them; then at such times as you are sur-
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feited, and the new loves begin to pall, you have only to wait for a fairly passable sunset or an average bit of moonlight to be transported to a paradise of tender regrets for the things that might have been. Yes, there is no doubt that it is in every way a delightful arrangement.
The Youth began, though quite unconsciously, to discover the truth of this during the October term beginning his second year at the 'Varsity. Maisie, it must be confessed, had behaved decidedly badly to the Youth after his act of heroism with regard to the club tie. After her long silence the news of her engagement, which arrived just before the middle of the term, added the last touch to his despair. He fancied himself not a little as the man whose romance in life was over, and when alone with the Cynic he darkly hinted at suicide, and was subtly happy.
" It's no use," he sighed ; " I can't forget her." Which may be considered as providential, since by so doing he would have lost his largest source of enjoyment. The Cynic, who understood the Youth's character rather more than his own, was
alive to this, and proceeded to rub it in.
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"You don't want to forget her, mon ami he observed unkindly. "You've got what Kipling calls the 'tender twilight feeling,' and you mean to wallow in it. Of course you don't want to forget her. Think what a loss it would be. Fancy listening to the Blue Hungarians and having no soft sentimental affair of this kind to mourn about."
" I find it quite impossible," interposed the Youth, "to fancy listening to the Blue Hungarians while the town band is butchering ' San Toy' in King Edward Street."
The Cynic disregarded this irrelevant interruption. He remembered the Youth's hints at self-annihilation, which had provided him with food for thought on the tow-path. The Cynic did not believe in wasting good stuff by silence.
"Your sentiment, mon cher," he observed,
"is like your footer. You will insist on playing
in the gallery. I know those gallery runs of
yours right across the field into touch. How
the crowd cheers and how your captain curses.
Now you are playing to the gallery of your own
sentiment. You see yourself on the stage, as
it were, striding on, with your eyeballs in [one
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corner, preparatory to a suicide act before an admiring audience. Life," continued the Cynic, somewhat disconnectedly, "is a comic opera.
As for your sentiment-"
" Now why on earth," put in the Youth, who was beginning to get annoyed, " why on earth is life a comic opera ? "
"Well—er—it isn't even a comedy," remarked
the Cynic vaguely. "Your sentiment is-"
"But why," persisted the irritated Youth, "is life a comic opera ? "
"That's all it is," returned the Cynic. "The
music is—er—I mean the—er—lyrics are-"
The Cynic got up and selected another cigar. "At any rate your sentiment is a rubbish heap, and you're trying to empty it over the girl."
" I may be apt to exaggerate things," said the Youth, "but that doesn't prove they're all false. Treasure has been found in rubbish heaps before now."
There was a long pause, and the Youth gazed
dreamily out into the dusky quad.
" What was that you said about treasure ?"
inquired the Cynic nonchalantly.
"Oh, treasure has been found in dust heaps 168﻿The Runaway Girls
before now," returned the Youth, getting up and donning a "tunnel" cap.
"Treasure been found in rubbish heaps?" repeated the Cynic, following him to the door; "yes, but people who grub about in them to find it are apt to get dirty in the process. Besides, you are like the child who grubs about in the rubbish heaps, not so much to find the hidden treasure, as for the sake of the grubbing."
As weeks went by, and the promised photograph did not arrive, the Youth gradually-assumed a tone of strenuous cynicism, and cultivated a "blighted career and belief in the sex gone for ever " expression.
"Is there any necessity," asked the Cynic, "to take the matter seriously? Life is a game of musical chairs ; flirtation is the music. Maisie was very happy to move round the chairs with you, for a time, to such an accompaniment; but the music suddenly stops, Maisie sits down next to Mr.—er-"
"Jones," put in the Youth, with ineffable disgust.
" Maisie sits down next to Mr. Jones, and
you—are out. Life is a game of musical chairs."
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" Life seems to be a good many things," said the Youth, with some malice. "A short time ago it was a comic opera. Now it's musical chairs. It'll be tiddleywinks next."
"Not at all a bad parallel—" began the Cynic.
" Oh, go to the devil," cried the Youth.
"All in good time," said the Cynic.
Now from all this it is quite obvious that the correct line for the Youth to follow under the circumstances was an ostentatious attempt at oblivion. This attempt the Youth might, of course, have made by applying himself assiduously to his work for Honour Mods., of which, after his congenial Long Vacation, there was a sufficient quantity to swamp in forgetfulness, if necessary, the love affairs of a whole college.
The Youth, however, scorned to turn his misery to so mercenary a use, and preferred instead to seek oblivion in a wild course of comparatively harmless dissipation. Unhappily, however, card-parties and window-breaking and Terpsichorean orgies in the quad, whatever temporary oblivion they may bring to the undergraduate, are apt to induce no similar effect upon
the dons, who have an uncomfortable way of
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sitting tight until the "Viva" at the end of the term, when the unhappy young man, particularly if he be an Exhibitioner or a Scholar, as in the Youth's case, will be suddenly confronted with an amazingly accurate list of his term's misdoings. The Youth had had some experience already of the dons' childish bigotry in this respect, and ought to have taken warning. But when a man is bowed under the most terrible blow that fate can deal, he really cannot be expected to study every puerile fad of a party of groovey old fossils.
It was towards the end of November that the " Runaway Girl" Company visited Oxford. Relations between the Youth and the dons were already strained enough. At the beginning of the term the Youth's tutor, who, in spite of his reputed senility, still possessed some faint glimmerings of sanity, had inquired of the Youth to what portion of his Mods, work he had given himself most during the Vacation—Virgil, Homer, &c., or his special books ? The Youth, scenting examination, had observed that he had not devoted his time so much to one portion of his work in
particular, as to obtaining a general grasp of the
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subjects as a whole, and his tutor had smiled a steely smile. Again, there was a look in the Dean's eye whenever he passed the Youth in the quad, which suggested that he was not ignorant as to who was responsible for the nightly revelry on the Youth's staircase, and the Youth feared that he more than suspected the truth about the bombardment of the Treasurer's window with Roman candles. However that may have been, it was quite certain that the Youth was quite as deeply implicated as was necessary, without the " Runaway Girl" business to make matters worse.
The Youth and the Cynic went together to the first night of the " Runaway Girl." The Youth was struck with a Venetian peasant, and announced to the Cynic his intention of standing her a lunch. The Cynic observed that for the Youth's sake he would consent to form a partie carrde by asking a Cook's tourist, for whom he had a solely artistic admiration, she putting him in mind of a Greuze. The Youth consulted the programme ; the object of his own fascination he concluded to be Miss Mabel Gloster; the name
of the Greuze was Birdie Bunting.
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Accordingly the jocund menial at the stage door was entrusted in the interval with a missive to Miss Gloster, asking the pleasure of her and Miss Bunting's company to lunch at St. Valentine's the next day. After the show was over the hospitable pair hurried round to the affluent guardian of the gates, who delivered them a billet from the fair Mabel accepting their invitation.
" I hope to goodness I shan't be very bored," said the languid Cynic, lighting a cigarette.
" My dear chap, it's quite your own affair; you needn't have asked her," replied the Youth.
" Que voulezvous ?" observed the Cynic. "// fautpasser le temps"
"Not necessarily with Birdie Bunting," returned the Youth.
The ladies came to St. Valentine's the next day, and the luncheon party, from the Youth's point of view, was not altogether a success. The one great obstacle to the Youth's complete happiness was the fact that Miss Mabel Gloster turned out to be not the Venetian peasant whom he had so admired, but a perfectly different damsel of the type whose many years do
i73﻿A 'Varsity Man
not inspire respect. The Cynic, for his part, curiously enough, seemed quite satisfied; though his Greuze did ask him if he had seen that week's Tricky Bits, and on his acknowledging the omission, excused him on the grounds that "perhaps he was not fond of reading." But the Youth suffered all the disappointments of the man who gets a spurious article instead of what he sent for, and when he thought of his term's Battels, felt acutely this waste of his substance.
However, he had set his heart on his Venetian peasant, and was not to be discouraged by failure. That same night he again went to the theatre—all seats being booked, he had to pay another man double before he could persuade him to give up his stall—and this time took care that there should be no mistake about the real genuine Venetian peasant. She was a pretty little girl, with sweet dark eyes, and the Youth told her in his note where he was sitting, and was rewarded with several blinking glances. As the Youth crushed through the lobby after the performance he was brought shoulder to shoulder with Marriner, of his own
i74﻿The Runaway Girls
college, for whose benefit, it may be remembered, it had been found necessary in the summer term to nearly strangle the St. Luke's cox with a twenty-three-in. corset.
The Youth avoided Marriner's eye, not without reason, for he had constituted a unit of the uninvited symposium that had played Oranges and Lemons in Marriner's rooms at three o'clock in the morning, to the subsequent exultation of the glazier.
" I say, Ashby," exclaimed the spectacled Lovelace, whom the supposititious blandishments of the St. Luke's cox did not seem to have deterred from further conquests, " I've got Birdie Bunting coming to lunch."
" What!—the Greuze ? " said the Youth.
" The how much ? " queried Marriner.
" The damsel with the open-work stockings," amended the Youth.
"That's her," replied Marriner. "I hear
you've got some one coming yourself. I wonder
if you'd let me lunch her in your rooms and
make four. You see, the man's not coming to
do my windows till the afternoon "—(the Youth
looked innocent)—"and I'm too broke to take
i75﻿A 'Varsity Man
her to the Clarendon, so if you'd make it a party in your rooms we might drive 'em to Woodstock in the afternoon. I've got tick at Fletcher's, and can manage that."
The Youth felt that on the whole this wouldn't be a bad arrangement, as he could get Marriner to order in the fizz as well, so he agreed to the proposition.
Next morning, at about half-past nine, as the Youth was peacefully slumbering, there was a knock at the door of his " bedder," and a stalwart figure appeared in his room. The Youth, forgetting the earlier visit of his scout, and hearing a footstep, observed sleepily that he would have eggs and bacon, and turned over on his other side.
" Come out of it," remarked the visitor, and stripped the Youth's bedclothes on to the back rail of the bed. The Youth opened sleepy eyes, and observed the Captain of the Boat Club.
"Rowing at two to-day, instead of two-thirty," said that dignitary. The Youth swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up.
" I say, Clinton," he said, " I'm afraid I can't
row to-day, I've got an engagement."
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" Oh, rot, you absolutely must come down," insisted the Captain, "we're rowing the fours off on Monday."
"I'm sorry I can't; I've got people coming to lunch, and I've got to take them about in the afternoon," said the Youth.
" Have you," asked the oarsman, " got relatives in the ' Runaway Girl Company' ? "
" I said people," corrected the Youth.
"Yes, and you mean a mob of beastly chorus-girls," returned the Captain. " It's all rot this actress tomfoolery interfering with your duty to your college on the river. Put them off till Sunday."
" They'll have gone on Sunday," ventured the Youth.
"Well then you'll have to chuck them altogether," said the Captain with some heat; "I'm hanged if I'm going to have this chorus-girl piffle keeping men from the river. And then you'll half of you go and get sent down before the Toggers. You'll have to put them off altogether."
The Youth replied with proper feeling that he
could not be downright rude to people whatever
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their profession, and the angered Captain retired abruptly, and running into Marriner outside, and recognising him as a squire of theatrical dames, applied to him some descriptive word-painting which would have put Aristophanes himself to the blush.
After his fender-warmed breakfast the Youth,
assisted by Marriner, directed the college cook
to put forth his best efforts in the way of a
luncheon for four, and then proceeded to the
stables, where Marriner chartered a dogcart, and
of course, being a singularly poor whip, a tandem.
The vehicle was to await them outside St.
Valentine's at 2.15. Then the Youth, in Mar-
riner's name, ordered at Forrest's a regal supply
of wines—Miss Bunting was an amazing thirsty
Greuze—and dessert and chocolates in prodigal
profusion. After this the Youth, who had cut
three lectures that morning, thus losing three
hours' possible cultivation of the classic tongues,
made up for this by buying some menu cards
and Gallicising some of the cook's promised
items. The Cynic looking in at this moment,
the Youth derived some satisfaction from proving
that Marriner, who had spent the summer in the
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south of France, could give the Cynic points in menu-glot. Nor was the Cynic over-pleased to find that Marriner—Marriner !—was to be cavalier to the lady whom yesterday he himself had honoured with his attentions. Then the Youth changed his waistcoat, gave a glance at a picture on the wall, where he appeared in a gorgeous cap, nursing a football as Captain of his house team at CI iff borough, and felt that all was ready.
They had arranged to meet the ladies by the lodge at a quarter to one, thus avoiding the crowd of lecturers and lectured, that would fill the quad at one. Thus a quarter to one saw the Youth and Marriner lounging with studied nonchalance by the bicycle stand. The Cynic also was there, standing by Marriner, that Miss Bunting might not be spared a wistful comparison between to-day and yesterday.
"They're late," said Marriner, consulting his watch.
"When a woman is punctual," observed the Cynic (Marriner's remark was not quite unforeseen), " let him that is in Judaea flee to the
mountains. Besides, you needn't be in such a
179﻿A 'Varsity Man
hurry, mon ami, if you are going to be as much bored as I was yesterday."
" She would never bore me," asserted Mar-riner, "with those ankles."
" I was not referring," remarked the Cynic, " to any act of physical perforation."
"Even though Miss Bunting's extremities are not unlike a pair of bradawls," added the Youth.
The Youth ducked, and Marriner's missile (he felt that he was being ragged, though he did not quite understand it all) hit the under porter who was coming from the Senior Tutor's staircase.
"Mr. Wing'd like to speak to you, sir," he said to the Youth.
"What's the wheeze ?" asked Marriner.
"Oh, I don't know," said the Youth. "Say you couldn't find me," he added to the porter.
"He saw you from his window, sir," answered the man.
" Oh, hang the man," said the Youth irritably, " what's he want to see me for now ? "
"Cut him," advised the Marriner, "cut the Wagger any day."
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" He'll only send for me to my rooms and interrupt lunch," replied the Youth. " Take them up, if they come before I'm down ;" and hurriedly borrowing a scholar's gown which happened to be in the lodge, he hurried off to his tutor's rooms.
Mr. Wing, Senior Tutor of St. Valentine's, who knew more probably about Homeric Syntax than any man living, and was correspondingly useless for all purposes of practical tuition, was seated at a table positively submerged beneath a sea of papers and books. It was now the sixth week of term, and as Mr. Wing's pupils were supposed to bring him two classical compositions a week, the Youth should by right have had some dozen proses and verses corrected by his tutor by this time. As a matter of fact, none save the most industrious of the Senior Tutor's pupils ever thought of favouring him with more than three or four compositions a term. The Youth, so far, had kept going on two pieces of work which he had copied from another man at the beginning of the term. As the Senior Tutor corrected in pencil, the only
trouble necessary before showing up a prose as
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a fresh piece of work was that of erasing the good gentleman's last week's annotations. It was asserted in St. Valentine's that a certain Greek Prose once originated by a scholar during Mr. Wing's first term as tutor of St. Valentine's (some thirty-five years previously), had been copied out and kept going as a kind of heirloom by that tutor's pupils ever since.
Mr. Wing on this occasion had before him a Latin and a Greek Prose in the handwriting of the Youth—old friends of almost prehistoric origin. He looked up on the Youth's entrance and wetted his pencil. (It will be a sad day for St. Valentine's when Mr. Wing takes it into his head to use red ink.)
" Oh, Mr. Ashby," he remarked, "I have some compositions of yours here, which I think we might look through, as I see you have nothing else to do."
The Youth, whose mind on the stairs had been busy, was quite ready for an emergency.
" I am sorry," he answered, " but could you arrange some other time ? I have people coming to lunch. Er—my aunt."
" Lady Dawkes?" inquired the Senior Tutor.
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The Youth remembered to his satisfaction that his tutor had once had the doubtful pleasure of meeting the lady in question. This only helped him in his excuse. He answered in the affirmative. He added that he had had to give up the river in order to show his aunt round a bit in the afternoon.
" Then we must put off your proses till later," said the Senior Tutor. " I hope Lady Dawkes is well?"
" My aunt/' returned the Youth, who prided himself on being an artist wherever it was possible, "has a slight headache after the journey, but is otherwise well," and congratulated himself as he escaped down the staircase.
When he reached the quad he glanced at the lodge, and saw that the patient Marriner was still waiting. The Cynic's place had been taken by Sewell, whose name will be remembered in connection with the club tie incident ; Sewell had somehow got wind of the projected luncheon party, and his attitude plainly denoted that he was ragging Marriner. He hailed the Youth's arrival with exaggerated expressions of servile obeisance.
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"Please, Ashby, d'you mind being seen talking to me when you've got those boots on ?" he begged. " What a terrific couple of bloods! Ah, Marriner, you're a ' dorg,' you know ; you can't deny it; you're a gay young dorg. You might have put on the frocker, Ashby, old man."
The Youth darkened. The one point on which he could not stand being ragged was the frocker and the club-tie business, and Sewell, recognising this, had fostered the remembrance of the affair as a young and tender plant.
"You might put on the club tie," continued Sewell. "No feminine heart, I feel sure, could resist it. I saw a sweet thing in frockers this morning, in a window in St. Ebbes, that would have done you well. Genuine West End misfit, coat and vest, fifteen and sixpence net-"
At this moment there was a rustle of silk-lined skirts, and the original one and only Venetian peasant stepped in at the gate, accompanied by the Greuze in an Authentics hat-band. The Youth and Marriner greeted them with ceremony, and escorted them through the quad —rash proceeding!—and up the staircase to
the Youth's rooms. The Youth relieved the
184﻿The Runaway Girls
Venetian peasant of her cloak while Marriner performed a similar office for the Greuze.
"Who," asked the Venetian with some interest, "was the good-looking fellow standing in the entrance when we came in ?"
" Oh, a man called Sewell," returned the Youth. " Not a bad chap, but rather wearying."
" He's awfully nice-looking," responded the girl, and a silence followed, one of those uncomfortable, constrained silences which are so frequent in entertainments of this kind—before the meal.
The scout had not yet brought in the lunch, and the Youth and his Venetian stood looking out of the window into the quad, while Marriner informed Miss Bunting in repeated paraphrases that the " Runaway Girl" was ripping. A noisy group of St. Valentine's men in cap and gown, just returned from lectures, were bombarding a window at the opposite side of the quad with "bread commons." This is a pastime which, at St. Valentine's, has lapsed from a frequent diversion into an item of daily routine, but the porter has not ceased to blaspheme as he gathers up the fragments.
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" Isn't that Sewell, the boy at the opposite window ?" asked the Venetian.
The Youth replied with a casual affirmative; he was beginning to get tired of the lady's interest in Sewell. As he spoke, Sewell left his window and in a few seconds issued into the quad, running the gauntlet of a cereal fusillade. He motioned to his enemies, and they gathered in a group round him, and some of them began to glance at the Youth's window.
" I believe they're talking about us," said the Venetian, turning to the Youth. At this moment there was a roar of laughter from the group, and they all looked up at the Youth's rooms.
" I wonder when they're going to bring that lunch ?" said the Youth hastily, moving away from the window, uncomfortably suspicious that some rag was being got up by the incorrigible Sewell.
"He's rather a saucy boy, Sewell, isn't he?" observed the Venetian.
" I wish they'd bring the lunch," said the Youth, looking at his watch, and suppressing a wish as to Sewell's psychical futurity.
" Here comes your scout," exclaimed Marriner 186﻿The Runaway Girls
suddenly, as a footstep was heard on the stairs.
"What's the odds," observed the Youth, "that he attends to every one on the staircase before us?"
But the Youth's fears were groundless, for the step drew nearer and nearer until it reached the Youth's door, and there was a knock.
" Come in," called the Youth.
It was rather inhospitable of him to look displeased when Sewell entered.
"Oh, I beg pardon, Ashby," remarked Sewell, stepping in and closing the door after him; "I didn't know you were engaged."
Sewell was possessed of a brazen effrontery that was more than extraordinary; it marked an epoch.
The Youth begged of him not to mention it, in a tone which suggested that he would not break his heart if Sewell departed.
" I left a pipe in here," continued Sewell, advancing into the room. "I'll take it if you don't mind."
An imaginary pipe is necessarily difficult to
discover, but there was no need really for the
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Venetian to assist Sewell to look for it. Of course eventually the Youth was compelled to introduce.
" Not a bad quad our middle one, Miss de Winter, eh?" observed Sewell with his back to the mantelpiece.
The Venetian said it was lovely, and playfully inquired why he threw bread about in it.
" I don't think your pipe can be here, Sewell," said the Youth uncompromisingly.
" Must have left it somewhere else," remarked Sewell, sitting astride a chair and beginning to descant to the Venetian on the place of bread-throwing among the fine arts.
The Youth stepped out on to the landing. He heard his scout moving about below.
" Gabe," he yelled, " buck up with that lunch."
Gabe mounted a few steps.
" I thought, sir," he said, "I wouldn't bring up the lunch till the wine came."
"Great Scot," cried the Youth, "do you mean to say they haven't sent the wine?"
" No, sir."
The Youth ran back to his rooms and picked 188﻿The Runaway Girls
up a cap. It did not soothe his annoyance to see the Venetian in fits of laughter at Sewell's drolleries.
"The idiots haven't sent the wine," he exclaimed ; "I shall have to go and see about it," and hurried off downstairs.
He walked quickly to the Turl, heartily cursing Forrest's, with side-shots at Sewell. Forrest told him the wine had been sent off five minutes before, and was probably in his rooms by now. It was nearly half-past one when he reached St. Valentine's. Marriner hailed him from the window.
"Right oh, Ashby. The wine's here."
The Youth found his scout at the foot of the stairs with his lunch, and after inspecting it, to see that it was all right, he ran up to his rooms. Much to his annoyance, Sewell was still there, sitting with the Venetian by the fire-place, Marriner and Miss Bunting occupying the window-seat.
"Mr. Sewell's been telling me about the club tie," exclaimed the damsel. " Did you really get a month's hard ? "
The Youth laughed—as he had laughed when 189﻿A 'Varsity Man
he missed the peg of the hammer-machine at the fair.
There had perhaps been some slight humour in the club-tie incident, but Sewell's account of the affair was a genuine classic in farcical narrative.
" Lunch is ready at last," announced the Youth.
Sewell rose slowly.
"Ah, well, I suppose I must be going," he observed, and the Youth was stonily acquiescent.
"You aren't staying to lunch then?" remarked the Venetian, who knew perfectly well that he was not. The Youth proved that the unnecessary moving of a soda-water syphon from one table to another is a singularly engrossing operation.
"Perhaps I shall see you later on," said the girl to Sewell after a fruitless pause, and their eyes met in a look of mutual admiration. The Youth felt that sinking sensation inseparable from a vulnerable vanity.
"Oh, do come," called Miss Bunting from the window-seat, "and look at these two old fogies in the quad."
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Sewell turned back from the door with promptitude and crossed to the window-seat.
" By Jove, reg'lar couple of Prehistoric Peeps," he observed.
" Why, I do believe they're coming to this staircase," exclaimed the Venetian, leaning over Sewell's shoulder.
The Youth walked over to the window, and glanced out; then recoiled suddenly.
"Good Gad," he shrieked, "it's my aunt. And they're coming up here."
Sewell observed that he would be pleased to be introduced. The fearful nature of the situation simply paralysed the Youth for some moments. His aunt and uncle were Dissenters of the deepest dye; his fair guests were—well, Dissenters of a very different class, though Miss Bunting was in more than one sense of the deepest dye. He dashed out of the room, Sewell kindly engaging, unasked, to take care of Miss de Winter until his return.
Halfway down the staircase he nearly upset the scout with the lunch. At the bottom he
met his aunt and uncle.
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"Good gracious, Aunt Mary," he exclaimed in pleased surprise.
Lady Dawkes kissed him, and he shook hands with Sir Martin.
" Were you just off somewhere ?" asked his uncle.
"I'm on my way to see my tutor," said the Youth. "If only I'd known you were coming I could of course have arranged some other time."
"Oh, it doesn't matter," put in his aunt, turning to mount the stairs, " we can wait for you in your rooms."
The Youth almost threw himself in the way.
" Oh—er—I'm afraid you can't very well go to my rooms at present," he said hastily, "there's a meeting of the Browning Society going on there."
"Never mind," said his uncle, "we can go back to the Mitre and see you later."
The Youth breathed again.
" That'll be excellent, if you don't mind," he said. "I'll just see you as far as the lodge."
As they left the middle quad, there was a
burst of merriment from the Browning Society,
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followed by the popping of a champagne cork. Luckily for the Youth his companions were not very keen of hearing, for the good knight was a rigid, or rather aggressive, teetotaller, while his worthy spouse's convictions were unmistakably anti-Thespian.
Now for the Youth to see his aunt and uncle as far as the lodge was, under the circumstances, a wise precaution, provided that one particular thing did not occur. Needless to say that one thing did. The Senior Tutor was posting a letter in the lodge; Lady Dawkes stopped and was greeted with courtesy. The Youth recognised the finger of fate.
"Mr. Wing," he groaned, "Sir Martin Dawkes."
The Senior Tutor inquired if they had already lunched, and the Youth's aunt said " Yes."
"And the head?" inquired the Senior Tutor solicitously. The Youth's aunt looked puzzled.
" How," repeated the Senior Tutor, "is your head?"
Lady Dawkes' expression indicated that she suspected insanity.
" Only this morning I was telling Mr. Wing 193	N﻿A 'Varsity Man
what bad headaches you always have after travelling," put in the Youth.
The Youth's aunt looked gratified, and embarked upon a list of her ailments since the age of one and a half. When she arrived at the diseases of discretion the brave knight interposed.
" But we mustn't keep you and my nephew," he said, turning to the Senior Tutor, "he tells me you have work to do together."
" Oh, that can keep. No doubt your nephew would like to be with you this afternoon," observed the courteous Tutor.
The Youth was on the horns of a dilemma, and they were uncommonly sharp. It was doubtful which presented the greater difficulties to escape, his senile Tutor or his austere relatives. Meanwhile Sewell was sunning himself in the smiles of the fair Venetian : possibly he was eating the Youth's lunch. The Youth's silence was not the silence of stoical insensibility, but of infuriated impotence.
" Oh no, we wouldn't stand in the way of
Hugh's work for anything," exclaimed the Youth's
aunt. "If you will let us know when you have
194﻿The Runaway Girls
finished we will come back again. I shall be only too glad of half-an-hour or so's rest at the hotel."
The Senior Tutor said that half-an-hour would be ample time for him, and the Youth's relatives departed, promising to be back by about half-past two.
The Youth made one wild effort at an escape which could only have been temporary.
"I'll fetch my gown," he suggested.
" Never mind the gown, Mr. Ashby," smiled the benignant Tutor, "we will for once ignore the traditions of the University."
To any one who has ever known Mr. Wing, or a Fellow of a College like him, a description of the next half-hour is unnecessary. The Senior Tutor meandered on about Sequence of Tenses, and the use of Conditionals in Oratio Obliqua until the Youth thought he would go mad with impatience and exasperation. When the clock pointed to a quarter-past two he heard the sound of a vehicle stopping outside in St. Valentine's Street. After this more talk about the Optative, with and without the particle. Then the sound
of Marriner's voice outside, and a confused talk
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about "leader" and "wheeler." Then Sewell's tones, and a feminine laugh. Then some calls of "Ashby."
"Will you excuse me for a minute, I believe Sewell wants to speak to me ?" interrupted the Youth in desperation.
" I shall have finished in a few minutes," returned the Senior Tutor, who had no great love for Sewell. It was that worthy who, in a Confession Book belonging to the Senior Tutor's daughter, had designated his pet aversion as "Toads and Tutors ; also slugs."
Even as Mr. Wing commenced a desultory discourse on the extinct digamma (nothing whatsoever to do with the prose in question), there was an "All right, sir," from the ostler, a jingle of harness, and the Browning Society rattled off up King Edward Street.
Ten minutes afterwards the Youth dashed out into the quad in an almost foam-flecked condition. In the lodge he found a note from Sewell:—
" As you didn't turn up, took pot luck with your party. Marriner says we can't hang about the lodge, so have gone on. Follow us on to
Woodstock.—A. E. S."
196﻿The Runaway Girls
The Youth walked about the lodge and delivered an unflagging monologue of five minutes' duration. The porter looked at him with the reverence of the vainly striving disciple. I will not venture to chronicle what the Youth said, but a freshman who was present refused to believe afterwards that the Youth was not a rowing coach.
Then the Youth dragged a bicycle from the stand —it afterwards turned out to belong to the Blue for throwing the hammer—and set out, cursing, for the Woodstock Road. As he scorched down the High he passed his aunt and uncle coming out of the Mitre, and pretended not to see them. Turning sharply into the Corn his tyre skidded on the greasy road and he fell with a crash. He rose badly bruised and covered with mud, and found his bicycle looking like a Chinese puzzle. He returned to St. Valentine's with part of the machine round his neck and the rest in his pockets. Some B.N.C. men whom he knew called to him from a window in the High to stop, as they had some knives that wanted sharpening. In St. Valentine's Street he met the Cynic.
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"You seem, mon ami" observed the Cynic, "to have been having a mauvais quart d'heure. Where are the others ?"
The Youth, without giving any information as to their whereabouts at the time being, expressed florid hopes as to their ultimate destination.
" I've just been up to your rooms," continued the Cynic ; " I don't want you to think I've been prying, but there's a card there from a Sir Martin Dawkes, bearing a message which contains, I think, the elements of humour."
The Youth hurried to his rooms. The scout had not yet cleared the lunch things, and champagne bottles seemed to fill the room. A bust of Antinous—a gift from the Cynic—had been arrayed in the Youth's cap and gown; stuck in the looking-glass was Miss de Winter's acceptance of the Youth's invitation, and in the 'centre of the mantelpiece was a photograph of Miss Bunting, dressed in the middle (to represent a jolly huntsman), which had been given to him the day before; and, of course, his other photographs had not been pruned down and expurgated, as was usual when he expected a visit from relations.
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Lady Dawkes' message, inscribed upon Sir Martin's card, with its mention of "orgie" and "drinking-bout," and its juxtaposition of "low actresses" and " Browning Society," which had struck the Cynic as so humorous, did not have a similar effect upon the Youth.
Nor did the letter from his mother which followed.
Nor did the forced interview, in which the Dean informed him that his last rowdy luncheon party had not been unnoticed, and that Scholarships were not immutable.
Nor did his conversation with the Captain of the Boat Club.
"Look here, Ashby," began the irate Clinton, "you cut the river because you say you've got the people coming to lunch, and it's really because you want to go cycling."
Also the effort of keeping out of the way of the hammer Blue for the rest of the term did not appeal to the Youth's sense of the ludicrous.
And he was biassed enough not to perceive
the humour in the Venetian's letter (enclosed in
one to Sewell), thanking him for the lunch, and
remarking what a pity it was that he had not
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been able to come to Woodstock (where they had had a scrumptious time), but that Mr. Sewell had been very kind.
Thus, as the Cynic pointed out, the Youth's life's tragedy was in one way an advantage, since one who had sustained such a blow as the loss of "the one woman" naturally could not be affected by such bagatelles as these.
Of course not.
All the same, though, little things do annoy one.
200﻿CHAPTER IX
an adventure at slater's
When the Christmas Vacation came round there were two features in the Youth's condition which were more prominent than any others: the one was that he had an almost superhuman amount of work before him if he wished to take anything like a decent class in Honour Mods., the other was that his heart was broken. The one difficulty he "looked in the face with fortitude— and passed on," to the other he devoted the most assiduous attention.
In all the bravery of town garb, he called at the familiar house at Campden Hill, only to be informed that Maisie was not at home—a statement which was not the less conclusive because he had caught a glimpse of her on the balcony as he advanced to the doorstep. Once he passed her in Kensington High Street. She was accompanied by the favoured being to
2 O I﻿A 'Varsity Man
whom she had chosen to entrust her happiness—-she had deliberately entrusted her happiness to a man who wore a squash hat—and the Youth, in the few seconds of passing, had striven to direct at the man a look of supercilious contempt combined with patrician indifference, and at the same time to raise to Maisie the hat of despairing adoration, tempered by proud but bitter reproach, while also conveying the notion of cynical disillusionment.
Unhappily, he found that this required rather more time than that usually taken by a passing salutation, and Maisie's very ordinary bow could not be construed by the Youth to mean anything in particular. He had hoped that she would blush, or turn pale, or look appealing, or even defiant: and as it was, she seemed perfectly self-possessed, and not in the least impressed with the seriousness of the situation. And the man was looking the other way, and had not even seen the Youth. It is bad enough to have had all the sunshine go out of one's life and to be left with the withered relics of one's once happy youth, but to suffer all this
and not to have it noticed, is simply intolerable.
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After this the Youth pondered hazy dreams of going to the dogs, of bursting out into some vague excesses, of staggering with wild companions, where Maisie would meet him and see what she had made of him : of his dazed start of recognition, of her pained glance of tender reproach, of his reckless laugh as he resumed his course of undefined devilry, his young life ruined by a woman's heartlessness. But then, of course, there was the possibility of his being taken off to the police-station without Maisie's ever even entering the picture.
Then he began to haunt the neighbourhood
of Campden Hill on the chance ot meeting her.
Nor was this policy a successful one. Twice
he passed her with her squash-hatted cavalier:
on the third occasion she was alone, and he
managed that she should stop. She inquired
of him how he was getting on at Oxford, and
admired his tie, and when he asked her if she
had forgotten so soon, she exclaimed that she
really had nearly forgotten that she was due at
the Wareham-Prices at four o'clock, and hurried
off. Then when he persisted in dogging her,
her attitude became colder, and once, when he
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followed her into a 'bus, she cut him dead, with the result that the Youth got out hastily and sat down on a seat in Kensington Gardens, and sunk his head in his hands, and peered through his fingers at the departing 'bus to see if she was looking. It was on this occasion that he was guilty of a metrical felony with the refrain:—
" Hark, hark, What's that sound within the park ? 'Tis the autumn leaves a-falling In the park."
He showed this to the Cynic, who read the first two lines of the refrain, and suggested that it was the ducks in the Serpentine, or perhaps a stray stump orator, and tried to set the verse to the tune of " On the Benches," and though the Youth laughed he was secretly annoyed* Thus did the Youth tear open his bleeding heart whenever it showed signs of healing up.
One afternoon the Youth had an appointment
with the Cynic at Slater's in Piccadilly at five
o'clock. The Cynic had stuck out for one of
the Bond Street establishments, as being the ,
only places " in England" where the motif of
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tea as an institution was really understood. "Tea," he observed, "is not a meal: it is an aesthetic effect," and the Youth, in argument, asked him if he had ever been to a school treat. "Or if you were acquainted with some people we know of the name of Twist," added the Youth, " you might reconsider your opinion." The Cynic replied that he was not speaking of what is, but what ought to be, and declined to drink tea in a place where he had to have his money taken by a person in a glass case. " I do not believe," he said, "in your up-to-the-back-teeth-for-fourpence business. I object on principle to lockharting." The Youth, whose ulterior motive in voting for Slater's was the chance of a glimpse of Maisie, who had once told him that she frequented the place after going to matintes, refused to pay two shillings for two pieces of bread - and - butter and an imitation Wedgwood teapot, even though served by an Oriental lady with Titian tresses. Eventually, in that he was the more sincere of the two in motive, he carried his point, and the Cynic consented to rough it for once.
The Youth had spent the afternoon lounging 205﻿A 'Varsity Man
about Bond Street, where he had met several men he knew : he had looked in on his tailor in Conduit Street—to whom, as to a liberal parent, he owed more than he could even hope to repay—and had ordered clothes galore, for even if one's heart is broken, there is no reason why it should not be covered by a well-cut waistcoat. Now he was standing outside Slater's in a frock-coat that might have been cut by an archangel, and a pair of trousers which had been under his mattress for weeks—a utilisation of natural forces, which was all the more creditable because the Youth had not yet consulted Mr. Adam Smith on this elementary principle of Economics. His waistcoat had the correct rather high cut, his hat the correct mourning band, and his tie was dark, with a very small pattern. In fact, the Youth's get-up was in every way unimpeachable. His career was blighted, but he still maintained his self-respect: his ideals were shattered, but that was no reason why he should let his trousers bag at the knee.
It was a Wednesday afternoon, and the
famished matinfa audiences poured past the
Youth into the hospitable recesses of smoking
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and tea rooms. The Youth kept a sharp eye open for Maisie, and winced whenever he saw a squash hat. Suddenly he caught sight of some waving blue cornflowers. He started. In just such a hat had Maisie often figured in his dreams.
He paused for a moment, disappointed, but though this was not Maisie, it could not correctly be described as a worthless imitation. Her deep blue eyes recalled the countless smiles of Ocean, her hair was of the spun-gold and vine-tendril variety, her slim, girlish shape was that of a Dryad, a wood - nymph, and she wore patent leather shoes. But what was more, she was evidently possessed of no small measure of intelligence, for, as she entered the doorway, she smiled at the Youth in the most unmistakable manner.
It must be acknowledged that the Youth was not a little surprised as well as gratified. The girl was undoubtedly a lady : what is more, she was undoubtedly chaperoned, for an elderly lady and two companions of the sterner persuasion were obviously of her party : and yet she had smiled at the Youth.
The Youth turned slowly round on his heel 207﻿A 'Varsity Man
and looked into the shop. The Wood-nymph's party were ascending the staircase, and the Wood-nymph was actually looking back over her shoulder at the Youth. This certainly required investigation as a not uninteresting feminine problem. The Youth decided that the Cynic would be able to find him inside, and with a glance at the crease down his trousers, he sauntered through the doorway, and ascended the steps to the balcony.
He noticed that Wood-nymph and Co. had taken a table at the extreme right-hand corner of the balcony. The Youth wandered nonchalantly down the left wing, and then, turning to his right, seated himself at a place separated by just one table from the object of his interest. Then over the top of his menu he studied the occupants of the corner table.
Facing him sat the Wood-nymph, who, on
second inspection, proved even more charming
still, and next to her a young man in a double-
breasted blue serge suit with very tight trousers
and a very low collar—manifestly a German.
On the opposite side of the table, with their
backs to the Youth, were seated a middle-aged
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man and woman. The woman was very erect and forbidding, and though little could be seen of the man, the back of his neck looked feeble and well-meaning.
The Youth contented himself with a very summary inspection of these three superfluities, and turned his attention to the girl. He thought it just possible that she might be frightened by his proximity, but, far from this being the case, she was smiling as invitingly as ever, though she showed much discretion in keeping up a gay flow of conversation with the gentleman with the well-meaning neck. But there was no doubt that her smile was directed at the Youth.
The Youth returned the smile, and conversed for some space of time with the Wood-nymph in the language of the eyes. He was certainly in a difficult position. That it was an absolute necessity that the maiden's acquaintance should be made, went, of course, without question. Ladylike dryads in patent leather shoes who return the smiles of strangers are not to be met with every day, and when such a thing does occur, it would be sheer lunacy not to take advantage of it.
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The Youth sat and gnawed at an immature moustache (he was not the first youth who has attempted the impossible) and cursed his luck to think that when the Wood-nymph's party had finished their tea they would vanish into the obscurity of the great city, never to be seen by him again. To follow them home would be too difficult and conspicuous, besides calling down on him the wrath of the abandoned Cynic : and yet, if he did not act quickly and soon, it would benefit him little that the fair stranger had smiled upon him. Meanwhile the waitress had brought his tea, which lay before him untasted, and the other party were busily engaged (the German with an audible process of suction) upon the fragrant herb, and still the Wood-nymph continued what was simply a wholesome optical manufacture. The Youth made eyes in return, and racked his brains for some means to his end.
Great and daring plans of action are often determined on in a moment: in a flash of thought the destinies of a nation are settled. A similar flash came to the Youth. With his eyes still holding those of his charmer, he took
his card-case from his waistcoat pocket. His
210﻿An Adventure at Slater's
cards were printed with his Oxford and his town address. He abstracted one from the case, wrote a few words upon it, and cautiously drew the Wood-nymph's attention to it. Then he deliberately hid his sugar-basin behind the standing menu (the Cynic would have abhorred the unwieldy programme) and looked about him in feigned bewilderment—this latter for the benefit of the German, who happened to glance his way.
Then, still with his eyes on the girl and waiting till the German was engaged in conversation with the forbidding matron, he rose to his feet, and, moving to the table which divided him from the other party, picked up a spare sugar-basin which lay there. At the same time he placed his card upon the table and walked back to his own place with the sugar-basin. With a good deal of bustle he helped himself to two lumps of sugar, stirred his tea violently, and then plucked up courage to raise his eyes.
There was understanding light in the eyes of the Wood-nymph, and the Youth admired his own resource with some complacence. But he
did not exactly like the look of the German.
2 11﻿A 'Varsity Man
He did not feel quite confident that that gentleman had not seen. He pictured what would happen should the man choose to make a row, and was not exactly pleased with the idea. But his attention was drawn from the Teuton by a more imminent disaster.
The waitress had begun to remove the dirty cups from the intermediate table, and both the Youth and the Wood-nymph recognised with a gasp what would happen. There was no averting it. The black-garbed Hebe picked up the Youth's card and examined it with some surprise.
It is really time that some one invented some method of address for female attendants. The Youth cleared his throat, raised his eyebrows, moved his head wildly backwards, and observed, " Er'."
Luckily he caught the waitress's attention, and she came to him with the card in her hand.
" I will have," enunciated the Youth clearly, " two more pieces of buttered toast," and then in an undertone, "You need not remove that card."
The waitress looked bewildered : then, as the Youth contracted his eyebrows, a smile of comprehension dawned upon her face. She glanced
212﻿An Adventure at Slater's
at the Wood-nymph's party, while the Youth sat in anxious dread of the vigilant Teuton. Then she went back to the middle table and replaced the card. The Youth looked up and found that the Wood-nymph was in animated conversation with the German. After all, the card was by no means conspicuous as it lay, an oblong of white, upon the clean table-cloth.
It was some time before the other party showed any signs of moving. At last the elderly gentleman rose and took a superannuated hat from the rack; after him followed the forbidding matron. The German stood aside for the Wood-nymph to pass. The girl remained stationary, and fidgeted with a glove, keeping up a running fire of remarks to the young man. He, on his part, showed no signs of moving. The excited Youth mentally consigned him to sultry regions. The elderly couple were halfway towards the stairs. The Wood-nymph deliberately dropped a neatly-rolled umbrella, and as the German stooped to pick it up she squeezed between him and the table, and quick as lightning the Youth's
card was in her hand.
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The waitress, who was advancing from the stairs, sniggered audibly. The German returned his companion her umbrella, and made a brusque remark; the girl laughed airily, and the two walked off towards the staircase, the Wood-nymph not attempting to look round this time.
During these events the Youth had been in an agony of suspense lest the German should make a scene. Directly the Wood-nymph's party had departed his exultation could hardly be represented. He even tolerated the familiarity of the knowing waitress, which really was gross insolence on her part, for she had not the slightest claim to good looks. But the Youth was too filled with joy at the success of his scheme to attempt to keep her in her place.
In a very few moments the Cynic arrived. He apologised for his lateness, and ordered tea without milk, and a lemon. He always drank it, he observed, d la Russe; other methods were middle class and poisonous.
" I am never punctual to an appointment," he went on to say, " except with a woman. Women are like-"
214﻿An Adventure at Slater's
The Youth interrupted him with an effusive account of his late adventure. The Cynic, it seemed, had met the Wood-nymph's party going out, and gave his approval to the Youth's choice. Her mouth was perhaps a trifle too mutine. Also, there was too much scent about her.
"Ah, when," groaned the Cynic, "will English women learn how to use scent!"
But the tout ensemble was pleasing.
" I was remarking, by the way," continued the Cynic, " that women are like omelettes: they do not improve by being kept waiting."
The Cynic expressed his surprise at finding a white table-cloth ; he said that though he had never been there himself, he had always understood that the meal was served on a shiny linoleum, on which tea and buns stagnated in silent pools; and when the Youth reminded him that only last vacation he had seen the Cynic coming out of the place with Mrs. and Miss Smythe, the Cynic shrugged his shoulders, and observed, " Que voulez vous," which was a safe remark, in that it meant nothing in particular, and might imply anything whatsoever.
215﻿CHAPTER X
cambridge wins
During the next day the Youth, by a heroic effort, restrained himself from brooding about Maisie, by allowing his mind to dwell upon his adventure of the day before. Were it not that he was quite certain that he now regarded the other sex simply as a means pour passer le temps, as the Cynic would say, he would have suspected himself of excitement at the prospect of tidings from the Wood-nymph. Certainly, when his sister called his attention, on his coming down to breakfast, to a letter addressed to him in a "strange, female handwriting," and he hastily opened the envelope, to find it was a dentist's bill, his irritated violence seemed to argue a rather keener feeling than indifference about his charmer of the day before. But then it is always annoying to receive a bill
—though the Youth had every prospect of
216﻿Cambridge Wins
becoming inured in time to this evil—and a dentist's bill always seems disproportionately large to the amount of fun obtained for the money.
After breakfast, the Youth requested that he should be left alone, as it was his intention to devote an hour or two to Greek tragedy, and his sister suggested that if he approached it with anything like the same zeal as he did modern musical comedy, he ought to stand a very fair chance of taking a good class in his Honour Smalls, or whatever he called it.
After a couple of hours in his room with the Dolly Dialogues, and the Pink'un varied by three excursions to the hall, in which he emptied the letter-box of two coal and coke circulars, and a packet of Quaker oats, the Youth decided not to stop for any more posts, and without waiting for lunch went out for the rest of the day.
When he returned at a rather late hour, he found awaiting him a letter in a sprawling, childish handwriting. It was from the Wood-nymph. And her name was Beryl.
" I will try and slip out at four to-morrow," was
all the note said. " Be outside Addison Road."
217﻿A 'Varsity Man
And that night the Youth dreamt not of Maisie but of the Wood-nymph, alias Beryl Dale.
Next afternoon he arrayed himself in the historic frocker, and masterfully commandeering his father's ebony stick, took train to Addison Road. Beryl, with true feminine indefiniteness, had given no fuller directions than "Addison Road," but the Youth concluded that she meant outside the station. After he had been waiting about a quarter of an hour, it suddenly occurred to him that there were two sides to the station, and that it was not unlikely that Beryl was waiting on the other side; or, perhaps, even had been there and already given him up. He was just about to cross the bridge when he caught sight of a blue hat and a pair of twinkling shoes, and with his fears at rest, he darted off to his French-heeled divinity.
" I've only got about ten minutes," said Beryl airily, as she held out her hand.
The Youth murmured an admiring reproach. The pair sauntered slowly towards the Hammersmith Road.
Beryl informed him that if Mrs. Greenwood 218﻿Cambridge Wins
were to catch her, there would be a fearful rumpus. The Youth felt adventurous, but at the same time not eager to make Mrs. Greenwood's acquaintance.
The Youth gathered that Beryl was spending the Christmas holidays at Manfred House, her own people being at the Riviera, and neither Mrs. Greenwood, the principal, nor Mr. Greenwood, the principal's subordinate consort, nor Herr Kaufmann, the German Master, were more than averagely frivolous. In fact, Beryl was not having a particularly exciting time. Thus the Youth at Slater's (the Manfred House party had been to " Henry V.," Beryl being destined to study that play for the satisfaction of a poetical College of Preceptors) had appeared as a kind of deus ex machina to relieve the monotony.
Besides, he was so like Harry Braemar. Who
was he ? Oh, a darling. The Youth was not
so very like the gentleman now Beryl came to
talk to him. Harry Braemar, besides being a
darling, was an undergraduate, being at Trinity
with Beryl's brother. Not horrid Oxford, but
lovely Cambridge. Harry was simply a duck.
The Youth's voice was quite different. Beryl's
219﻿A 'Varsity Man
brother was in Yorkshire, and Braemar was in Scotland, and Manfred House was driving her mad. She had simply been forced to accept the Youth's advances. Anything on earth rather than this awful dulness.
No, Herr Kaufmann was quite safe; he had been a bit suspicious, but she had told him the Youth was an acquaintance of her brother's, and it had been all right.
During these confidences the pair had reached the Hammersmith Road, and Beryl had made a right-about turn and led the Youth slowly back towards the station. Hammersmith Road, it seemed, was dangerous country; many of its frequenters were pro-Greenwood. They reached the station again. A few people were streaming out of the exit.
"Go away!" said Beryl suddenly, and darted on in front of the Youth. The startled Youth looked up, and to his horror recognised the gentleman with the well-meaning neck. The gentleman in question pinched Beryl's cheek: a glance at his benevolent spectacles would have at once identified him with the genus cheek-pincher.
220﻿Cambridge Wins
" And who is this gentleman ? " he inquired.
The Youth felt inclined to hail a cab.
"This," declared Beryl, turning towards the Youth, "is Mr. Braemar's brother."
" I know your brother well; how is he ?" asked Mr. Greenwood, shaking hands with the Youth.
The supposititious Braemar observed, somewhat confusedly, that his brother was in good health.
"He's away, is he not?" queried Mr. Greenwood.
The Youth replied to the effect that his brother was spending the vacation in Scotland.
" I'm afraid Mrs. Greenwood is out," said that lady's husband, " but Beryl will give us some tea, eh ? "
Beryl consented to the proposal.
" Isn't this fun ?" she whispered to the Youth as the trio set out towards Manfred House.
The Youth's affirmative lacked deep conviction.
Mr. Greenwood, ascertaining that the Youth
was at Oxford, conversed at some length with
him on the way about Pusey and Cardinal
221﻿A 'Varsity Man
Newman, and the Youth, by skilfully paraphrasing what he gathered to be Mr. Greenwood's views and delivering the results as his own, pleased the good gentleman not a little.
" I should like," observed Mr. Greenwood as he opened the door of Manfred House with his latch-key, "to ask your opinion, as an Oxford man, about some theological works that I have lately been studying."
The Youth expressed himself perfectly ready to be of service, and prayed for luck.
In the drawing-room he was introduced to Herr Kaufmann, who still gave the dominant impression of neck and knees. He was received with a sullen glare. But the Youth was no mere carpet knight; no danger, he swore, should keep him from the fair Beryl's side. Unhappily, however, Mr. Greenwood captured him at once, and carried him off to a theological captivity. Hedged in by the weighty volumes which Mr. Greenwood had arranged on the floor before him, he watched Beryl dispensing tea, while his capturer embarked upon a comparison, very unfavourable to the former, of the Tubingen
and the Kenotic schools of theologians. The
222﻿Cambridge Wins
Youth, after half-an-hour's periodic assent, observed that, though he personally had very little in common with any of the German schools, he thought it obvious to any one who had read the works in question that the Kenotic showed a greater profundity of thought and more masterly handling of their arguments than the Tubingen school, and that, in his opinion, the latter were superficial and specious.
" That's just what I always say myself," exclaimed the delighted Mr. Greenwood, who had been saying so in different terms throughout tea, and promptly asked the Youth to dinner on the following Monday.
The Youth, though not over sorry to find a refusal difficult, did not altogether like the idea of accepting. He glanced at Beryl, who bit her lip and nodded, with dancing eyes.
" If you cannot come on Monday," put in Mr. Greenwood, " what other day can you manage ? " The Youth, yielding to fate like a true Stoic, said that he would be very pleased to come on Monday, and rose to leave. He shook hands with Beryl and bowed stiffly to the German, who
scowled more than ever.
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" Personally," said Mr. Greenwood, following the Youth to the door, " I consider the Tubingen school nothing short of ignorant."
" Their views," pronounced the Youth, with his hand on the door-handle, " disclose a deplorable lack of research."
At this moment the handle turned in the Youth's hand, and the door opened to admit the forbidding matron of Wednesday.
"Do you know Mr. Braemar?" asked Mr. Greenwood. ,
"Mr. Braemar?" queried his unbending spouse.
" Mr. Braemar's brother," explained Beryl, with some approach to confusion.
The Youth bowed.
"Mr. Braemar," put in Mr. Greenwood, "was just going. He is coming to dinner on Monday."
"Oh," remarked the matron, and glanced at her benignant consort. She was not carried away by any hysterical joy.
"He is very interested in theology," explained Mr. Greenwood nervously. The Youth tried to
assume a scholastic appearance.
224﻿Cambridge Wins
"Oh," remarked Mrs. Greenwood, and glanced at the Youth. The Youth caught Beryl's eye, and tried to look debonnaire, and fell over a rug as he made his exit.
" That," thought he, as he made his way to the station, " is a most unpleasant woman," and began to wish that he was not going to dinner.
Now when people ask a man to dine they really ought to tell him whether to dress or not. It will always remain a debatable point which is the more uncomfortable state of affairs, to appear in evening dress and find everybody else in morning clothes or vice versa. To carry off either situation requires either a very aged person or a genius. The Youth was neither of these, and consequently when, after metaphorically tossing for it, he entered the drawing-room at Manfred House in evening dress, and found his host and Herr Kauffmann devoid of those glories, he was conscious, like Dido, of an earnest wish that there had been a terrestrial convulsion in the earlier hours of the afternoon. However, regaining his self-possession he remarked, with some adroitness, that he was going on to a dance later.
225	p﻿A 'Varsity Man
"Oh, but I hope you don't mean to leave us too early, Mr. Braemar," remonstrated Mr. Greenwood, his eye threatening theology.
The Youth assured them that Terpsichore would spare him until ten. Mrs. Greenwood entering at this moment received him with a manner devoid of any overwhelming enthusiasm. The Youth, who was beginning to feel an immoderate fear of this thin-lipped matron, greeted her diffidently, and drifted over to Beryl, who looked as classical as ever in a white silk blouse. The German strode off to the window and turned his back; Mrs. Greenwood left the room. There was a knock at the front door.
"Oh, Mr. Braemar," called the theologian from the bookcase, " I was quite surprised to see your brother in town."
The Youth felt a sudden chill of horror, and Beryl dropped a photograph album.
" I met him in High Street this afternoon," continued Mr. Greenwood. " He told me he'd just come back from Scotland."
"He was late—er—it was only—er—he only
returned quite lately," stammered the Youth,
226﻿Cambridge Wins
" I told him I'd seen you," remarked Mr. Greenwood, running his finger along some ponderous volumes, " and he—a—said he hadn't seen you yet. You—a—where is that book of Renan's?—you didn't come together I see."
The Youth's blood established a refrigeratory record.
" Come together ! " he gasped.
The German slewed sharply round from the window.
" Didn't you know he was coming to dinner ? " queried Mr. Greenwood, as he took down a volume from the shelf. "He said nothing could interest him more than to join you here."
Beryl was the colour of her blouse. The Youth turned to her in dumb terror.
" Oh, what shall I say to Mrs. Greenwood ?" she whispered, more to herself than to the Youth. "And Harry will never forgive me."
" Yes, but what on earth am I to do ?" gasped the Youth.
"Mrs. Greenwood will write to mother, and
there'll be an awful row," moaned Beryl.
227﻿A 'Varsity Man
"But what shall I do—what shall I do?" urged the terror-stricken Youth.
" Harry will never believe I only did it for fun ?" moaned Beryl again.
"Yes, but what about me?" repeated the Youth wildly.
At this moment the door opened.
" Mr. Braemar," announced the maid.
A tall, dark young man in a frock-coat entered the room, and the Youth clung to the back of a chair.
"Say 'Hullo, Harry,'" hissed Beryl, gripping the Youth's arm.
"Ah, Mr. Braemar," said Mr. Greenwood, stepping forward, " how do you do ? "
The newcomer shook hands with Mr. Greenwood and with Beryl.
"Your brother," remarked Mr. Greenwood, "has only been here a few minutes."
Then the Youth tottered forward.
" Hullo, Harry," he observed in a cracked whisper.
There was a pause. Mr. Greenwood smiled
through benignant spectacles; the German
looked morosely watchful; Beryl leant forward
228﻿Cambridge Wins
and gazed with appealing eyes at Braemar; the Youth's heart was in his mouth: naturally he could not speak.
After a few seconds, that seemed like hours, Braemar broke the silence.
" Hullo," he said. Then, turning to Mr. Greenwood, " My brother, you see, is pleased to see me. He loves me very dearly."
Beryl laughed loudly, and the Youth looked uncomfortable. Just then Mrs. Greenwood came in, followed by the maid announcing dinner. Mrs. Greenwood shook hands with Braemar, and the party trooped in formally downstairs.
The Youth found himself sitting next to Beryl, with Braemar and the German directly opposite him.
Why Braemar had not given him away he
could not tell, but there was still a look in
the Cambridge man's eye which the Youth
did not at all like. However, as dinner went
on and nothing seemed to happen, the Youth
plucked up courage and tried to engage in
easy conversation with Beryl. That young
lady, however, was most unresponsive to his
229﻿A 'Varsity Man
advances, and answered him in the curtest of monosyllables.
" I thought," remarked Mr. Greenwood to Braemar during a pause, " that you and your brother would come together."
" Oh no," answered Braemar nonchalantly, "he absolutely couldn't wait. You see, he has a new dress suit, which he would insist on putting on, though I told him it wasn't necessary."
Beryl laughed aloud, and the Youth looked up and essayed to protest. Braemar quelled him with a glance.
"Of course," he said, "you had to make some pretext for it. Still, you can't make that an excuse for borrowing my patent-leather boots."
Beryl laughed again, and the Youth suggested, with a nervous smile, that this was not the case.
" My brother," observed Braemar, helping himself to potatoes, "has a bad memory. That accounts, perhaps, for his telling you that I was still in Scotland when I have been back a week."
The Youth caught his breath, and Mrs. Greenwood looked at him in stern surprise. Beryl was
230﻿Cambridge Wins
looking very hard at her plate. The Youth decided not to try to pick up any more moral hot plates. He stepped trembling into a spasmodic conversation with Mrs. Greenwood, who was at the head of the table on his right, about the Senior Oxford and Cambridge examinations, and only succeeded in revealing his ignorance, Mrs. Greenwood's pithy views lending themselves less easily to paraphrase than her husband's theological ramblings. After a time he heard Braemar's voice:—
" Oh, Great Scot, no, my brother isn't at the 'Varsity. He's in a bank. An Oxford man? Oh no; lots of people seem to get that idea, I don't know why. He's in the branch of the London and County Bank at Oxford. He did try the entrance exam, at one or two of the minor colleges, but never got in. What made you think he was at the 'Varsity ?"
Mr. and Mrs. Greenwood glanced at the Youth in pained wonder, and the Youth dared not contradict when he saw the dangerous look in the Trinity man's eye. He had had enough moral hot plates. The rest of dinner Braemar spent in
letting fall imaginary and subtly uncomplimen-
231﻿A 'Varsity Man
tary pieces of information about his unfortunate brother; and, whenever the latter ventured the slightest contradiction, the surprised Braemar would observe, " Then why on earth should father have done so and so?" or "Why else did we all go to so and so that year ? " And to add to the Youth's confusion, the German, who allowed no sound—except that of mastication— to escape his lips throughout the meal, never removed his stolid gaze from the Youth. In short, when the ladies left the room, the Youth felt as if half-time was being called in the first football game of the season.
Mr. Greenwood, who did not smoke himself, retired to fetch some cigars which had been given him for a birthday present. Directly he had left the room, Herr Kaufmann suddenly leant forward in his seat and addressed the Youth.
" So-oh," he observed with infinite nastiness, "you are Mistair Braemar's brother."
The Youth was staggered at this sudden speech on the part of the German.
"You lie," cried the German rather melodramatically; "you are a liar."
232﻿Cambridge Wins
"As I can't kick you at present," said the Youth, "will you be so good as to go to the devil."
The German leapt to his feet. " Schwein-hund!" he shouted, and seizing half a glass of claret which stood before him, flung its contents at the Youth.
The Youth dodged and escaped with a splashed shirt-front. He saw a brighter red than the spilt wine, and with a lamentable disregard for the advantages of arbitration, was just making for his opponent when Mr. Greenwood entered.
He paused in surprise at the sight of the excited couple. Braemar hastily walked round to the Youth's side of the table and picked up a salt-cellar.
" My brother," he observed, " has been spilling his claret. He always was a clumsy brute."
The Youth resumed his seat in some confusion.
Braemar looked keenly across at the German.
"I think, Mr. Kaufmann," said he, "that you have made a mistake."
The German glared at both the young men, and then recovered his habitual stolidity.
" I have lately," remarked Braemar, turning to 233﻿A 'Varsity Man
Mr. Greenwood, "been rather coming round to your opinion about Renan."
Mr. Greenwood beamed, and the dulness of the next half-hour quite restored the balance of events.
Directly the men reached the drawing-room the Youth tried to drift unobtrusively over to Beryl, but much to his annoyance she deliberately ignored him and motioned to Braemar to come and sit by her. Braemar strolled nonchalantly over and engaged in conversation with her, but without sitting down. The Youth, who had by this time begun to get some insight into feminine character, saw that she was afraid the Cambridge man would give her and himself away to the Greenwoods, and was making up to him in consequence. The Youth smiled quietly as he yielded himself up to Mr. Greenwood, Until nearly ten o'clock did that gentleman theologise the Youth, while Braemar stood by the sofa and talked to Beryl, and Mrs. Greenwood and the German hit a previously inoffensive piano in unison.
After a time Braemar left Beryl and went to
turn over the leaves for the duettists. The
234﻿Cambridge Wins
Youth saw Beryl scribbling something on a piece of paper, and wondered what she was up to, until she stopped writing and looked at him.
" Great Scot!" he said to himself, " she's writing to me. What a cute little beggar!"
At last, seeing no chance of breaking away from the theologian, he rose and announced that the ball-room claimed him for its own. Mrs. Greenwood closed the piano and motioned to Braemar. The German left the room. The Youth took his opportunity and was at Beryl's side in a moment.
" I say, I hope you've squared him all right," he whispered.
" Don't stand and whisper like that," said Beryl sharply, "or Harry will say that's my fault."
The Youth flushed.
"Good-bye," said Beryl, and the Youth felt a small note in her palm as he took her hand.
The Youth slipped the note in his pocket with keen pleasure in his eyes. She really was a wonderfully cute little girl. He bid his adieux to Mr. Greenwood and his uncompromis-
235﻿A 'Varsity Man
ing spouse, and then turned, not without an inward qualm, towards Braemar.
" I think," observed Braemar, " I may as well go with my brother," and made his round of farewells.
" There is going to be a row," thought the Youth, as the two descended the staircase together, and he could not, for the life of him, feel a reckless dare-devil.
When they got outside, Braemar, to the Youth's surprise, walked alongside of him for over a minute without a word. The Youth, who had braced himself for a conflict as they left the house, began to feel decidedly uncomfortable. He pulled himself together.
" I expect you'll think it pretty good cheek of me to have passed myself off as your brother ?" he ventured.
Braemar lit a cigar, and puffed at it in silence for some moments.
"You saw me speaking to Mrs. Greenwood before we left ?" he queried, disregarding the Youth's remark.
The Youth nodded.
" She was saying that the German person 236﻿Cambridge Wins
had told her that you weren't my brother at all, and she asked me what he meant."
The Youth lit a cigarette in no slight suspense.
"I told her," continued Braemar, "that I didn't know what the German was talking about, and, of course, you were my brother."
"I say," broke in the Youth, "it was really devilish good of you not to give me away."
" It was," remarked Braemar, "the least I could do for my own flesh and blood. But you will forgive me if I say that I am not anxious to involve myself in the tangled web any further."
"Any further?" queried the Youth.
" I mean," said Braemar, "that it will simplify matters if my brother is unable to call at Manfred House again."
" You must think the whole thing awful cheek of me, I know," declared the Youth. "But look here, as long as we never go there at the same time it ought to be all right."
" Excuse me," said Braemar coldly ; "I must really decline to keep up any deception for the sake of an absolute stranger."
The Youth noticed the Cambridge man's change of tone, and changed his own.
237﻿A 'Varsity Man
" Oh, all right," he answered. " I suppose you won't hold that it will necessitate any deception on your part if I have dealings with Miss Dale away from Manfred House ?"
" If Miss Dale were to choose to make a fool of herself," replied Braemar, stopping at the corner, "it would be her brother's business to punch your head, I am sorry to say, not mine."
"Thank you," said the Youth haughtily, "that is all I wish to know."
"And it ought," added Braemar, "to be enough to go on with. Good-night," and he turned into the main road.
"Idiot," observed the Youth to himself, "he evidently thinks he's going to frighten me off," and, undoing his overcoat, he felt in his waistcoat pocket for Beryl's note. He smiled as he took it to the light of a gas-lamp and opened it.
" Harry says," ran the scrawl, "that he doesn't want me to see you any more. For goodness' sake don't come again, or he'll think I want you to. As it is I expect you've got me into
an awful row with Mrs. Greenwood."
238﻿Cambridge Wins
And in the face of the remarks which the Youth let drop on the way to Addison Road Station it seemed difficult to believe with Aristotle that suffering exercises a refining influence on the character.
And when the Cynic asked the Youth later about his Slater's inamorata, the latter observed that he had had to chuck it. Her people had got suspicious, and on the whole it had not been good enough. Besides, she was rather an empty-headed little fool.
239﻿CHAPTER XI
the value of an anaesthetic
It was a prominent and praiseworthy feature in the Youth's character that he did not know when he was beaten. This was an advantage which he shared with the nation. He merely showed to Aphrodite the same front that his countrymen have ever shown to Ares. Eileen Maundy had made a fool of him ; he did not flinch. His disillusionment about the Girl at the Fair left him chastened but hopeful. He had been scorned by the Girl in the Garden Hat; he refused to be embittered against the sex. The Governess had behaved abominably; he swallowed his annoyance. In both the Runaway Girls' affair at Oxford and the episode at Slater's he had had to acknowledge crushing defeat; he bound up his wounds and returned to the attack. The Youth was a Briton.
This time the misfortune was almost wholly 240﻿The Value of an Anaesthetic
the fault of circumstance. Also of Vera. And indirectly, too, of Bromley. The Youth's people gave a dance the evening before his return to Oxford for the Easter Term. It was this dance which started the whole tragic business—which, perhaps, was not unnatural. Even among the ancient Greeks the dance was the origin of tragedy.
On the afternoon of this particular day the
Youth, having thrown a sop, in the form of an
order for a new overcoat, to his Conduit Street
tailors, who were beginning to throw out urbane
feelers for "something on account," was doing
a Bond Street crawl, preparatory to taking tea
at Mrs. Robertson's. With Honour Mods.
looming large before him, the Youth declined
to dull his brain by hours of ceaseless study,
and, to do him justice, he had never weakly
allowed himself to drift into any practices which
would prevent him arriving integer ad pugnam
at the end of the coming term. In consequence,
he was even now, at the eleventh hour, in the
position of having no work for his idle hands
to do. Satan, however, was spared any trouble
as labour-agent in the matter by the Youth's
241	Q﻿A 'Varsity Man
unexpectedly running into Bromley, of St. Luke's, looking very gigantic and very uncomfortable in the prescribed topper and frocker. The Youth, who knew Bromley before Oxford, having been in the same house with him at Cliffborough, was quite startled to find the giant, whose dislike for town was proverbial, walking the pavement, "gotten up regardless of expense," in preference to killing birds and things in a Norfolk jacket on his native heath.
"Great Scot!" exclaimed the Youth, "it's the Brumlet! What are you doing in town ?"
Bromley turned to the Youth with his usual sweet smile.
"This is beastly," he observed, shaking hands with the Youth with feeling.
" D'you refer to meeting me?" queried the Youth.
"O Lord, no, old chap," said Bromley, inserting his fingers in the armholes of his waistcoat, and wriggling the upper part of his body; "I mean this town life. Beastly unhealthy." " Been in town long?" asked the Youth. "Since half-past two," replied Bromley; "and
I'm not going up till to-morrow. Don't know
242﻿The Value of an Anaesthetic
what the deuce to do with myself. Couldn't we go to the swimming-baths, or something?"
" Brummies, you're the very man I want," put in the Youth. " Come and tea first at Mrs. Robertson's."
Bromley looked nervous.
" I don't think I will, old man," he ventured. " I don't know her, and—er—and I rather bar these drawing-room wheezes, you know, and—" "Oh, don't talk rot!" broke in the amused Youth, "Mrs. Robertson's a shop;" and succeeded in dragging the lengthy undergraduate into the tea rooms, after promising him that he wouldn't have to talk to any females. Safely seated, the Youth opened fire. "Where are you staying?" he inquired. "Waterloo Hotel, Jermyn Street," replied Bromley.
" What on earth are you going to do with yourself all the evening?"
" I don't know," said the unsuspecting Bromley. " Can you suggest anything ? "
" Good man," said the Youth, patting the St. Luke's man's length of back, " you must come to our dance."
243﻿A 'Varsity Man
Bromley's face assumed the expression of a hunted stag.
"Well, as a matter of fact," he began, "I rather intended going to see the great fight at the Aquarium."
"Rot!" observed the Youth briefly. "You're coming to our dance at eight."
Bromley's expression deepened into a suggestion of a wounded and despairing fawn.
" Well, I'll see if I can manage to-"
"No, you won't, old man," returned the Youth. "You'll just go back to Jermer's with me after tea—I'll wait while you dress—we'll do a gril-lers at the Troc, and then cab it on to my place. Then you'll watch me dress; then, arm in arm, we enter the ballroom. I only wish I could put you up, only we've got the house full."
And Bromley, who was the weakest-minded giant that ever put a weight, followed out this programme to the letter, and prayed for strength to face the feminine.
The Youth's people were quite delighted with Bromley, whom the Youth (base betrayer) left in their charge while he dressed.
"It is most refreshing," said Mrs. Ashby to 244﻿The Value of an Anaesthetic
him afterwards, "to meet a young man who is not simply eaten up with conceit."
" My dear mother," returned the Youth, a trifle hastily, " when a man is practically without any brains whatsoever, I see no reason why he should be eaten up with conceit."
" I certainly should not think," remarked the Youth's sister, " that he was overburdened with ideas."
The Youth turned on his sister.
"Old Brummies is one of the very best chaps I know," he snapped.
" I was just about," continued Edith calmly, "to say that I like Mr. Bromley extremely, and that, even if he is uncommunicative, he is worth ten of your apish Smythes."
" Perhaps you think so," returned the Youth. " Personally, I prefer a man with a little conversation."
" I dare say," observed Edith, with true feminine irrelevance, "you wouldn't mind being as good-looking as Mr. Bromley."
"What the deuce has that got to do with it?" cried the exasperated Youth. "As long as a man's good-looking, I suppose you don't
245﻿A 'Varsity Man
mind if he's got the brains of a boy of twelve."
"My dearest pet," observed his sister, "you turned on me a minute ago because I said he was rather dull."
"Oh, go--" the Youth swallowed—"away."
"Good-bye, darling," waved his sister, obeying his injunctions.
The Youth worked off his temper in the arduous duties of introduction. Bromley he entrusted to a decadent poetess. He was further relieved by the arrival of the Cynic, who was in his very best form. He declined to take part in the choric rites.
"The English dance," he observed, "is the homoeopathic and, needless to say, unsuccessful remedy for extreme melancholy," and requested to be introduced, for sitting-out purposes, to a damsel who struck him as after Rembrandt. " Yes," he added thoughtfully, " there is about her features a distinct touch of chiaroscuro."
The Youth introduced the Cynic to his pretty cousin.
"Mr. Smythe," he remarked to the Cynic's confusion, "says you have a touch of chiaroscuro."
246﻿The Value of an Anaesthetic
"Oh no; it's only a bad cold, I think," exclaimed the alarmed girl.
Vera was a late arrival. The Youth was thinking of selecting a partner for a valse, when he suddenly saw his mother shaking hands with a tall dark girl, accompanied by a slight young man. The Youth recognised the latter as a young medical student—rather a bounder he had always thought—the son of one of his father's clients. The girl was more than well-favoured. Mrs. Ashby beckoned the Youth to her side. The Youth obeyed with promptitude, as becomes a dutiful son. It was thus that he first met Vera.
"Will you find Miss Thurlow some partners, Hugh?" asked his mother.
The filial Youth initiated his obedience by writing down his own name for the supper dance.
" Shall we finish this valse," he suggested, "and then I can introduce some partners to you."
Vera assented.
" Your mother tells me you are keen on football," she said, as they floated off. " If I
were a man I should like to be an athlete."
247﻿A 'Varsity Man
The Youth was charmed with Vera. He told her about football at Oxford. " You want to be a bit tough," he acknowledged, "to get through some of those college matches." He also informed her how he played for the Old Cliffburians. (The Youth had a place in the " A" team ; but, then, there is no need to bewilder a girl with technicalities.)
" Look here," he said with enthusiasm, " I'm coming down from Oxford on Saturday to play against the Old Merchant Taylors at Richmond. Couldn't you get your brother to bring you to see the game ? "
Vera shook her head.
" Harry's so mad about his lacrosse," she explained, " he never would do anything else on a Saturday afternoon. Of course, I should love to ; but it is quite impossible."
The Youth indulged in a mental Optative about Harry and his lacrosse.
" No," repeated Vera, to his suggested persuasion of Harry; " I'm afraid it can't be managed."
" Who is that very tall fellow over there ?"
asked Vera, as the music stopped.
248﻿The Value of an Anaesthetic
The Youth followed his partner's eyes, and saw Bromley silently regarding the floor, seated next to the poetess. There was a singular absence of sparkling dialogue between the pair.
" Oh, that's Bromley of Luke's," responded the Youth. " He's at Oxford with me."
" What a splendid man," exclaimed Vera, with her eyes still on the giant.
"Oh, he's a fine-looking chap," replied the Youth with some indifference. "I'll be finding you some partners," he continued, rising hastily.
"Oh, Mr. Ashby," put in Vera, "I wonder if you'd introduce Mr. Bromley to me?—Only if he's likely to tell me some more about Oxford," she added, with a bright glance at the Youth. " All that I've heard from you is so interesting."
The partially mollified Youth made his way across to Bromley. The latter, though pleased to be rescued from the poetess, was not over eager to face fresh feminine dangers, and suggested a further inspection of a hunting picture he had seen in the hall. But Vera's eyes were on the pair, and the Youth resolutely marched
the captive giant across and presented him.
249﻿A 'Varsity Man
" I want to hear a lot about Oxford, Mr. Bromley," said Vera, making room for him beside her.
Bromley looked hard at his left foot and observed, after some deliberation, that Oxford was first-class.
The Youth retired to select more partners for Vera, an office which he executed with skill and some discernment, carefully avoiding Teddy Graves, who was just off to the front. The Youth felt it his duty to check the growing militarism of the age.
While Vera was pulling Bromley through the Lancers, the Youth discovered the Cynic in the corner of the room, a languid wallflower.
" There is, at any rate," expounded the Cynic, "an element of variety in the English ballroom. While the valse typifies the banalitd of Belgravia, the Lancers suggests the horseplay of Hampstead Heath. Occasionally," continued the Cynic, glancing towards Bromley, who had just "visited" and violently floored a middle-aged cleric, "it develops into a mere Smithfield shambles."
250﻿The Value of an Anaesthetic
The Youth drew the Cynic's attention to Vera, and allowed himself to enthuse.
" Pas si mauvaise, pas si mauvaise," murmured the Cynic, absently pondering on further alliteration.
Vera was just engaged in doing up Bromley's glove for him, an operation which, to the Youth's annoyance, seemed to take some considerable time. The Youth felt irritated, and turned on the Cynic.
"My dear man," he said sharply, "that's not French."
The Cynic shifted his position.
"Our worthy friend Bromley," he remarked hastily, "has the conversational powers of a fairly average hedgehog."
" Poor old Brummies," said the Youth.
" What do you mean is not French ?" inquired the Cynic.
"Pas si mauvaise," returned the Youth. " No Frenchman would ever say ' Pas si mauvaise.' "
The Cynic smiled indulgently.
"Argot, my dear fellow," he explained, "the argot of the Parisian gamin."
" Oh, piffle," replied the Youth.
251﻿A 'Varsity Man
"You may introduce me afterwards to the lady," observed the Cynic. " I like her upper
Hp.-
The Youth, who was not averse to dissolving Vera's partnership with Bromley, led the Cynic to her directly the Lancers was over. The siege raised, the relieved Bromley bolted to the smoking-room. Vera bit her lip. She inclined her head to the Cynic.
"Mr. Bromley tells me," she said, addressing the Youth, "that Blackheath have been having a very good season."
"I must plead guilty," put in the Cynic, "to an ignorance of the suburban districts. Have they any season in particular ?"
" I was talking about football," said Vera somewhat coldly.
"Ah, I see," remarked the Cynic. "I'm afraid my knowledge of that weighty issue"— the Cynic had played the game for six years at school, and afterwards occasionally at Oxford— " is une quantitd negligeable."
"I am sorry," responded Vera; "you see, I
am rather fond of it, and I thought all Oxford
men were. Mr. Ashby is. Will you take me
252﻿The Value of an Anaesthetic
to your mother, Mr. Ashby ? I have a message I forgot to give her."
The Youth, not displeased, took charge of Vera, while the Gynic remained, glad to be rid of so shallow a person. Even an upper lip cannot redeem shallowness.
The Youth, as he had arranged, took Vera down to supper. Football and trifle proved an excellent mixture, and Vera showed not a little interest in the Youth's kneecap. She was very prettily terrified at his account of how the Corpus man had broken his collar-bone.
"A man has to risk that kind of thing," remarked the Youth with a devil-may-care laugh.
" I suppose it's only the very strongest ones," said Vera, "who don't get hurt."
It was a pity that Vera, so charming for the most part, was occasionally a little stupid.
" Was Mr. Bromley playing when you broke your collar-bone ? " asked Vera.
"Oh no," responded the Youth. "Bromley's a Luke's man."
" He does play, though?"
" Oh yes, he plays," assented the Youth.
253﻿A 'Varsity Man
" Much too long to pack well in the scrum, but useful at times out of touch."
" He must be an awfully good player, though," said Vera. "He's so tall and strong."
Vera was certainly at times distinctly stupid.
" Have you ever played with Mr. Bromley ?" went on Vera.
" Oh, often," replied the Youth. " I was at Cliffborough with him. Besides, he sometimes gets a place in the Old Cliffburians."
" The Old Cliffburians? Why then—is he playing on Saturday?"
" I believe he is," responded the Youth. " We've had several men crocked lately."
A subtlety which, unfortunately, was rather wasted on Vera.
There was a long pause. Vera clasped her hands over her knees, and gazed thoughtfully in front of her. The Youth for his own part was engaged in a mental conflict. He wanted another dance with Vera, and the only number he had open was No. 19. Now for No. 19, which was a valse, the orchestra were going to play "Asthore." "Asthore" had been a favourite song of Maisie's, and the Youth could not hear
254﻿The Value of an Anaesthetic
it without deep emotion. The words, too, seemed so applicable, though it required some stretch of the imagination to regard Kensington as "far across the sea." But then, even this might be merely poet's licence for the Regent's Canal or the Serpentine. Besides, St. John's Wood and Kensington, we are told, are very far apart. The Epicurean Youth had looked forward with some pleasure to exhuming the remains of his dead love to slow valse music behind a palm in the conservatory. But now came a difficulty.
The Youth wanted another dance with Vera. Vera, of course, was nothing to him—no woman ever could be to him as Maisie had been; that is the kind of thing that can only be felt once. But some of them served to help him to pass the time, to keep his mind from his sorrow. Vera he had discovered this evening to be particularly potent as a mental anaesthetic. And Vera, he saw as he consulted her programme, which hung from the prettiest of wrists, was disengaged for No. 19. Would it not be better —nay, would it not be the more manly part— to fight his grief and his pain before all men
255﻿A 'Varsity Man
in the dance-room than to give weak way to a solitary despair in the conservatory ?
The Youth fingered Vera's programme.
"May I have No. 19?" he asked.
"I'm afraid-" began Vera.
At this moment Bromley came up to the Youth.
" I say, old chap, I think I must be off."
"Oh, rot, you're not going, old man?" observed the Youth.
"Surely you needn't go, Mr. Bromley?" said Vera.
Bromley blushed, but was obdurate. He didn't feel very fit, and thought he'd get back to bed.
The Youth was hospitably pressing. He couldn't help wishing that Bromley would buck up and decide either way, as he was interrupting the tete-a-tete with Vera.
Bromley was nervously resolute, and said goodbye to Vera.
" I suppose you want to keep very fresh for your game on Saturday ?" suggested Vera, as he shook hands with her.
"Oh yes; against the O.M.T.'s," returned 256﻿The Value of an Anaesthetic
Bromley. " I suppose Ashby told you I was playing."
The Youth accompanied Bromley to the front door.
" Good-bye, Brummies, old man," he said. "You're an awful blighter to clear out like this."
Bromley apologised profusely. He felt rather cheap. Dances weren't much in his line, and town life, he thought, was a bit of a bad egg. " Thanks, awfully, for a ripping evening."
The Youth returned with speed to Vera. She was tapping her foot on the floor, and gazing at her fan. She looked up brightly at the Youth's approach.
"Did you say you could give me No. 19?"
asked the Youth earnestly, bending over her.
Vera dropped her eyes.
" I have been keeping it for you," she said.
She really was charming.
When No. 19 arrived the Youth did not regret
having chosen the better part, and conversed
gaily with Vera as she whirled round the room in
his arms, for all the world as though a bitter
sorrow were not gnawing at his heart-strings.
257	R﻿A 'Varsity Man
Vera enthusiastically kept the conversation to football.
She bewailed repeatedly her inability to come and see the match on Saturday. At last she was unable to contain herself any longer. " Harry must bring me!" she exclaimed impulsively.
Sorrow, of course, was now the chief feature of the Youth's life, but he began to feel that temporary anaesthetics were more plentiful than had before appeared. In fact his manner approached to actual excitement as he cried—
" I'll go and ask him now."
Vera caught his sleeve.
"You had better leave it all to me," she said. "I haven't got another dance"—(Vera's programme was full up to the fourth extra, and she gently refused to cut anybody : she did not think it very nice)—"but if you'll see me just before I go I'll tell you how I get on."
No suffering patient was ever more anxious for a merciful anaesthetic than the Youth for another dance with Vera; but it could not be managed; nor could the musicians, even at the Youth's request, see their way to turning on
the fifth extra before the first.
258﻿The Value of an Anaesthetic
Eventually the Youth accompanied Vera and her brother to their cab.
"What luck?" he asked eagerly, as Thurlow silvered the guardian of the cloak-room.
" Harry won't bring me," whispered Vera hastily; " but—but what did you say your college was ? "
"St. Valentine's. Why?"
" Buck up, Vera," called her brother from the cab door.
"I'll write to you," whispered Vera, as she gathered up her skirts.
The Youth smiled as he watched them drive off. And he took three steps in his stride as he went up later to his bedroom. His anaesthetic seemed to possess the properties of a stimulant.
259﻿CHAPTER XII
the hansom-cab and the overcoat
The Youth returned to Oxford the next day. Vera's note arrived on the following morning:—
"71 Evelyn Gardens,
South Kensington.
" Dear Mr. Ashby,—My brother cannot bring me to see your match, so I am going to do a very dreadful thing, and ask you to take me by myself. I will be at Gloucester Road Station at one. A bientot.	V. T.
" P.S.—It has just occurred to me that you and Mr. Bromley would most likely have arranged to go together. In that case, I suppose you would both meet me?"
The Youth, of course, disregarded this afterthought. Three-cornered parties are no catch
whatsoever; nor, of course, did the girl mean it.
260﻿The Hansom-Cab and the Overcoat
The prospect on the whole was decidedly pleasant : an afternoon's tite-a-tete with Vera. The footer really was rather a nuisance: he would have preferred Niagara or a matinfo. But then, of course, he had to thank the footer as the raison d'itre of the whole thing. Besides, there would be opportunities for prowess; he would have to do a lot in the open against the Old Merchant Taylors. He pictured himself hurling three-quarters into touch, at her feet, as a kind of offering. The Youth smiled and felt Homeric.
The Youth took a stroll in the High, and bought some ties. Inside Shepperd's he met Cardrake, of Trinity, another Old Cliffburian.
"Heard about old Brummies?" queried Car-drake.
" No—what?"
" Crocked."
" No—really ? "
" Knee," said Cardrake laconically. " Water, I believe. Six weeks' touch. Fug Soccer, of all things."
" Harders," said the Youth.
Unhappily, however, Cardrake had still worse
news. Could the Youth let him have that tenner
261﻿A 'Varsity Man
he owed him ? Fact was, his tailors had been coming over very nasty, and he wanted to keep out of the Vice-Chancellor's Court. Awful sorry to worry. The Youth totted up his assets. Six quid. He gave Cardrake five, promising him the rest on Monday.
" I shall have to screw a tenner out of the governor at lunch to-morrow," he thought.
Great Scot! He had forgotten. He'd never have time to go home to lunch if he was going to meet Vera at one. He'd have to make some excuse to his people. But, then, he wanted the money, especially if he was to give Vera a lunch somewhere. And he didn't know how his people would take it if he just rushed in for five minutes in order to ask for more funds. That is the sort of request which, to be diplomatic, should be postprandial.
His difficulty was partly solved by a letter he received from his father after "hall."
" You had better not come home to lunch
on Saturday," his father told him, "as your
mother, Edith, and I shall be spending the day
with your Aunt Clara. Your mother has not
been very well. If you would like to see her
262﻿The Hansom-Cab and the Overcoat
you might look in at Portland Place; I think your aunt would like to see you."
"Good egg," observed the Youth aloud in the lodge. He could now, with some decency, visit his parents for five or ten minutes, ask after his mother's health and obtain money from his father. His train from Oxford arrived at 12.15, and he would have to squeeze in his parental visit between that and meeting Vera at one.
The Youth dressed himself with some care the next morning before catching the 10.55 to town. He put his smartest pair of football stockings in his bag, and was careful not to forget his silver-braided St. Valentine's cap, with its gorgeous "1899-900" on the front. Then a thought suddenly occurred to him : Whitaker, of Conduit Street, would surely have his overcoat ready by now. He must call for it after seeing his father, and before meeting Vera. For the present, he contented himself with his old coat, which would keep him warm during the journey.
Then happened the first of a series of unfortunate incidents which were to lead to the
263﻿A 'Varsity Man
Youth's undoing. The 10.55—usually most reliable of trains—owing to some block on the line, was twenty minutes late. The Youth had sat in the corner of his carriage, looking at his watch and chafing at the delay. It would be quite impossible now to go to Portland Place before meeting Vera. But go there he must. He would have to meet Vera first, and then drive with her to Portland Place, and ask her to wait outside for him in the cab while he saw his people.
After all he would have heaps of time for
this. His train to Richmond, as advertised in
the Sportsman, was the 2.15 from Waterloo;
but then, one or two men always turned up
rather late, so he might just as well go by the
District, and take the 2.33 from Bishop's Road.
In this case, he need not bother to lug his bag
all over London, but might just as well leave it
in the cloak-room at Bishop's Road, and pick
it up when starting for Richmond; and he
could drive to the tailor's on the way to
Gloucester Road. Then, when he rejoined
Vera, after seeing his people at his aunt's, they
would have time to do a lunch somewhere
264﻿The Hansom-Cab and the Overcoat
before catching the 2.33 from Bishop's Road to Richmond.
The Youth reached Paddington at twenty-five minutes to one. Leaping out of the train into a hansom, he told the man to drive him round to Bishop's Road Station. Here he deposited his bag in the cloak-room, receiving a ticket for it, which he hastily crammed in the ticket-pocket of his overcoat.
" Now, Whitaker's, tailors, Conduit Street," he called to the driver, and looked at his watch as he leant back in the cab. Twenty minutes to one. Jove, it would be a bit of a rush. But he couldn't possibly meet Vera in an old overcoat. He consulted his watch again as the cab turned into Bond Street. Five to one. The Youth drummed nervously with both feet on the floor of the cab. Vera wasn't the kind of girl to wait for a chap. The Youth bit his nails. He leapt out of the cab almost before it had stopped, and rushed into Whitaker's, tearing off his overcoat as he went.
"Your overcoat's just ready, sir," he was told.
"No time to try it on," gasped the Youth.
"I'll leave the other coat here," and, throwing
265﻿A 'Varsity Man
down his old coat, he dashed back to his cab, with the new garment flung over his arm.
"Gloucester Road Station, quick as you like," he cried.
The inside of a hansom is not an ideal place for putting on a Chesterfield overcoat, and the Youth contented himself with alternately admiring it as it lay over his arm and looking at his watch. Luckily the horse was a good one, and Automedon was just sufficiently inebriated. They reached Gloucester Road at just a quarter past one. Vera was there, in a cserulean toque, with hirsute embellishments. The Youth jumped out of the cab, and greeted her with enthusiasm. He apologised profusely for his lateness.
"Oh, I'll forgive you," said Vera. " You came up by yourself?"
" Oh yes," replied the Youth, motioning to the cabman to wait. " I say, do you mind driving with me to Portland Place first ? I'll explain to you on the way. We haven't got over much time."
Vera assented, and the Youth helped her into a cab.
On the way he entered into lengthy explana-266﻿The Hansom-Cab and the Overcoat
tions, showing the necessity of the visit to Portland Place.
"You see, my mater hasn't been very well," he said, "and they'd be awfully sick, knowing I'm in town to-day, if I didn't look in on them."
" Yes; I quite understand," answered Vera. " Isn't it awfully slow making that long journey from Oxford all by yourself?"
" Oh, there's always a lot of other 'Varsity men come up to town by the same train on Saturdays," remarked the Youth. " Look here, do you mind if I leave you at the end of Portland Place in the cab for about four minutes, while I dash into my aunt's ? Of course, it wouldn't do for us to be seen together."
Vera agreed.
The Youth reiterated at length the pressing reasons for his looking in at Portland Place.
" I say, are you certain you don't mind ?" he urged. " You see it's the only thing I can do."
Vera assured him of her compliance. There was a long silence. The cab passed Queen's Hall, and neared the Langham Hotel.
" I suppose the others go straight on from
Paddington to Richmond ?" observed Vera.
267﻿A 'Varsity Man
" The others ?" queried the Youth, pushing open the trap-door above his head. " Stop just the other side of the Langham," he called to the driver.
" The other Old Cliffburians who've come up from Oxford to-day."
" Oh, I'm the only man of our team who's come up to-day," returned the Youth. "Of course, I never told you; old Brummies got hurt the other day. He's seen the last of a footer field for six weeks," he added, rising and leaning on the splashboard as the cab slowly drew up to the pavement.
" Isn't he going to Richmond then ? "
"Hardly," said the Youth, getting out. "I'll bet he doesn't leave his room for a month. I'll be back in under five minutes. Are you sure you don't mind ?"
The Youth closed the door on Vera. " I'll leave my overcoat with you as a hostage," he laughed, and walked briskly down Portland Place to No. 300. He looked back at the cab as he rung the bell. It was a good thirty yards off, and even were his people to be looking out of the window, they could not have seen anything.
The maid told him that his aunt and his parents 268﻿The Hansom-Cab and the Overcoat
were at lunch, but that she had instructions to take him to them. The Youth was shown into the dining-room.
"You're just in time for some lunch, Hugh," said his aunt, as the Youth made his osculatory round.
The Youth assured his aunt, in answer to repeated appeals, that he had already lunched. He had only got about three minutes to spare, but had thought he would like to see his aunt, and inquire after his mother's health. The Youth inwardly wondered how he was to get a chance of consulting his father financially.
" Well, if you are quite sure you have had lunch, we won't press you," said his aunt; " but we are not going to let you run away at once."
The Youth explained to his aunt that he had to get to Richmond, and that Time and football captains wait for no man.
" Nonsense, Hugh," put in his mother. "Your aunt hasn't seen you for some time. Surely you put her before your silly football ? "
Here Mr. Ashby, who knew something of the sovereignty of sport, interposed. Hugh certainly mustn't be late for his match. By what train
was he going to Richmond ?
269﻿A 'Varsity Man
The Youth, determining to pitch it strong, replied the 2.10 from Waterloo.
"The 2.15, to be correct," said his accurate parent, as he consulted his watch. "It is now twenty-five minutes to two. If you leave here in a quarter of an hour's time you will do it comfortably. I don't mind standing you a cab."
The Youth inwardly cursing his father's legal exactitude, lost his head, and in his haste said the wrong thing.
" I must be off at once, as I've left my bag in the cloak-room at Bishop's Road."
Mr. Ashby shut his watch with a snap.
"In that case it is quite impossible for you to catch the 2.15 from Waterloo. You'll have to go by the District. Sit down, and we'll look you out a train."
The Youth, mentally paralysed for the moment, sank into a chair.
" Do you want a time-table, Edward ?" asked the Youth's aunt.
The Youth, utterly confounded, sat in a dazed
state while a Bradskaw was brought and his
father looked out trains. He pictured Vera
waiting at the end of Portland Place in the
270﻿The Hansom-Cab and the Overcoat
hansom, and then suddenly a new fear came upon him. His father had said something about providing him a cab. His blood ran cold. Mr. Ashby closed the Bradshaw and tossed it on to a chair behind him.
" Two twenty-three," he said, " from Bishop's Road. Cab from here to Bishop's Road, twenty minutes. You must leave here in twenty minutes' time."
The Youth rose to his feet for a last effort.
" I can easily do it by 'bus if I leave now," he said wildly ; " there's no need to waste a cab fare."
"I could wish," said his father, "that you were always as careful. Anyhow, my boy, you needn't worry, as I'm going to pay for your cab."
The Youth realised the absurdity of further protest. Nevertheless, he had already begun some rambling objection when he caught in his father's eye the wonder of a very slight suspicion. His protest died in an incoherent murmur, and he resumed his seat. His father continued to make a very excellent lunch. The Youth sat still in a state of almost paralytic impotence. His aunt seemed to be talking to
somebody about Oxford. The Youth, suddenly
271﻿A 'Varsity Man
realising that she was gazing at him in astonishment, awoke to the fact that she had asked him a question, and that he was gibbering at her. He pulled himself together, and managed to converse for a little while with some appearance of sanity. He watched the clock feverishly, and at five minutes to two rose to go.
"Oh, dear me, must you be off?" exclaimed his aunt. "Jacques, tell Willis to call a cab;" and the maid walked towards the door with a haste that seemed nothing short of malignant.
" Oh, don't trouble," almost shrieked the Youth; but again caught the surprised look of his aunt and family.
"What is the matter, Hugh?" inquired his mother.
The Youth staggered his round of farewells.
His father rose.
"I'll see you safely off," he said, and walked out into the hall. The terrified Youth dared not protest.
"Whatever made you come up on a bitter day like this without your overcoat ? " called his mother.
A maid was plying a cab whistle on the doorstep.
272﻿The Hansom-Cab and the Overcoat
The Youth was about to hurry out when his father stepped in front of him.
"There's a cab by the Langham," he said to the servant.
The Youth turned his head and shut his eyes. A numb terror held him in its grip.
"There's somebody in that one, sir," said the maid.
The Youth did not dare open his eyes. Every moment he expected Vera's cabman to recognise him, and drive up with a jingle of bells.
At this moment a hansom raced out of Devonshire Street and up to the door.
" Good - bye, gov'nor," gulped the Youth, snatching his father's hand, and backed down the steps, hunching his shoulders and turning up his collar with one hand as he went. The pavement reached, he sidled towards the cab ; then, with a gasp of " Bishop's Road," was in it in one bound. His father remained on the doorstep, and stared while the cab drove off. It subsequently transpired that he believed the Youth spoke only too truly when he said that he had lunched.
The cab bowled up Portland Place, and took 273	s﻿A 'Varsity Man
one of the turnings on the left. The Youth dashed open the trap above him.
" Back as hard as you can go to the Lang-ham !"
The coast was clear of relations by this time, and get back to Vera he absolutely must. What must she have thought when she saw him drive off! The Youth stood up in his excitement, and leant on the splashboard of the cab as it swung round into Portland Place.
The street was entirely empty of traffic.
The Youth sank back into his seat in speechless dismay. But in a moment he flung up the trap again. He must overtake Vera at all costs.
" Straight on up Regent Street. Drive like
the devil! " It was only a chance. Perhaps she
had already dismissed her cab. Suddenly it
dawned on the Youth that in this case she would
have had to pay, not only for the journey she and
the Youth had made in it, but for the Youth's
private journey from Paddington to Gloucester
Road. The Youth squirmed in his seat. But
surely she would not dismiss it, but drive on to
her home. Then she would have to pay for it
274﻿The Hansom-Cab and the Overcoat
just the same. Great Scot! Suppose she had no money, which was extremely likely, she would have to get her people to pay the cab. How could she possibly account for a five or six shilling fare, and would they-
Of a sudden a fearful thought gripped the Youth by the throat, and he nearly shrieked aloud. Vera had his overcoat with her.
At this moment a hansom just in front of the Youth turned off into Hanover Street, and he caught a glimpse of a blue-and-brown toque.
" Quick — follow that cab down Hanover Street!" he yelled to his driver.
They overtook and passed their quarry in Hanover Square. The owner of the blue-and-brown toque was a negress of mature years.
Then the utter hopelessness of the search was borne in upon the Youth. He had a recollection of driving with Vera up part of Regent Street, but beyond that and a vague memory of side streets he could not remember what route they had taken from Gloucester Road. What possible chance had he of finding her? No ; it was only left for him to go on to Richmond and play his match. He looked at his watch. He had
275﻿A 'Varsity Man
not over much time to get to Bishop's Road. He gave directions to the cabman, and spent the drive to Bishop's Road between fits of vituperative soliloquy and dumb despondency.
When he reached Bishop's Road he was horrified to find that his watch was five minutes slow, and that his train was already due. He booked his ticket to Richmond and rushed to the cloak-room.
"I've got a bag in here," he said, feeling in his pocket for the ticket.
The man waited stolidly behind the broad counter. The Youth paused with his hand in his pocket and swore audibly. He had left the cloak-room ticket in his old overcoat at Whitaker's.
At this moment he heard a train enter the station.
"Oh, I've lost the ticket," said the Youth hurriedly ; " but that's the bag down there."
"Can't give you the bag without the ticket," said the man shortly.
"My good man," cried the Youth imperiously, " surely you remember me leaving the bag here ?"
" Haw, haw!" mimicked a shoeblack behind 276﻿The Hansom-Cab and the Overcoat
the Youth's back. "Chase me, girls. I'm a giddy young whelk."
The man obdurately refused to give up the bag without the ticket; the Youth stormed and swore; a crowd of loiterers collected, and the shoeblack continued to solicit feminine pursuit. The infuriated Youth was about to leap the counter and seize the bag, when he remembered the club-tie incident, and refrained. He heard the train begin to leave the station. Abandoning the bag he made a dash down the stairs, but found the barrier closed and the train disappearing.
There was no other train to Richmond for an hour. The Youth crossed the subway to the Great Western Station, and, sitting down on a seat, cursed steadily and without interruption until 3.18, when he returned to Oxford, a crushed and gibbering wreck.
On Sunday morning he received a letter from
the secretary of the Old Cliffburian Football Club.
Its exact terms cannot be mentioned, but its
purport may be guessed. The secretary of an
Old Boys' team might be in other respects a
long-suffering or apathetic man; he might look
277﻿A 'Varsity Man
on with a smile while you murdered his family and buried them under the hearthstone ; but leave his team a man short in an important match, and the best thing you can do is to go abroad for six years and wear a false beard.
Directly after breakfast he wrote a long letter to Vera, explaining the whole awful list of circumstances, and begging for an answer to say she understood and forgave. For four days he waited in vain, and then unable to stand the suspense, he wrote again at greater length asking for an interview. He was afraid he had got her into a shocking row ; he could, of course, see exactly what had happened. That beastly overcoat of his. "You had no money; you had to drive home and get your people to pay the cab. They, of course, spotted the overcoat, and that gave the whole thing away. Can't you arrange to see me and tell me you aren't angry with me ? Perhaps I can help you."
On Friday morning a letter arrived in Vera's handwriting. The Youth tore it open eagerly.
" Dear Mr. Ashby,—Everything happened
exactly as you say. There has been a fearful
278﻿The Hansom-Cab and the Overcoat
row, and mother is awfully angry with me, so don't write any more. I can't possibly see you.
"Yours sincerely, V. T.
"P.S.—I can't send the overcoat back, as they've taken it away, and I can't tell them whose it is."
The Youth read and re-read the postscript, and then folded and pocketed the letter with deliberation.
The Youth had made up his mind; there was only one thing to do. Vera was making matters worse for herself by shielding him. He must interview Mrs. Thurlow at once, tell her the truth, and take all the blame on himself.
With a little diplomacy, he might show the irate mother that her daughter had not done anything so very shocking after all. The Youth had ever been a chivalrous youth. Besides, there was a straightforwardness about the action that might please Mrs. Thurlow—and Vera.
With his noble intention still red-hot in him, he caught, without leave, the 10.55 to town, and at one was ascending the steps of 71 Evelyn Gardens. Mrs. Thurlow was at home, and the
Youth was shown into the drawing-room.
279﻿A 'Varsity Man
Even now that his ardour had had time to cool he did not flinch. It has been observed before that the Youth was a Briton; he felt that he was doing an honourable thing. And there was some chance of recovering his overcoat.
Mrs. Thurlow entered, and the Youth introduced himself. There was an awkward pause; then the Youth, screwing up his courage, plunged in medias res.
" I have come," he said, "about the overcoat."
"The overcoat!" repeated Mrs. Thurlow, with a pointless assumption of surprise.
Then the Youth took a long breath, and told Mrs. Thurlow the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Mrs. Thurlow heard him through in perfect silence.
" Does my daughter know you are telling me this ? " she asked, after a brief pause.
"She had no idea of it," replied the Youth.
"Then what made you do so?"
The Youth squared his shoulders.
"I felt," he said, "that it was the proper thing to do."
" Thank you, Mr. Ashby," said Mrs. Thurlow 280﻿The Hansom-Cab and the Overcoat
with some calmness. "Your coat shall be returned to you. Good-bye."
The Youth was somewhat staggered at this attitude. He had had it in his mind to say many things—to point out the real triviality, from a broad point of view, of Vera's offence, and, in a degree, his own. As it was, he said good-bye, and found himself in the street with these things unsaid.
" Hullo, Ashby ! " said a voice.
The Youth looked up and saw Vera's brother, the young medical student.
"How are you?" said the Youth, and then started and stared, with wide-open eyes, at Thurlow.
"Ah," observed the young man, with some satisfaction, "you're looking at my overcoat."
The statement was undeniable.
"Smartish coat, eh?" remarked the medical student. " Tell you what, there's a curious tale about that coat."
The Youth moistened his lips.
" What's that ? " he asked in a cracked whisper.
"Why, last Saturday," said Thurlow, flicking
the ash off his cigarette, "my sister Vera—you
281﻿A 'Varsity Man
know Vera—arrived home in a cab. It seems she'd been shopping and run through her money, so we sent the maid out to pay the cab. Well, in came the skivvy in a minute or two with an overcoat on her arm.
" ' Please, miss,' she said, 'here's the overcoat. The cabman says you left it in the cab, and he wants two shillings more. He says he had to wait about a lot.'
" I gave the skivvy two bob. The mater looked fairly knocked.
"'What on earth is it?' she asked.
" 'Oh, that,' said Vera. ' I bought that at Shool-bred's sale for Harry. It was awfully cheap.'
"Well, the mater seemed a bit surprised, and so was I, for that matter. Vera isn't in the habit of buying me expensive overcoats; and, between you and me, this overcoat was never cut in Tottenham Court Road. There's something deuced fishy about the whole thing. But the great thing is, I scoop a devilish good overcoat ; it didn't fit me at first, but I had it shortened a good deal and made smaller generally ; now it's quite excellent, isn't it ? So I'm not
going to worry about it—eh, would you?"
282﻿The Hansom-Cab and the Overcoat
"No," gulped the Youth, and, unable to trust himself further, gasped something about a train, and tore off down Gloucester Road.
"Why are they such liars?" he shrieked time after time as he sped to Oxford in an empty carriage.
And next morning a parcel and a letter arrived for the Youth by the first post. The letter was from Vera ; it was short but expressive.
"You must be an idiot," it concluded; "any one but an utter idiot would have known."
The parcel contained the overcoat.
The Youth seized it and hurled it with execrations into the corner of the room. And the remarks which, as a chivalrous gentleman, he could not address to Vera, he addressed to the overcoat.
283﻿CHAPTER XIII
the dethronement of the one
During the first few weeks of his second summer term at Oxford the Youth was bowed down under a dual trouble. In the first place a hopeless passion still lacerated his bosom; regularly every evening, when there was nothing particular on at the theatre, his mind would revert to Maisie and suffer a good deal, especially if the band was playing in King Edward Street. To be seated under these circumstances on a window-seat, watching the shadows descend upon the prettiest quad in Oxford without having loved and lost, would be quite useless as a situation. It is quite necessary and fitting in such a case to be eroti-cally miserable, and the Youth, who was conscientious in these little details, gave his sorrow no quarter, and would shut his eyes and figuratively prod it, if it became slack, or if he discovered
in it shameless tendencies to give place to any
284﻿The Dethronement of the One
trivial feelings of content. Hopeless love is a really admirable complement to dinner; it ought to be advertised in the omnibuses.
The second trouble was a still harder one to bear, in that there was no romance about it and it could not be utilised to aid digestion. The Youth, who had come up with eight others a week before the beginning of term willing to undergo all the hardships of a literal galley-slave in order to get a place in the St. Valentine's summer eight, was relegated by both his coach and his captain with an insultingly placid unanimity to the undesirable position of ninth man.
This was a heavy blow. To toil daily in a blazing sun or more often drenching rain, plastered with base contumely from a gentleman to whom one has possibly never been introduced and whom one is not allowed to fight; to observe the habits and diet of a voracious and apparently bovine Sunday-school teacher; to go to bed at the beginning of the evening and get up in the middle of the night in order to do the tour of a meadow of which one has already seen all that there is to be seen; to spend one's leisure time
between billiards and a raging thirst—not enough
285﻿A 'Varsity Man
beer and too much skittles—all these and other miseries are perhaps worth bearing for their counter advantages in Eights Week: to stroll by the barges in an Eights blazer; to man the boat amidst bright glances and anticipatory cheers; to make bumps or get bumped—at any rate to be the centre of interest—and on the last night of Eights Week to—well, to go out of training. But to endure all these agonies only in the end to run on the bank with the crew and row in the Togger the year after, is not the kind of occupation that can be described as seductive. The Youth found this to be a type of misery which, as touching his vanity, was considerably real and by no means artistic, and welcomed his despair about Maisie as a more tolerable substitute ; it undoubtedly possessed more "style."
Then, as if these two bitter troubles were not enough to bear, Fate must insist on tormenting the Youth in smaller details. The Youth, it must be remembered, had, at the end of the previous term, offered himself to the Moderators for examination in subjects upon which he had kept a very open and unbiassed mind. There being
a large entry for Honour Mods, in this particular
286﻿The Dethronement of the One
year, the results did not come out until after the beginning of the summer term. The dons had affected to expect a First from the Youth, his friends hoped for a Second, and he himself had recognised the likelihood of a Third. He took a Gulf—a Fourth in fact. The dons themselves said nothing. The Youth respected them for this, overlooking the fact that there would be the usual interview with them en masse at the end of the term. But the Youth's people did not preserve a similar silence. Their letter annoyed the Youth considerably. Surely the disappointment was his as much as theirs ; besides Honour Mods, is not the one aim and object of existence. He and the Cynic had long ago agreed that it was a narrow and contemptible affair. "It is absolutely no criterion of a man's intellect," the Cynic said. " It doesn't try to find out if he has any originality, any ideas of his own ; the man to succeed in it is the man who possesses to the full a slavish capacity for absorbing the ideas of others. It is, in fact, nothing less than a degrading and menial drudgery," and the Cynic had resumed a somewhat dilettante study of contemporary Japanese art. The pained Youth
287﻿A 'Varsity Man
read the Cynic extracts of the parental outburst.
"You have made a mistake, mon ami" observed the Cynic, " in being too intimate with your people. They always take advantage of it. Personally, I know little of my family. Curiously enough," mused the Cynic, reaching for a cigarette, " I met my father rather more than usual last Vac. He seems to be quite a civil sort of man, a trifle heavy, but really quite tolerable in some respects. I think I must cultivate him a little. The rest of my family, from what I hear, would bore me a good deal if I knew them, so I refrain from becoming intimate. Your people, mon cher—if you will excuse my saying so—seem to take life very seriously."
The Cynic took few things seriously, except himself; "thus missing," as the Youth's sister had once observed, "the chief humorous element in his existence."
The Youth wrote a somewhat specious epistle
to his people, pointing out the worthlessness
and triviality of Honour Mods, in a man's real
career, and ascribing a good deal to Dame For-
288﻿The Dethronement of the One
tune. But the result of his examination and the parental letter still continued to annoy him somewhat. It was really too bad when he was already overcome by real troubles, that these trivial worries should crop up like this.
The real sorrow of his life received a fillip one day in the week before Eights, when there arrived for the Youth a letter in the once familiar handwriting.
The Youth found it in the lodge as he was starting for his before-breakfast walk round the meadows. He was genuinely agitated. Could the engagement have been broken off? Had Maisie repented of her choice, and perhaps been touched by the thought of old times ? The Youth opened the note with trembling fingers.
" My mother is sending you an invitation to my wedding; I shall be very glad to see you there."
The Youth, we regret to say, impaired the
dramatic possibilities of the situation by giving
way to a vigorous but prosaic expletive. We
can hardly blame him. If people chose seven
in the morning to spring a romantic tragedy on
an unbreakfasted undergraduate, who is about
289	T﻿A 'Varsity Man
to walk round a long meadow, and sprint a hundred yards, it is unreasonable to expect him to play up to it properly. Romance can hardly be said to exist before lunch, certainly not before breakfast. By eleven that morning, however, the Youth was in a most praiseworthy artistic state of depression. He went round to the Cynic's rooms, conscious of the chance of a fine effect.
The Cynic was standing with an open letter in his hand, swearing feelingly in French, with a slight admixture of Spanish.
"My family," he hissed, "without consulting me, have taken a house at Catford."
This did the Youth good.
" Where is it ? " asked the Cynic. " Is it in England ?"
When the Youth had recovered breath, he gave the Cynic his impressions of Catford, where he had once played football.
The Cynic added a little Italian to his Hispano-French objurgations.
The Youth deferred the showing to the Cynic
of his invitation till a more opportune moment.
He chose the same afternoon as he and the Cynic
290﻿The Dethronement of the One
were walking to the rollers. The Youth had run one journey with the boat, and had been let off for the rest of the day.
"You're not going, of course," remarked the Cynic, handing the card back to him.
" I don't know," said the Youth with a reckless laugh, " I may as well see it through. A little purgatory more or less won't make much odds."
" Personally," said the Cynic, " I refuse to go to anybody's wedding. I decline to deliberately give myself the blues by attending the most depressing of functions. Even funerals I do my best to keep away from, but then, perhaps, I'm a hedonist."
" By Jove, old man, you'll have to take care of me for a few days before June 30th," exclaimed the Youth.
" Yes, won ami, I fear you must say good-bye to la belle charmante" remarked the Cynic. " Pah! I detest your so-called civilised nations with their ridiculous monogamy.—And you can't call the man out, I suppose," he mused. " Peste! how I loathe the smug middle-class morality of modern legislation."
291﻿A 'Varsity Man
" Marriage," observed the Cynic later on in the punt, where he had for some time been a silent picture in his verdant suit and tie—" I like- greens," he said—upon a pile of art-green cushions—" marriage is the tight boot which we draw on the foot of happiness by the polished shoe-horn of illusion. It is studded with the sharp nails of ennui, and seek as we may to find relief with the soothing powder of infidelity-"
" Oh, dry up, Smythe," called a Rugger man from a passing punt-load of St. Valentine's men, " you know you've no idea of what you're talking about."
And Sewell asked the Youth, who was punting with some ease and grace, if he had got a receipt for the Cherwell and surrounding districts in his pocket.
"Boys," murmured the Cynic; "good chaps, but boys, mere boys."
A few afternoons later the Youth was running
in sweater and shorts along the tow-path with
the eight, preceded by the pink-tied, brass-
buttoned coach on a bicycle. They were just
approaching the haystacks on their way down to
292﻿The Dethronement of the One
Iffley when the Youth espied two feminine figures coming up the tow-path. One of them was young and exceedingly pretty. To a nature like the Youth's there is something singularly ignominious in the position of spare man, the laboured running at the tail of the coach's bicycle, unnoticed, uncursed even. The Youth saw that the girl was comely, and instantly gave himself up to a desperate effort to convey the impression that he was helping to coach the boat, and preferred running to cycling. He knit his brows, glared at the moving eight, and tried hard to look critical. As he passed the ladies he even allowed himself to mutter audibly, "Bad, bad; no swing; short in the water." He stole a look over his shoulder in a minute or two; yes, the girl was distinctly smart, and he hoped his efforts had not been wasted. Who could she be? Somebody come up for Eights Week a bit early, probably. He would have to find out.
On the return journey they overtook the mother and daughter—as the Youth guessed them to be—just by Long Bridges. The Youth had a good look at the girl this time before
293﻿A 'Varsity Man
passing her, and was more than ever decided to get introduced to her somehow. As he ran past he continued with an effort to play his part, and implored "five," in a voice which luckily could never reach the heavyweight, to get his body on. Unluckily for the Youth, the boat easied at the Green Bank, and he found it exceedingly difficult, while the dismounted coach addressed the crew, to keep up his deception. However, by nodding repeatedly, and opening his mouth as if to begin his own remarks directly the other coach had finished, he felt that he was making the best of a bad business.
That night at training hall, the Youth ventured to make inquiries from the crew about his charmer.
" I saw her," exclaimed Marriner—who to the Youth's disgust had got in at bow—"twice. At the haystacks, first time." It was a " fizz night," and Marriner was somewhat incautious.
"Oh, you did, did you," broke in the Captain fiercely from his place next to the culprit. " I thought I heard you being cursed for eyes out of the boat!"
294﻿The Dethronement of the One
Marriner subsided. The coach had addressed some rather vigorous remarks to bow about this lapse. When rowing in an eight, none but the brave observe the fair on the tow-path.
When Clinton had finished with Marriner he told the Youth that the girl was Bromley's cousin.
"How do jyou know?" put in Marriner sharply, pausing from straightening his collar.
There was a roar, and Clinton's arguments being of the vigorous type, Marriner again suffered. Clinton afterwards affirmed that he had seen the lady in question during the easy at the Green Bank, when he could not help noticing her, he having met her the year before at the St. Luke's "pill."
The Youth got his introduction from Bromley on the 'Varsity Barge on the first night of the Eights Week during the rowing of the first Division. Bromley himself being rather less timorous of the other sex in proportion to their advance in years, the Youth found himself tUe-a-tete with the cousin while Bromley took refuge with his aunt. St. Valentine's, who were in the second Division, had been bumped in the
295﻿A 'Varsity Man
Gut that night, and the Youth suddenly became aware that there were advantages attaching to the post of spare man.
" I think I saw you on the tow-path the other day," said the Youth soon.
"Did you?" asked the girl. "Very likely you did. I was there on Saturday. I didn't see you though."
It is bitter to find that honest labour has been in vain, but all things considered, perhaps it was as well, as now that he knew her he could not have kept it up. He got on excellently with Miss de Ligne, and was quite sorry when the Division was over. Bromley was only too glad to ask him to dine that night, and the Youth spent a delightful evening.
The De Lignes went down two days afterwards, but the Youth had improved his acquaintance with the girl and found her charming. She seemed, as far as the Youth could gather, to do pretty well as she liked, being on terms of frank camaraderie with a youthful and fashionable mother. Before they parted the Youth
had discovered it to be absolutely necessaryx
296﻿The Dethronement of the One
that he should at some time draw with his eyes shut a pig in a book kept at her home by Miss de Ligne, and she had frankly told him that he had better come to " Shortlands," Richmond, in the Vac. and do so.
"Mr. Ashby wants to draw a pig in my book, mother," she had said, and Mrs. de Ligne had confirmed the invitation.
The Youth found the rest of Eights Week pretty dull with the De Lignes gone; Miss de Ligne, like others, had proved an anodyne, and on her departure his longing for Maisie began to reassert itself. He had accepted the invitation to the wedding, foreseeing in his presence there a very choice bit of drama. He spent a good deal of time picturing the situation to himself, with a good many rather sanguine enlargements. The solitary figure in a back pew bowed with anguish—no, better! with the white face drawn with pain but proudly set. Poor fellow, his life is wrecked, but he holds his head high. See with what a self-command he congratulates the bride, aye, and even shakes the other man by the hand. But this self-restraint cannot last,
this mask of iron cannot remain. Outside the
297﻿A 'Varsity Man
church a crowd has gathered round a prostrate figure-
The Youth derived a good deal of pleasure from these nebulous flights of imagination.
He went one morning with the Cynic to Rowell's to choose a wedding present for Maisie.
The Cynic suggested a silver cigarette case with embellishments of rubies.
The Youth was annoyed.
" I don't know what grounds I've given you for assuming she's that type of person," he said rather sharply.
"Why, doesn't she smoke?" asked the surprised Cynic.
" No, she doesn't," returned the Youth. " I don't know why you should always persist in looking on my affair with her as an ordinary liaison."
"Mon cher Hugh," protested the Cynic, "have
I>>
ever-
"You seem," continued the irritated Youth, " to regard the whole thing as a vulgar flirtation with some smoking and swearing female."
" Monpauvre gar con" remonstrated the Cynic,
" where is the connection, beyond the alliteration ?
298﻿The Dethronement of the One
Besides, why shouldn't they smoke ? All the society women with whom I have been intimate "—here the Cynic looked unspeakable things—" I have discovered to be smokers, particularly those of title. Austrian ladies smoke cigars, and yet seem to refrain from blasphemy— at least, all those that I have met."
The Cynic had once been introduced to the widow of an Austrian corn-broker in a boarding-house at Folkestone.
Eventually the Youth chose Maisie a handsome and exceedingly extravagant present—it was ultimately paid for by his father—and despatched it with a very formal letter of congratulation. This Stoic epistle gave the Youth much pleasure, conveying as it did the idea of intense passion curbed by an iron will.
Formerly the Youth's letters had been marked
by a deliberate impetuosity; without actually
acknowledging to himself a carefully thought-out
plan of attack, he had instinctively felt that an
impulsive and hot-blooded whirl of words, with a
few mild oaths inserted to indicate the passionate
feelings which cannot be restrained, was the
suitable line. Nor had this been altogether
299﻿A 'Varsity Man
humbug, for he had felt a little of all this as he wrote, and had tried desperately to feel more. But now he clearly felt, and even acknowledged to himself, the value of the tone of the silent sufferer, who would rather die than betray his secret.
Maisie thanked him in a conventional little note from ever his sincere friend.
It arrived on the last day of Eights Week, and the Youth laughed recklessly to his reflection in the looking-glass. The next day, feeling more than usually bitter, he poured forth his agony in a lengthy and extremely bombastic ode. He had thought the world fair because a girl had smiled, but now the veil was gone :—
" I see a world of noisome care,
Goodness and love are fancies vain ; I see the world I thought so fair A seething pit of writhing pain."
The piece de resistance followed :—
" I see a life that's worse than death, Its joys are rotten to their cores; It wraps me in its foetid breath,
It stinks, and bares its festering sores." 300﻿The Dethronement of the One
The Youth inscribed the whole with some satisfaction in a volume he had lately started for the preservation of these soulful outbursts. Nor was he pleased when the Cynic, who had picked up the volume unobserved some time later, remarked that this epic suggested the state of affairs prior to the taking of a patent medicine. The Cynic's sense of humour was great, and the mere fact that it did not extend to his own collection of verse—which, as a matter of fact, was not particularly bad, though the brochure which he published at his father's expense some time later did not make him rich beyond the dreams of avarice—probably left it keener in the case of the Youth's.
" Why take it to heart so if St. Valentine's did get bumped yesterday ?" he queried.
Later on in the punt—the Cynic was always in good form in a punt, and invariably arrived at the rollers conscientiously primed with epigram—he informed the Youth that his present' pessimism was the natural outcome of the last night of Eights Week, and that ,the verses had been the result of a disorder not erotic but gastric.
"Our emotions," expounded the recumbent 301﻿A 'Varsity Man
Cynic, "are generally believed to repose in the heart, whereas they really emanate from quite another quarter. We are loving or unloving, good or bad, religious or sceptical according to what we have eaten. Battles are won and lost, alms given and withheld, marriages made and unmade, not in Heaven, but at the dinner table. The litterateur writes according as he has eaten and drunk. Sentiment after supper at the Savoy, and cynicism after a cold collation at the Creamery."
" Every course at dinner," added the Cynic, after a long silence on his way back from Marston, "has its moral effect. Start a dinner with a poor soup, and the consequences may be stupendous. The hand that wields the ladle rules the world."
The rest of the term passed quickly for the Youth. The summer term in one's second year is usually a good time for Honour Mods, men, though the rest from labour which the Youth took was clearly a case of unearned increment. But, as the Cynic afterwards described the situation, "afires ca la ddluge." The uncomfortable
Youth, who at the end of the term nerved him-
302﻿The Dethronement of the One
self to face the massed Dons at his Viva, expecting a severe reprimand—perhaps a threat or two—on his Gulf in Mods, combined with his idleness during the term, left the hall too dazed and shocked to speak. The College "did not feel themselves justified under the circumstances in continuing his scholarship."
Then followed a terrible hour of solitude and a futile interview with his tutor.
The Rev. C. H. Wing, M.A., informed the Youth in a consolatory tone that he had made a hash of things. He could hold out no hopes of a reversal of the decision of the College.
" I suppose you know," said the Youth in a last appeal, "that this just about ruins me. I can't possibly come up again;" and his tutor accepted the information with regret but resignation. Mr. Wing shook hands and the Youth left the room. Even then he could not help feeling some pleasure at the dramatic nature of the situation. He had gone the pace ; he was ruined. He swung into the quad with a toss of the head, and Sewell, who was superintending the removal of his boxes in the lodge, and who did not know the true state of affairs, informed
3°3﻿A 'Varsity Man
him that this drinking between meals really was a mistake.
On the way down to town the Youth lent artistic colour to his trouble by persuading himself that it was the result of Maisie's perfidy. But his family, who lacked this exclusive knowledge, did not look upon the affair in its artistic light. The less said about the next few days the better. If we are to believe the Cynic, that the taking of things seriously is the privilege of the bourgeoisie, the Youth's mother must have typified " the backbone of England." Mr. Ashby was more subdued, but firm. Hugh must not go back to Oxford. The sooner he found something to do the better. Mrs. Ashby expressed the same views in a much more emphatic form, and suggested an insurance office.
Then followed days of domestic polemics. Mrs. Ashby would enter a room in the morning and find the Youth lounging with a novel and a pipe on two chairs and part of a table. Mrs. Ashby, as it struck her son, had a religious horror of any one in the springtime of life aspiring to be comfortable.
3°4﻿The Dethronement of the One
"I hate," she would say, "to see a young man lounging about on three chairs."
" Why on earth," the Youth would demand, "shouldn't I lounge on seventeen chairs if I am physically capable? Until I get this mastership I have got nothing in the world to do;" and Mrs. Ashby would tell him that a healthy young man ought not to be lazing about indoors; he ought to be up and stirring.
"Who on earth," the Youth would snap, "am I to up and stir, and why on earth ? "
Then would follow the inevitable row, and Mrs. Ashby would leave the room with her quiver empty of proverbs.
"It isn't the coat that makes the man," she informed him a propos of nothing in particular one day as he set out for Bond Street, and the Youth responded that infinitely more depended on the set of the trousers.
The Youth had taken an early opportunity of calling at " Shortlands." The perpetration of pictorial pigs under Miss de Ligne's fascinating guidance, he felt, would keep his mind from dwelling too much on Maisie's impending wedding. Perhaps he might confide in her over
305	u﻿A 'Varsity Man
the porcal album. His life at Oxford a failure, the girl he had loved about to wed another, he could not help seeing that he was an interesting character. And Miss de Ligne had shown a distinct interest in him already, before knowing of these fascinating details, though she had probably guessed from the far-away look that sometimes came into his eyes. Unfortunately the picture was spoilt on his arrival at Shortlands by an indifferent maid-servant, who informed him that Mrs. and Miss de Ligne were in Scotland on a visit of uncertain duration. The Youth, as he walked back down the hill, soliloquised in those florid phrases of which the un-smooth course of his various true loves had given him so practised a mastery.
As June 30th the fateful day drew near, the
Youth succeeded in working up his emotions
into the most creditable state. He had arranged
to dine with the Cynic at the Carlton on the
night of the 29th. The Cynic, he had said,
would have to take care of him before June
30th. He rather liked that idea. Heaven knew
what rash thing he might not do if left to himself
on the eve of the day which was virtually to end
306﻿The Dethronement of the One
everything for him. And the band would possibly play " Aller Seelen," which would be most fitting. The Cynic, who was twenty minutes late, joined the Youth in the Palm Court with a countenance threatening epigram.
" Unpunctuality," he informed the Youth as they ascended the stairs, " is the soul of wit. In the same way it may be said that necessity is the mother of honesty; invention, in fact, is the best policy."
The dinner was a decided success. The Youth was very bitter and biting about the St. Valentine's dons, and the Cynic, who had just been ploughed in a French "group," described the 'Varsity authorities generally as "bourgeois "—" canaille " —ignorant of "le monde," and "lamentably lacking in savoir faire." With the cigars the Youth soared from the practical to the emotional, and the Cynic surpassed himself under the influence of his own particular green Curac^oa.
" Pretty women, amico mio," he was observing to the Youth, as a menial helped him into his overcoat, "may be divided into two classes— those who are unwomanly, and those who are unladylike—the heartless and the 'h'less."
307﻿A 'Varsity Man
The Youth was admiring the coiffure of a tall girl who was moving with her party towards him.
"Occasionally," continued the Cynic, "they are both. When I was a boy-"
" Good Gad!" exclaimed the Youth.
"Why, it's Mr. Ashby," said Miss de Ligne to her mother.
The delighted Youth shook hands with both, while the Cynic contemplated the party from a discreet distance. The Youth told Mrs. de Ligne of his fruitless visit to Richmond.
"I'm so sorry we were away," said Mrs. de Ligne, "and we're off to Maloja the day after to-morrow. Won't you come and lunch with us to-morrow ?"
" Yes, I want my pig," remarked Miss de Ligne, which, as the Cynic observed later, was ambiguous.
The Youth accepted with a sincere pleasure.
"I've got an engagement in the afternoon, I'm afraid," he added, " but if you'll forgive my rushing off almost directly after lunch, I should like to come very much."
" Very well then, we'll have lunch at one," said Mrs. de Ligne, and on the coated appearance of
the ladies' cavaliers the Youth bid them farewell.
308﻿The Dethronement of the One
The Cynic deigned to observe that Miss de Ligne's skirt was well cut, and the Youth passed out into the night-air with an exhilaration somewhat out of keeping with the mood in which he had designed to spend the evening.
"Cocker I" called the Cynic, and the pair at his suggestion were whisked off to the Empire— another item which had had no place in the Youth's original plans.
"IIfautpasser le temps" said the Cynic, and the Youth considered it as well to kill thought.
Next morning the Youth arose with mixed feelings. The day so often dreamt of had arrived, and the Youth found himself strangely calm. He tried to ascribe this to the " iron mask of stoicism" theory, but an unmistakable elation which would, despite his efforts, centre his mind on one o'clock was altogether out of the picture. Maisie's marriage—his own moral extinction—was to take place in Hanover Square at three, and the Youth was going to put in a lunch at Richmond first. Really he would have very little time. If only he were going to be morally extinguished at four, it would be so much more convenient. How long would it
309﻿A 'Varsity Man
take him to get from Richmond to St. George's! The word recalled him to the awful truth. In a few hours it would all be over. The Youth swallowed hard and clenched his hands.
At one o'clock he found himself immaculately frockered in the drawing-room at Shortlands. Miss de Ligne was the first to join him. She was so glad he had come. Scotland had bored her terribly, she hadn't spoken to any one with a sense of humour for weeks.
Miss de Ligne, between themselves, was not over fond of Bromley, her cousin. He was a nice, big clean boy, but oh, so dull. These men are all very well in a country lane at night, with tramps about, but that is hardly the sole function of a companion.
The Youth was magnanimous. Bromley certainly was mighty thick; still, he was an excellent chap, a good sort, though quite impossible to converse with.
Mrs. de Ligne's greeting was cordial, and the Youth, for a man who was to be morally annihilated at 3.15, ate an excellent lunch. But this only proved a moral parallel to the condemned prisoner's breakfast. After lunch the
310﻿The Dethronement of the One
three adjourned to the garden, and Miss de Ligne fetched her pig album. When the Youth had sketched with his eyes shut a plethoric boar which had abandoned one palsied leg, and a nerveless tail in a vain pursuit of a detached eye, Miss de Ligne suggested croquet. There was some difficulty in arranging sides. Mrs. de Ligne glanced at her watch.
"Goodness," she exclaimed, "it's twenty to two! I must fly. You two will have to play by yourselves."
The Youth was suddenly reminded of the present. He had arranged to catch the 1.58 from Richmond, reaching Baker Street at 2.35. There was one shameful pause, and then he pulled himself together.
"I'm afraid I shall have to dash off as well," he said. "I've got to catch the 1.58."
"Oh!" said Miss de Ligne. That was all, but a good deal can be thrown into the monosyllable. From Miss de Ligne it was long drawn —very nearly a sigh.
"Must you really go, Mr. Ashby?" asked Mrs. de Ligne. The Youth fought himself manfully. Then a forced vision of Maisie rose before
311﻿A 'Varsity Man
his eyes. Of course he must go ; how could there be any question about it. That he had paused pained him beyond expression.
" I really must," he said, and shook hands with Miss de Ligne. It has already been said that there was heroic stuff in the Youth.
Mrs. de Ligne, it appeared, was going to the South-Western Station. She and the Youth left Shortlands together. Miss de Ligne said goodbye to her mother on the steps.
" I shall be so bored, mother," she said.
The Youth clenched his hands.
" You haven't much time to spare, Mr. Ashby," said Mrs. de Ligne, as they set off down the road, " if you have to catch the 1.58."
The Youth said he expected he would manage it all right.
Suddenly Mrs. de Ligne stopped with an exclamation. " I knew I had forgotten something," she cried.
The Youth offered his services.
" It's only a letter," explained Mrs de Ligne, "that I left in the library. But you mustn't think of going back, you'll miss your train."
The Youth was before all a chivalrous Youth.
312﻿The Dethronement of the One
Mrs. de Ligne walked on towards the station, while the Youth hurried back to Shortlands. He told the maid he had come back for a letter that had been left, Miss de Ligne would know where it was. The maid was able to locate the letter, and brought it to the Youth without troubling Miss de Ligne; this was of course lucky, as it saved "time. The Youth hesitated a moment, looked at his watch, and then bolted. He caught up Mrs. de Ligne by the South-Western Station.
" Now, you must fly," she said. " I do hope you haven't lost your train."
The Youth hurried into the other station. It was no use getting a ticket until he knew whether he would catch his train. The clock marked a minute past two. He ran up to an inspector.
"Have I missed the 1.58 Metropolitan?" he asked.
" Just gone, sir," said the inspector.
There was a pause.
" Damn," said the Youth eventually, without any intense conviction.
He stood irresolute for a moment. Then 3i3﻿A 'Varsity Man
gradually all that he had missed was borne in upon him. His chivalry had cost him dear.
" Damn," he repeated, but still without any exceeding virulence. After all he was not a child to cry over spilt milk. There was nothing for it but to go back to Shortlands. Still, what a fool he had been.
"Where did you want to go to, sir?" asked the inspector.
" Baker Street," replied the Youth, and gave vent to some conscientious curses.
" What time did you want to get there, sir ?" inquired the man.
"Oh, I wasn't going to Baker Street itself; I had to get to Hanover Square at three. Still it's impossible now," and the disappointed Youth turned away.
"One minute, sir," said the benignant official, producing a time-table; "there's a District train in five minutes."
"That goes to Earl's Court, doesn't it?" observed the Youth ; "that's no use."
"You could go on to Sloane Square, sir, and take a cab," suggested the man.
"Oh, that would take much too long," replied 3i4﻿The Dethronement of the One
the Youth, turning to go. " Doesn't matter, it can't be helped."
The inspector stopped him. He pointed to the time-table. " Arrive Sloane Square 2.43," he said. "You'll get to Hanover Square just in time."
It occurred to the Youth that he had never before met so officious an official.
" Oh, but the train's certain to be late," he said brusquely.
" Always run to time, those trains," said the inspector.
The Youth discovered that he had taken a strong dislike to the man. He gave him threepence.
"Thanks," he said lamely, "but I'm afraid I'm too late for my appointment now."
He left the station. It was no good dashing up to the church late, beastly bad form. And if he did get there in time he would be in a fearful state with his collar in a pulp, rushing things like that. Besides, as a matter of fact, what was the good of harrowing his feelings unnecessarily by being present at the ceremony? It was morbid. Perhaps it was as well that his missing the train
3i5﻿A 'Varsity Man
had decided matters for him. He would go on to the reception at Maisie's house in about an hour's time. After all that was best anyhow. And meanwhile he couldn't do better than spend the time at Shortlands, to the gates of which he had unconsciously wandered in his meditations.
Yes, Miss de Ligne was in the garden.
We all remember the terrific thunderstorm which came on so suddenly just before seven o'clock on June 30th. It quite spoilt the Youth's hat during the ten minutes' walk from Shortlands to the station.
316﻿CHAPTER XIV
the reign of the many
Thus was the One merged in the Many. Maisie is now on her honeymoon, and in a few days the Youth leaves for Algiers in charge of a baronet's weakly boy. The thought of the Youth on deck after the first few days, with dinner over and the moonbeams on the ocean, the thought of the cigar-bearing Youth under the stars with nobody to sentimentalise about is a singularly pathetic one. For sentiment about Maisie as an individual is no longer possible. The Youth, to himself at any rate, has never been a whole humbug; his mind will allow him to overstate to it infinitely, but not actually to mis-state. He has merely been a somewhat ambitious builder; he had found a particularly small mud-brick, and with it erected an imaginary palace. But the brick was real. With the brick gone the Youth has given up building. To his fellow-passengers, particularly the fair sex, he will appear as a pessimist— a curiously impressionable pessimist, for the ranks
3i7﻿A 'Varsity Man
of the Many are destined to swell—and his conversation, when he remembers, will be Schopen-hauer-and-water, and he will be annoyed when he is caught enjoying himself. Possibly if he should meet on the boat some "sympathetic" woman who will let him talk about himself as much as he likes, he will tell her that he has wasted all his best feelings, and will endeavour —when she is looking—to adopt the expression of one whose happiness is in the past. About the Maisie affair in the abstract perhaps he will be able to sentimentalise in a reminiscent "old times come again no more " sort of fashion ; but Maisie, apart from the distinction which this halo of reminiscence will impart to her, is no longer the One. Sentiment will cling to the memory, not the maid. As an individual she must step down from her pedestal, and join, though from the glory that was once hers she can never quite be one of them, the ever increasing ranks of the Many.
Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson fir* Co, Edinburgh & London﻿NEW 6/- NOVELS, SPRING 1901
»vxwvwwwv\
WILLOWDENE WILL
By Halliwell Sutcliffe, Author of " Ricroft of Withens," &c. &c. With Illustrations.
A PATCHED UP AFFAIR
By Florence Warden, Author of "The House on the Marsh," " The Master Key," &c.
THE STRANGE WOOING OF MARY BOWLER
By Richard Marsh, Author of "The Beetle," "The Seen and the Unseen," &c.
THE MASTER PASSION
By Bessie Hatton.
A HONEYMOON IN SPACE
By George Griffith, Author of " Valdar," " Rose of Judah," &c.
THE INVADERS
By Louis Tracy, Author of " The Final War." With Illustrations.
THE SENTENCE OF THE COURT
By Headon Hill, Author of " The Plunder Ship," " The Zone of Fire," &c.
THE TAPU OF BANDERAH
By Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery.
AMONG THE REDWOODS
By Bret Harte, Author of " From Sandhill to Pine."
'TWIXT DEVIL AND DEEP SEA
By Mrs. C. N. Williamson, Author of "Newspaper Girl," "Fortune's Sport," &c.
WITH THE BLACK FLAG
By William Westall, Author of " With the Red Eagle," &c.
CINDERS
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THE SIEGE OF KUMASSI
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7	[6/- Novels continued on next page.﻿New 6/= Novels—continued
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THE MASTER KEY
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By W. W. Jacobs.	[Ready May.
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MY JAPANESE WIFE
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THE FINAL WAR
By Louis Tracy	[Ready August.
The cheap edition of this well-known and exciting story is illustrated. 6﻿Pearson's Illustrated Gossipy Guide=Books
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THIRD LARGE EDITION.
By J. Emerson Neilly, War Correspon- / ^ef^l/ \ dent of the Pall Mall Gazette in Mafeking. I	3 1
Crown 8vo. Price is. net.	1 X^yA . i
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With over 500 Designs and Illustrations. This Work will be issued in Twelve Parts, published on 1st and 15 th of each month. Price 7& each.	[Part I. ready February 1st.﻿Wooings and Weddings
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4﻿Fourth Edition
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5﻿Third Edition
Becky
By Helen Mathers
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Crown 8vo, cloth Price 6s. each
Adventures
of
Captain Kettle
and
Further Adventures of Captain Kettle
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Pictures of Travel, Sport, and Adventure
By George Lacy ("The Old Pioneer")
Author of "Liberty and Law," "Pioneer Hunters, Traders, and Explorers of South Africa," &c.
Demy 8vo, cloth, with about 50 Illustrations
Price 15s.
" The chief scene of the adventures set down in this volume is South Africa; and it is fortunate in making its appearance at a time when there is keen public appetite for information concerning some of the regions with which Mr. Lacy was best acquainted—Natal, the Orange Free State, the Griqualand West, the Cape Colony. . . . No books on the period and tlic region provide more fascinating reading." —Scotsman.
Spinifex and Sand
A Narrative of Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia
By the Hon. David W. Carnegie
With Illustrations by Ernest Smythe and from Photographs, together with 4 Maps. Demy 8vo, cloth
Price 2 is.
" Mr. Carnegie's fascinating book is replete with valuable information, which cannot fail to be of use to the scientist, whether his special department of study be ethnological, botanical, geological, or geographical."—St. James's Gazette.
Siberia and Central Asia
By John W. Bookwalter
With nearly 300 Illustrations and a new Map
Demy 8vo, cloth, gilt top
Price 2 is. net
" An excellent work. . . . The illustrations, of which there are a large number, are exceedingly good."— Daily News.
The Land of the Pigmies
By Capt. Guy Burrows
Dedicated, by permission, to His Majesty the King of the Belgians. With Introduction by H. M. Stanley, M.P. Demy 8vo, cloth, with over 200 Illustrations.
Price 2is.
" We commend this book to all who follow events and discoveries in Central Africa. It is an entertaining record of valuable facts."—Academy.
C. Arthur Pearson, Henrietta Street, W.C.
7﻿Fun on the Billiard Table
A Collection of 75 Amusing Tricks and Games, with Photographs and Diagrams
By " Stancliffe "
Crown 8vo Price 2s. 6d.
Trick with Matchboxes Get two outside covers of any sort of the ordinary matchboxes, large size. Place them on the billiard table with a ball on each. Put a third ball in a line with a pocket and the two other balls as in diagram.
Play a hard shot with the ball on the table into the pocket through the matchboxes, which should fly off the table, and the two balls will occupy the places where the matchboxes stood.
The above is an example of one of the seventy-five tricks contained in the book.
" To say that no billiard-room should be without this joyous and ingenious little volume is nothing : there is no player, amateur or professional, who would not get his moneysworth out of it."—Sportsman.
Third Large Edition
Besieged with Baden=Powell
A Complete Record of the Siege of Mafeking
By J. Emerson Neilly
Special War Correspondent of the "Pall Mall Gazette" in Mafeking
Crown 8vo
Price is. net; post free, is. 3d.
" Mr. Neilly tells admirably the thrilling story of the siege."—Scotsman.
" As a realistic picture of how things actually happen, no less than as a worthy record of one of the most splendid incidents of our history, 4 Besieged with B.-P.' is a notable work."—Pall Mall Gazette.
Towards
Pretoria
By Julian Ralph A Record of the War to the
Capture of Bloemfontein Bound in Real Khaki and Scarlet Price 6s.
" Brisk and graphic."—Scotsman.
"Distinctly one of the war books to be read."—Literature.
" Cannot fail to be popular."—Echo.
" Mr. Ralph as a descriptive writer is amongst the first of the day."— Sheffield Independent.
C. Arthur Pearson, Henrietta Street, W.C.
8﻿﻿﻿﻿