How long he lay he knew not. When he came to himself it was broad
daylight, and he was walking through the Great Court hand in hand with
Mrs. JOGGINS.
"See," she said, "there is Dr. GORGIAS," and sure enough there stood
the redoubtable Master in the centre of one of the grass-plots in a
bright red dressing-gown and slippers, with an embroidered smoking-cap
upon his head. He was engaged in distributing crumbs to a congregation
of sparrows and thrushes and redbreasts.
"Good morning, BURROWES," said the Master; "how's your poor feet? Can
you catch. One, two, three, heads!" and with that he flung the crust
he held in his hand at the astounded Dean, and landed him fairly on
the right cheek. Dr. GORGIAS then executed a pirouette, kissed his
hand to Mrs. JOGGINS, and disappeared into the Master's lodge. "From
this good man," said Mrs. JOGGINS to the Dean, "you may learn a
lesson of unassuming kindness; but time presses; we must hurry on. By
virtue of the power vested in me by the Queen of the Fairies, whose
ambassadress I am in Grantaford, I have summoned back to St. Michael's
all the Undergraduates. You shall see them." In vain the miserable
Dean protested that he had seen too much of them. The Fairy JOGGINS
was inexorable. She waved her wand, a yard of butter congealed to
the hardness of oak by the frosty morning, and in a moment the Court
was filled with Undergraduates. They were all smoking, and suddenly
the Dean became aware that he too had a lighted cigar in his mouth,
and was puffing at it. At the same moment he discovered that he
was wearing a disgracefully battered college-cap, and a brilliant
"blazer," lately invented by a rowdy set as the badge of their
dining Club. He shuddered, but it was useless. He put his hand in his
coat-pocket. It contained a bottle of champagne.
The Undergraduates now formed a procession and began to defile past
him. "Smoking in the Court, half-a-crown," said one, in a dreadful
voice. "Mr. BURROWES irregular in his attendance at Chapel, gated at
eight," roared a second. "Mr. BURROWES persistently disorderly, sent
down for the term," shouted a third; and then they all began to caper
round the hapless man whom the Fairy Queen had betrayed into their
power. They taunted him and reviled him. "You have mined our homes,
poisoned our fathers' happiness, undermined the trusting confidence of
our mothers. You have been a bad man. You must perish!" and thus the
dreadful chorus went on while the Dean stood stupidly in the centre of
the throng puffing violently at one of the largest cigars ever seen in
St. Michael's. At last the Fairy waved her wand again, and in a moment
the shouts ceased and the crowd disappeared. "See," she said, "the
result of intemperate disciplinarian zeal!" But Mr. BURROWES neither
heard nor heeded. He had collapsed.