(_BY HAROLD BEGTHWAYT._)
Hearing from an undergraduate friend at Cardinal College of the
impending retirement of Mr. Chumbleton ("Old Chum"), the famous porter
of Salisbury Gate, I gladly seized the opportunity of running down to
Oxford to gain some fresh sidelights on the inner life of the
University. Cardinal College, unlike Balliol, Magdalen and New College,
has never shown itself responsive to the new spirit. There are probably
fewer Socialists in Peckover than in any other quad in Oxford. The old
feudal traditions, though somewhat mitigated, still survive. You still
hear the characteristic Mayfair accent and recognise a curious lack of
that Moral Uplift without which, as Sir ROBERTSON NICOLL finely says, a
man is no better than a mummy. And yet I own to having been strangely
attracted by these well-groomed scions of a vanishing breed, with their
finely chiselled features, their clipped colloquialisms and their
cheerful arrogance. There is something engaging as well as pathetic in
these unruffled countenances, blind to the realities of modern life and
the need of that fraternal fellowship which alone can bring peace to the
head that wears a crown or a coronet.
Mr. Chumbleton, who was just going off duty when I arrived, cordially
invited me into his inner sanctum and offered me a glass of gin and
green Chartreuse, the favourite beverage, he assured me, of the late
Duke of Midhurst, whose scout he had been in the "seventies." Of that
strange and meteoric figure, who was subsequently devoured by a
crocodile on the Blue Nile, Mr. Chumbleton spoke with genuine affection.
"He was something like a Dook," said the old man, "and not one of your
barley-water-drinking faddists. Yes, in those days a Dook was a Dook and
not a cock-shy for demigods [? demagogues]. I can remember," he went on,
"when there were three Dooks in residence at the same time, the Dook of
Midhurst, the Dook of St. Ives and the Dook of Clumber. But the Dook of
Midhurst was the pick of the bunch. Why, once he went into a grocer's
shop in the High and asked for two pounds of treacle. 'How will you have
it?' asked the grocer, who was the baldest-headed man I ever seen. 'In
my hat,' said the Dook, whipping off his bowler and holding it out. As
soon as it was full, before you could say Jack Robinson, he popped it on
the grocer's head and ran out of the shop."
The old man told this terrible story, which reminded me of the worst
cruelties of the despots of the Italian Renaissance, with a gusto that
was inexpressibly painful. When he had finished I asked whether the Duke
was sent down. "Oh, no, Sir," was the prompt response. "You see the
grocer, being a bald-headed man, had no trouble with the treacle, and,
besides, the Dook he gave him a wig next day. But if anyone was to do
that to-day, Dook or no Dook, there'd be questions asked about it in the
House of Commons, or a Royal Commission would be appointed. Times is
changed," he went on sadly, "and there ain't any more of the old stock
left. Why, the Bullingdon Club got three First Classes this year, and as
for breaking up furniture and bonfires in the quad it don't happen once
in three years. 'Nuts' they call 'em now, but when I was a young scout
they called 'em 'dogs,' and gay dogs they were, I can tell you. 'Bloods'
they call 'em, too, but there ain't much blue blood in these modern
Blutocrats."
I asked Mr. Chumbleton if there were any signs of Cardinal College being
affected by the new Moral Uplift, but he seemed unable to fathom the
meaning of my query. His standpoint was clearly philistine and, I regret
to say, distinctly pagan. He had never heard of the Land Campaign, or of
Mr. HEMMERDE, Baron DE FOREST or even Mr. HAROLD BEGBIE. His attitude
towards Mr. LLOYD GEORGE was unsympathetic. He deplored the popularity
of motor-bicycles, but, with a strange and lamentable perversity,
welcomed the advent of the motor-'bus while condemning the introduction
of trams.
I came away more than ever impressed by the tenacity of feudal
traditions, and the need of redoubled efforts on the part of all Radical
stalwarts to convert the older universities from hotbeds of expensive
obscurantism into free nurseries of humanitarian democracy. It was sad
to see such a figure as that of Mr. Chumbleton, genial and hospitable, I
admit, but utterly heedless of the trend of the times, hopelessly
ignorant of the Progressive program, and deriving a senile satisfaction
from memories of a barbarous and brutal past.
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Painting the Lily.
"White duck trousers in a snow-white grey material."--_Advt. in
"Daily Province" (Vancouver)._
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