CHAPTER XII. Mr. Verdant Green and his Friends enjoy the

Commemoration 104

PART II.

CHAPTER I.

MR. VERDANT GREEN RECOMMENCES HIS EXISTENCE AS AN OXFORD UNDERGRADUATE.

The intelligent reader--which epithet I take to be a synonym for every

one who has perused the first part of the Adventures of Mr. Verdant

Green,--will remember the statement, that the hero of the narrative "had

gained so much experience during his Freshman's term, that, when the

pleasures of the Long Vacation were at an end, and he had returned to

Brazenface with his firm and fast friend Charles Larkyns, he felt

himself entitled to assume a patronising air to the Freshmen, who then

entered, and even sought to impose upon their credulity in ways which

his own personal experience suggested." And the intelligent reader will

further call to mind the fact that the first part of these memoirs

concluded with the words--"it was clear that Mr. Verdant Green had made

his farewell bow as an Oxford Freshman."

But, although Mr. Verdant Green had of necessity ceased to be "a

Freshman" as soon as he had entered upon his second term of

residence,--the name being given to students in their first term

only,--yet this necessity, which, as we all know, _non habet leges_,

will occasionally prove its rule by an exception; and if Mr. Verdant

Green was no longer a Freshman in name, he still continued to be one by

nature. And the intelligent reader will perceive when he comes to study

these veracious memoirs, that, although their hero will no longer

display those peculiarly virulent symptoms of freshness, which drew

towards him so much friendly sympathy during the earlier part of his

University career, yet that he will still, by his innocent simplicity

and credulity, occasionally evidence the truth of the Horatian maxim,--

"Quo semel est imbuta recens, servabit odorem

Testa diu;"[1]

which, when _Smart_-ly translated, means, "A cask will long preserve the

flavour, with which, when new, it was once impregnated;" and which, when

rendered in the Saxon vulgate, signifieth, "What is bred in the bone will

come out in the flesh."

It would, indeed, take more than a Freshman's term,--a two months'

residence in Oxford,--to remove the simple gaucheries of the country

Squire's hobbodehoy, and convert the girlish youth, the pupil of that

Nestor of Spinsters, Miss Virginia Verdant, into the MAN whose school

was the University, whose Alma Mater was Oxonia herself. We do not cut

our wise teeth in a day; some people, indeed, are so unfortunate as

never to cut them at all; at the best, two months is but a brief space

in which to get through this sapient teething operation, a short time in

which to graft our cutting on the tree of Wisdom, more especially when

the tender plant happens to be a Verdant Green. The golden age is past

when the full-formed goddess of Wisdom sprang from the brain of Jove

complete in all her parts. If our Vulcans now-a-days were to trepan the

heads of our Jupiters, they would find nothing in them! In these

degenerate times it will take more than one splitting headache to

produce _our_ wisdom.

So it was with our hero. The splitting headache, for example, which had

wound up the pleasures of Mr. Small's "quiet party," had taught him that

the good things of this life were not given to be abused, and that he

could not exceed the bounds of temperance and moderation without being

made to pay the penalty of the trespass. It had taught him that kind of

wisdom which even "makes fools wise;" for it had taught him Experience.

And yet, it was but a portion of that lesson of Experience which it is

sometimes so hard to learn, but which, when once got by heart, is like

the catechism of our early days,--it is never forgotten,--it directs us,

it warns us, it advises us; it not only adorns the tale of our life, but

it points the moral which may bring that tale to a happy and peaceful

end.

Experience! Experience! What will it not do? It is a staff which will

help us on when we are jostled by the designing crowds of our Vanity

Fair. It is a telescope that will reveal to us the dark spots on what

seemed to be a fair face. It is a finger-post to show us whither the

crooked paths of worldly ways will lead us. It is a scar that tells of

the wound which the soldier has received in the battle of life. It is a

lighthouse that warns us off those hidden rocks and quicksands where the

wrecks of long past joys that once smiled so fairly, and were loved so

dearly, now lie buried in all their ghastliness, stripped of grace and

beauty, things to shudder at and dread. Experience! Why, even Alma

Mater's doctors prescribe it to be taken in the largest quantities!

"Experientia--_dose it_!" they say: and very largely some of us have to

pay for the dose. But the dose does us good; and (for it is an

allopathic remedy), the greater the dose, the greater is the benefit to

be derived.

The two months' allopathic dose of Experience, which had been

administered to Mr. Verdant Green, chiefly through the agency of those

skilful professors, Messrs. Larkyns, Fosbrooke, Smalls, and Bouncer, had

been so far beneficial to him, that, in the figurative Eastern language

of the last-named gentleman, he had not only been "sharpened up no end

by being well rubbed against University bricks," but he had, moreover,

"become so considerably wide-awake, that he would very soon be able to

take the shine out of the old original Weazel, whom the pages of History

had recorded as never having been discovered in a state of somnolence."

Now, as Mr. Bouncer was a gentleman of considerable experience and was,

too, (although addicted to expressions not to be found in "the Polite

Preceptor,") quite free from the vulgar habit of personal flattery,--or,

as he thought fit to express it, in words which would have taken away my

Lord Chesterfield's appetite, "buttering a party to his face in the

cheekiest manner,"--we may fairly presume, on this strong evidence, that

Mr. Verdant Green had really gained a considerable amount of experience

during his Freshman's term, although there were still left in his

character and conduct many marks of viridity which--

"Time's effacing fingers,"

assisted by Mr. Bouncer's instructions, would gradually remove. However,

Mr. Verdant Green had, at any rate, ceased to be "a Freshman" in name;

and had received that University promotion, which Mr. Charles Larkyns

commemorated by the following _affiche_, which our hero, on his return

from his first morning chapel in the Michaelmas term, found in a

conspicuous position on his oak.

Commission signed by the Vice-Chancellor of the University

of Oxford.

MR. VERDANT GREEN to be an Oxford Undergraduate, _vice_ Oxford

Freshman, SOLD out.

It is generally found to be the case, that the youthful Undergraduate

first seeks to prove he is no longer a "Freshman," by endeavouring to

impose on the credulity of those young gentlemen who come up as Freshmen

in his second term. And, in this, there is an analogy between the biped

and the quadruped; for, the wild, gambolling, school-boy elephant, when

he has been brought into a new circle, and has been trained to new

habits, will take pleasure in ensnaring and deluding his late companions

in play.

The "sells" by which our hero had been "sold out" as a Freshman, now

formed a stock in trade for the Undergraduate, which his experience

enabled him to dispose of (with considerable interest) to the most

credulous members of the generations of Freshmen who came up after him.

Perhaps no Freshman had ever gone through a more severe course of

hoaxing--to survive it--than Mr. Verdant Green; and yet, by a system of

retaliation, only paralleled by the quadrupedal case of the

before-mentioned elephant, and the biped-beadle case of the illustrious

Mr. Bumble, who after having his own ears boxed by the late Mrs. Corney,

relieved his feelings by boxing the ears of the small boy who opened the

gate for him,--our hero took the greatest delight in seeking every

opportunity to play off upon a Freshman some one of those numerous

hoaxes which had been so successfully practised on himself. And while,

in referring to the early part of his University career, he omitted all

mention of such anecdotes as displayed his own personal credulity in the

strongest light--which anecdotes the faithful historian has thought fit

to record,--he, nevertheless, dwelt with extreme pleasure on the

reminiscences of a few isolated facts, in which he himself appeared in

the character of the hoaxer.

These facts, when neatly garnished with a little fiction, made very

palatable dishes for University entertainment, and were served up by our

hero, when he went "down into the country," to select parties of

relatives and friends (N.B.--Females preferred). On such occasions, the

following hoax formed Mr. Verdant Green's _pièce de résistance_.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Horace, Ep. Lib. I. ii., 69.

CHAPTER II.

MR. VERDANT GREEN DOES AS HE HAS BEEN DONE BY.

One morning, Mr. Verdant Green and Mr. Bouncer were lounging in the

venerable gateway of Brazenface. The former gentleman, being of an

amiable, tame-rabbit-keeping disposition, was making himself very happy

by whistling popular airs to the Porter's pet bullfinch, who was

laboriously engaged on a small tread-mill, winding up his private supply

of water. Mr. Bouncer, being of a more volatile temperament, was amusing

himself by asking the Porter's opinion on the foreign policy of Great

Britain, and by making very audible remarks on the passers-by. His

attention was at length riveted by the appearance on the other side of

the street, of a modest-looking young gentleman, who appeared to be so

ill at ease in his frock-coat and "stick-up" collars, as to lead to the

strong presumption that he wore those articles of manly dress for the

first time.

"I'll bet you a bottle of blacking, Giglamps," said little Mr. Bouncer,

as he directed our hero's attention to the stranger, "that this

respected party is an intending Freshman. Look at his customary suits of

solemn black, as Othello, or Hamlet, or some other swell, says in

Shakspeare. And, besides his black go-to-meeting bags, please to

observe," continued the little gentleman, in the tone of a wax-work

showman; "please to hobserve the pecooliarity hof the hair-chain,

likewise the straps of the period. Look! he's coming this way. Giglamps,

I vote we take a rise out of the youth. Hem! Good morning! Can we have

the pleasure of assisting you in anything."

"Yes, sir! thank you, sir," replied the youthful stranger, who was

flushing like a girl up to the very roots of his curly, auburn hair;

"perhaps, sir, you can direct me to Brazenface College, sir?"'

"Well, sir! it's not at all improbable, sir, but what I could, sir;"

replied Mr. Bouncer; "but, perhaps, sir, you'll first favour me with

your name, and your business there, sir."

"Certainly, sir!" rejoined the stranger; and, while he fumbled at his

card-case, the experienced Mr. Bouncer whispered to our hero, "Told you

he was a sucking Freshman, Giglamps! He has got a bran new card-case,

and says 'sir' at the sight of the academicals." The card handed to Mr.

Bouncer, bore the name of "MR. JAMES PUCKER;" and, in smaller characters

in the corner of the card, were the words, "_Brazenface College,

Oxford_."

"I came, sir," said the blushing Mr. Pucker, "to enter for my

matriculation examination, and I wished to see the gentleman who will

have to examine me, sir."

"The doose you do!" said Mr. Bouncer sternly; "then young, man, allow me

to say, that you've regularly been and gone and done it, and put your

foot in it most completely."

"How-ow-ow, how, sir?" stammered the dupe.

"How?" replied Mr. Bouncer, still more sternly; "do you mean to brazen

out your offence by asking how? What _could_ have induced you, sir, to

have had printed on this card the name of this College, when you've not

a prospect of belonging to it--it may be for years, it may be for never,

as the bard says. You've committed a most grievous offence against the

University statutes, young gentleman; and so this gentleman here--Mr.

Pluckem, the junior examiner--will tell you!" and with that, little Mr.

Bouncer nudged Mr. Verdant Green, who took his cue with astonishing

aptitude, and glared through his glasses at the trembling Mr. Pucker,

who stood blushing, and bowing, and heartily repenting that his

school-boy vanity had led him to invest four-and-sixpence in "100 cards,

and plate, engraved with name and address."

"Put the cards in your pocket, sir, and don't let me see them again!"

said our hero in his newly-confirmed title of the junior examiner; quite

rejoiced at the opportunity afforded him of proving to his friend that

_he_ was no longer a Freshman.

"He forgives you for the sake of your family, young man!" said Mr.

Bouncer with pathos; "you've come to the right shop, for _this_ is

Brazenface; and you've come just at the right time, for here is the

gentleman who will assist Mr. Pluckem in examining you;" and Mr. Bouncer

pointed to Mr. Four-in-hand Fosbrooke, who was coming up the street on

his way from the Schools, where he was making a very laudable (but as it

proved, futile) endeavour "to get through his smalls," or, in other

words, to pass his Little-go examination. The hoax which had been

suggested to the ingenious mind of Mr. Bouncer, was based upon the fact

of Mr. Fosbrooke's being properly got-up for his sacrifice in a white

tie, and a pair of very small bands--the two articles, which, with the

usual academicals, form the costume demanded by Alma Mater of all her

children when they take their places in her Schools. And, as Mr.

Fosbrooke was far too politic a gentleman to irritate the Examiners by

appearing in a "loud" or sporting costume, he had carried out the idea

of clerical character suggested by the bands and choker, by a quiet,

gentlemanly suit of black, which, he had fondly hoped, would have

softened his Examiners' manners, and not permitted them to be brutal.

Mr. Four-in-hand Fosbrooke, therefore, to the unsophisticated eye of the

blushing Mr. Pucker, presented a very fine specimen of the Examining

Tutor; and this impression on Mr. Pucker's mind was heightened by Mr.

Fosbrooke, after a few minutes' private conversation with the other two

gentlemen, turning to him, and saying, "It will be extremely

inconvenient to me to examine you now; but as you probably wish to

return home as soon as possible, I will endeavour to conclude the

business at once--this gentleman, Mr. Pluckem," pointing to our hero,

"having kindly promised to assist me. Mr. Bouncer, will you have the

goodness to follow with the young gentleman to my rooms?"

Leaving Mr. Pucker to express his thanks for this great kindness, and

Mr. Bouncer to plunge him into the depths of trepidation by telling him

terrible _stories_ of the Examiner's fondness for rejecting the

candidates for examination, Mr. Fosbrooke and our hero ascended to the

rooms of the former, where they hastily cleared away cigar-boxes and

pipes, turned certain French pictures with their faces to the wall, and

covered over with an outspread _Times_ a regiment of porter and spirit

bottles which had just been smuggled in, and were drawn up rank-and-file

on the sofa. Having made this preparation, and furnished the table with

pens, ink, and scribble-paper, Mr. Bouncer and the victim were admitted.

"Take a seat, sir," said Mr. Fosbrooke, gravely; and Mr. Pucker put his

hat on the ground, and sat down at the table in a state of blushing

nervousness. "Have you been at a public school?"

"Yes, sir," stammered the victim; "a very public one, sir; it was a

boarding-school, sir; forty boarders, and thirty day-boys, sir; I was a

day-boy, sir, and in the first class."

"First class of an uncommon slow train!" muttered Mr. Bouncer.

"And are you going back to the boarding-school?" asked Mr. Verdant

Green, with the air of an assistant judge.

"No, sir," replied Mr. Pucker, "I have just done with it; quite done

with school, sir, this last half; and papa is going to put me to read

with a clergyman until it is time for me to come to college."

"Refreshing innocence!" murmured Mr. Bouncer; while Mr. Fosbrooke and

our hero conferred together, and hastily wrote on two sheets of the

scribble-paper.

[Illustration]

"Now, sir," said Mr. Fosbrooke to the victim, after a paper had been

completed, "let us see what your Latin writing is like. Have the

goodness to turn what I have written into Latin; and be very careful,

sir," added Mr. Fosbrooke, sternly, "be very careful that it is Cicero's

Latin, sir!" and he handed Mr. Pucker a sheet of paper, on which he had

scribbled the following:

"To be Translated into Prose-y Latin, in the Manner of

Cicero's Orations after Dinner.

"If, therefore, any on your bench, my luds, or in this assembly,

should entertain an opinion that the proximate parts of a

mellifluous mind are for ever conjoined and unconnected, I submit

to you, my luds, that it will of necessity follow, that such

clandestine conduct being a mere nothing,--or, in the noble

language of our philosophers, bosh,--every individual act of overt

misunderstanding will bring interminable limits to the empiricism

of thought, and will rebound in the very lowest degree to the

credit of the malefactor."

"To be Turned into Latin after the Master of the Animals

of Tacitus.

"She went into the garden to cut a cabbage to make an apple-pie.

Just then, a great she-bear coming down the street, poked its nose

into the shop-window. 'What! no soap!' So he died, and she (very

imprudently) married the barber. And there were present at the

wedding the Joblillies, and the Piccannies, and the Gobelites, and

the great Panjandrum himself, with the little button on top. So

they all set to playing Catch-who-catch-can, till the gunpowder

ran out at the heels of their boots."

It was well for the purposes of the hoaxers that Mr. Pucker's

trepidation prevented him from making a calm perusal of the paper; and

he was nervously doing his best to turn the nonsensical English word by

word into equally nonsensical Latin, when his limited powers of Latin

writing were brought to a full stop by the untranslateable word "Bosh."

As he could make nothing of this, he wiped the perspiration from his

forehead, and gazed appealingly at the benignant features of Mr. Verdant

Green. The appealing gaze was answered by our hero ordering Mr. Pucker

to hand in his paper for examination, and to endeavour to answer the

questions which he and his brother examiner had been writing down for

him.

Mr. Pucker took the two papers of questions, and read as follows:

"HISTORY.

"1. Draw a historical parallel (after the manner of Plutarch)

between Hannibal and Annie Laurie.

"2. What internal evidence does the Odyssey afford, that Homer

sold his Trojan war-ballads at three yards an obolus?

"3. Show the strong presumption there is, that Nox was the god of

battles.

"4. State reasons for presuming that the practice of lithography

may be traced back to the time of Perseus and the Gorgon's head.

"5. In what way were the shades on the banks of the Styx supplied

with spirits?

"6. Show the probability of the College Hornpipe having been used

by the students of the Academia; and give passages from Thucydides

and Tennyson in support of your answer.

"7. Give a brief account of the Roman Emperors who visited the

United States, and state what they did there.

"8. Show from the redundancy of the word [Greek: gas] in

Sophocles, that gas must have been used by the Athenians; also

state, if the expression [Greek: oi Bharbaroi] would seem to

signify that they were close shavers.

9. Show from the-words 'Hoc erat in votis,' (Sat. VI., Lib. II.,)

that Horace's favourite wine was hock, and that he meant to say

'he always voted for hock.'

"10. Draw a parallel between the Children in the Wood and Achilles

in the Styx.

"11. When it is stated that Ariadne, being deserted by Theseus,

fell in love with Bacchus, is it the poetical way of asserting

that she took to drinking to drown her grief?

"12. Name the _prima donnas_ who have appeared in the operas of

Virgil and Horace since the 'Virgilii Opera,' and 'Horatii Opera'

were composed."

"EUCLID, ARITHMETIC, and ALGEBRA.

"1. 'The extremities of a line are points.' Prove this by the rule

of railways.

"2. Show the fallacy of defining an angle, as 'a worm at one end

and a fool at the other.'

"3. If one side of a triangle be produced, what is there to

prevent the other two sides from also being brought forward?

"4. Let A and B be squares having their respective boundaries in E

and W. ends, and let C and D be circles moving in them; the circle

D will be superior to the circle C.

"5. In equal circles, equal figures from various squares will

stand upon the same footing.

"6. If two parts of a circle fall out, the one part will cut the

other.

"7. Describe a square which shall be larger than Belgrave Square.

"8. If the gnomon of a sun-dial be divided into two equal, and

also into two unequal parts, what would be its value?

"9. Describe a perpendicular triangle having the squares of the

semi-circle equal to half the extremity between the points of

section.

"10. If an Austrian florin is worth 5.61 francs, what will be the

value of Pennsylvanian bonds? Prove by rule-of-three inverse.

"11. If seven horses eat twenty-five acres of grass in three days,

what will be their condition on the fourth day? Prove by practice.

"12. If a coach-wheel, 6-5/30 in diameter and 5-9/47 in

circumference, makes 240-4/10 revolutions in a second, how many

men will it take to do the same piece of work in ten days?

"13. Find the greatest common measure of a quart bottle of Oxford

port.

"14. Find the value of a 'bob,' a 'tanner,' a 'joey,' and a

'tizzy.'

"15. Explain the common denominators 'brick,' 'trump,' 'spoon,'

'muff,' and state what was the greatest common denominator in the

last term.

"16. Reduce two academical years to their lowest terms.

"17. Reduce a Christ Church tuft to the level of a Teddy Hall man.

"18. If a freshman A have any mouth _x_, and a bottle of wine _y_,

show how many applications of _x_ to _y_ will place _y_+_y_ before

_A_."

Mr. Pucker did not know what to make of such extraordinary and

unexpected questions. He blushed, attempted to write, fingered his

curls, tried to collect his faculties, and then appeared to give himself

over to despair; whereupon little Mr. Bouncer was seized with an

immoderate fit of coughing which had well nigh brought the farce to its

_dénouement_.

"I'm afraid, young gentleman," said Mr. Four-in-hand Fosbrooke, as he

carelessly settled his white tie and bands, "I am afraid, Mr. Pucker,

that your learning is not yet up to the Brazenface standard. We are

particularly cautious about admitting any gentleman whose acquirements

are not of the highest order. But we will be as lenient to you as we are

able, and give you one more chance to retrieve yourself. We will try a

little _vivâ voce_, Mr. Pucker. Perhaps, sir, you will favour me with

your opinions on the Fourth Punic War, and will also give me a slight

sketch of the constitution of ancient Heliopolis."

Mr. Pucker waxed, if possible, redder and hotter than before, he gasped

like a fish out of water; and, like Dryden's prince, "unable to conceal

his pain," he

"Sigh'd and look'd, sigh'd and look'd,

Sigh'd and look'd, and sigh'd again."

But all was to no purpose: he was unable to frame an answer to Mr.

Fosbrooke's questions.

"Ah, sir," continued his tormentor, "I see that you will not do for us

yet awhile, and I am therefore under the painful necessity of rejecting

you. I should advise you, sir, to read hard for another twelvemonths,

and endeavour to master those subjects in which you have now failed.

For, a young man, Mr. Pucker, who knows nothing about the Fourth Punic

War, and the constitution of ancient Heliopolis, is quite unfit to be

enrolled among the members of such a learned college as Brazenface. Mr.

Pluckem quite coincides with me in this decision." (Here Mr. Verdant

Green gave a Burleigh nod.) "We feel very sorry for you, Mr. Pucker, and

also for your unfortunate family; but we recommend you to add to your

present stock of knowledge, and to keep those visiting-cards for another

twelvemonth." And Mr. Fosbrooke and our hero--disregarding poor Mr.

Pucker's entreaties that they would consider his pa and ma, and would

please to matriculate him this once, and he would read very hard, indeed

he would--turned to Mr. Bouncer and gave some private instructions,

which caused that gentleman immediately to vanish, and seek out Mr.

Robert Filcher.

Five minutes after, that excellent Scout met the dejected Mr. Pucker as

he was crossing the Quad on his way from Mr. Fosbrooke's rooms.

"Beg your pardon, sir," said Mr. Filcher, touching his forehead; for,

as Mr. Filcher, after the manner of his tribe, never was seen in a

head-covering, he was unable to raise his hat or cap; "beg your pardon,

sir! but was you a lookin' for the party as examines the young gents for

their matrickylation?"

"Eh?--no! I have just come from him," replied Mr. Pucker, dolefully.

[Illustration]

"Beg your pardon, sir," remarked Mr. Filcher, "but his rooms ain't that

way at all. Mr. Slowcoach, as is the party you _ought_ to have seed, has

_his_ rooms quite in a hopposite direction, sir; and he's the honly

party as examines the matrickylatin' gents."

"But I _have_ been examined," observed Mr. Pucker, with the air of a

plucked man; "and I am sorry to say that I was rejected, and"----

"I dessay, sir," interrupted Mr. Filcher; "but I think it's a 'oax,

sir!"

"A what?" stammered Mr. Pucker.

"A 'oax--a sell;" replied the Scout, confidentially. "You see, sir, I

think some of the gents have been makin' a little game of you, sir; they

often does with fresh parties like you, sir, that seem fresh and

hinnocent like; and I dessay they've been makin' believe to examine you,

sir, and a pretendin' that you wasn't clever enough. But they don't mean

no harm, sir; it's only their play, bless you!"

"Then," said Mr. Pucker, whose countenance had been gradually clearing

with every word the Scout spoke; "then I'm not really rejected, but have

still a chance of passing my examination?"

"Percisely so, sir," replied Mr. Filcher; "and--hexcuse me, sir, for a

hintin' of it to you,--but, if you would let me adwise you, sir, you

wouldn't go for to mention anythin' about the 'oax to Mr. Slowcoach;

_he_ wouldn't be pleased, sir, and _you'd_ only get laughed at. If you

like to go to him now, sir, I know he's in his rooms, and I'll show you

the way there with the greatest of pleasure."

Mr. Pucker, immensely relieved in mind, gladly put himself under the

Scout's guidance, and was admitted into the presence of Mr. Slowcoach.

In twenty minutes after this he issued from the examining tutor's rooms

with a joyful countenance, and again encountered Mr. Robert Filcher.

"Hope you've done the job this time, sir," said the Scout.

"Yes," replied the radiant Mr. Pucker; "and at two o'clock I am to see

the Vice-chancellor; and I shall be able to come to college this time

next year."

"Werry glad of it, indeed, sir!" observed Mr. Filcher, with genuine

emotion, and an eye to future perquisites; "and I suppose, sir, you

didn't say a word about the 'oax?"

"Not a word!" replied Mr. Pucker.

"Then, sir," said Mr. Filcher, with enthusiasm, "hexcuse me, but you're

a trump, sir! And Mr. Fosbrooke's compliments to you, sir, and he'll be

'appy if you'll come up into his rooms, and take a glass of wine after

the fatigues of the examination. And,--hexcuse me again, sir, for a

hintin' of it to you, but of course you can't be aweer of the customs of

the place, unless somebody tells you on 'em,--I shall be werry glad to

drink your werry good health, sir."

Need it be stated that the blushing Mr. Pucker, delirious with joy at

the sudden change in the state of affairs, and the delightful prospect

of being a member of the University, not only tipped Mr. Filcher a

five-shilling piece, but also paid a second visit to Mr. Fosbrooke's

rooms, where he found that gentleman in his usual costume, and by him

was introduced to the Mr. Pluckem, who now bore the name of Mr. Verdant

Green? Need it be stated that the nervous Mr. Pucker blushed and

laughed, and laughed and blushed, while his two pseudo-examiners took

wine with him in the most friendly manner; Mr. Bouncer pronouncing him

to be "an out-and-outer, and no mistake!" And need it be stated that,

after this undergraduate display of hoaxing, Mr. Verdant Green would

feel exceedingly offended were he still to be called "an Oxford

Freshman"?

CHAPTER III.

MR. VERDANT GREEN ENDEAVOURS TO KEEP HIS SPIRITS UP BY POURING SPIRITS

DOWN.

It was the evening of the fifth of November; the day which the

Protestant youth of England dedicate to the memory of that martyr of

gunpowder, the firework Faux, and which the youth of Oxford, by a three

months' anticipation of the calendar, devote to the celebration of those

scholastic sports for which the day of St. Scholastica the Virgin was

once so famous.[2]

Rumour with its hundred tongues had spread far and wide the news, that a

more than ordinary demonstration would be made of the might of Town, and

that this demonstration would be met by a corresponding increase of

prowess on the side of Gown. It was darkly whispered that the purlieus

of Jericho would send forth champions to the fight. It was mentioned

that the Parish of St. Thomas would be powerfully represented by its

Bargee lodgers. It was confidently reported that St. Aldate's[3] would

come forth in all its olden strength. It was told as a fact that St.

Clement's had departed from the spirit of clemency, and was up in arms.

From an early hour of the evening, the Townsmen had gathered in

threatening groups; and their determined aspect, and words of chaff, had

told of the coming storm. It was to be a tremendous Town and Gown!

The Poet has forcibly observed--

"Strange that there should such diff'rence be,

'Twixt Tweedledum and Tweedledee!"

But the difference between Town and Gown, is not to be classed with the

Tweedledum and Tweedledee difference. It is something more than a mere

difference of two letters. The lettered Gown lorded it over the

unlettered Town: the plebeian Town was perpetually snubbed by the

aristocratic Gown. If Gown even wished to associate with Town, he could

only do so under certain restrictions imposed by the statutes; and Town

was thus made to feel exceedingly honoured by the gracious condescension

of Gown. But Town, moreover, maintained its existence, that it might

contribute to the pleasure and amusements, the needs and necessities, of

Gown. And very expensively was Town occasionally made to pay for its

existence; so expensively indeed, that if it had not been for the great

interest which Town assumed on Gown's account, the former's

business-life would have soon failed. But, on many accounts, or rather,

_in_ many accounts, Gown was deeply indebted to Town; and, although Gown

was often loth to own the obligation, yet Town never forgot it, but

always placed it to Gown's credit. Occasionally, in his early freshness,

Gown would seek to compensate Town for his obliging favours; but Town

would gently run counter to this wish, and preferred that the evidences

of Gown's friendly intercourse with him should accumulate, until he

could, with renewed interest (as we understand from the authority of an

aged pun), obtain his payments by Degrees.

When Gown was absent, Town was miserable: it was dull; it did nothing;

it lost its customer-y application to business. When Gown returned,

there was no small change,--the benefit was a sovereign one to Town.

Notes, too, passed between them; of which, those received by Town were

occasionally of intrinsic value. Town thanked Gown for these,--even

thanked him when his civility had only been met by checks,--and

smirked, and fawned, and flattered; and Gown patronised Town, and was

offensively condescending. What a relief then must it have been to the

pent-up feelings of Town, when the Saturnalia of a Guy-Faux day brought

its usual license, and Town could stand up against Gown and try a game

of fisticuffs! And if, when there was a cry "To arms!" we could always

settle the dispute in an English fashion with those arms with which we

have been supplied by nature, there would then, perhaps, be fewer

weeping widows and desolate orphans in the world than there are just at

present.

On the evening of the fifth of November, then, Mr. Bouncer's rooms were

occupied by a wine-party; and, among the gentlemen assembled, we noticed

(as newspaper reporters say), Mr. Verdant Green, Mr. Charles Larkyns,

Mr. Fosbrooke, Mr. Smalls, and Mr. Blades. The table was liberally

supplied with wine; and a "desert at eighteen-pence per head,"--as Mr.

Bouncer would afterwards be informed through the medium of his

confectioner's bill;--and, while an animated conversation was being held

on the expected Town and Gown, the party were fortifying themselves for

the _émeute_ by a rapid consumption of the liquids before them. Our

hero, and some of the younger ones of the party, who had not yet left

off their juvenile likings, were hard at work at the dessert in that

delightful, disregardless-of-dyspepsia manner, in which boys so love to

indulge, even when they have passed into University _men_. As usual,

the _bouquet_ of the wine was somewhat interfered with by those narcotic

odours, which, to a smoker, are as the gales of Araby the Blest.

Mr. Blades was conspicuous among the party, not only from his

dimensions,--or, as he phrased it, from "his breadth of beam,"--but also

from his free-and-easy costume. "To get himself into wind," as he

alleged, Mr. Blades had just been knocking the wind out of the

Honourable Flexible Shanks (youngest son of the Earl of Buttonhole), a

Tuft from Christ Church, who had left his luxurious rooms in the

Canterbury Quad chiefly for the purpose of preparing himself for the

forthcoming Town and Gown, by putting on the gloves with his boating

friend. The bout having terminated by Mr. Flexible Shanks having been

sent backwards into a tray of wine-glasses with which Mr. Filcher was

just entering the room, the gloves were put aside, and the combatants

had an amicable set-to at a bottle of Carbonell's "Forty-four," which

Mr. Bouncer brought out of a wine-closet in his bedroom for their

especial delectation. Mr. Blades, who was of opinion that, in dress,

ease should always be consulted before elegance, had not resumed that

part of his attire of which he had divested himself for fistianic

purposes; and, with a greater display of linen than is usually to be

seen in society, was seated comfortably in a lounging chair, smoking the

pipe of peace. Since he had achieved the proud feat of placing the

Brazenface boat at the head of the river, Mr. Blades had gained

increased renown, more especially in his own college, where he was

regarded in the light of a tutelary river deity; and, as training was

not going on, he was now enabled to indulge in a second glass of wine,

and also in the luxury of a cigar. Mr. Blades's shirt-sleeves were

turned up so as to display the anatomical proportion of his arms; and

little Mr. Bouncer, with the grave aspect of a doctor feeling a pulse,

was engaged in fingering his deltoid and biceps muscles, and in uttering

panegyrics on his friend's torso-of-Hercules condition.

"My gum, Billy!" (it must be observed, _en passant_, that, although the

name given to Mr. Blades at an early age was Frank, yet that when he was

not called "old Blades," he was always addressed as "Billy,"--it being a

custom which has obtained in universities, that wrong names should be

familiarly given to certain gentlemen, more as a mark of friendly

intimacy than of derision or caprice.) "My gum, Billy!" observed Mr.

Bouncer, "you're as hard as nails! What an extensive assortment of

muscles you've got on hand,--to say nothing about the arms. I wish I'd

got such a good stock in trade for our customers to-night; I'd soon

sarve 'em out, and make 'em sing peccavi."

"The fact is," said Mr. Flexible Shanks, who was leaning smoking against

the mantelpiece behind him, "Billy is like a respectable family of

bivalves--he is nothing but mussels."

"Or like an old Turk," joined in Mr. Bouncer, "for he's a regular

Mussulman."

"Oh! Shanks! Bouncer!" cried Charles Larkyns, "what stale jokes! Do open

the window, somebody,--it's really offensive."

"Ah!" said Mr. Blades, modestly, "you only just wait till Footelights

brings the Pet, and then you'll see real muscles."

"It was rather a good move," said Mr. Cheke, a gentleman commoner of

Corpus, who was lounging in an easy chair smoking a meerschaum through

an elastic tube a yard long,--"it was rather a good move of yours,

Fossy," he said, addressing himself to Mr. Four-in-hand Fosbrooke, "to

secure the Pet's services. The feller will do us some service, and will

astonish the _oi polloi_ no end."

"Oh! how prime it _will_ be," cried little Mr. Bouncer, in ecstacies

with the prospect before him, "to see the Pet pitching into the cads,

and walking into their small affections with his one, two, three! And

don't I just pity them when he gets them into Chancery! Were you ever in

Chancery, Giglamps?"

"No, indeed!" replied the innocent Mr. Verdant Green; "and I hope that I

shall always keep out of it; lawsuits are so very disagreeable and

expensive."

[Illustration]

Mr. Bouncer had only time to remark _sotto voce_ to Mr. Flexible Shanks,

"it is so jolly refreshing to take a rise out of old Giglamps!" when a

knock at the oak was heard; and, as Mr. Bouncer roared out, "Come in!"

the knocker entered. He was rather dressy in his style of costume, and

wore his long dark hair parted in the middle. Opening the door, and

striking into an attitude, he exclaimed in a theatrical tone and manner:

"Scene, Mr. Bouncer's rooms in Brazenface: in the centre a table, at

which Mr. B. and party are discovered drinking log-juice, and smoking

cabbage-leaves. Door, left, third entrance; enter the Putney Pet. Slow

music; lights half-down." And standing on one side, the speaker motioned

to a second gentleman to enter the room.

There was no mistaking the profession of this gentleman; even the

inexperience of Mr. Verdant Green did not require to be informed that

the Putney Pet was a prizefighter. "Bruiser" was plainly written in his

personal appearance, from his hard-featured, low-browed, battered,

hang-dog face, to his thickset frame, and the powerful muscular

development of the upper part of his person. His close-cropped thatch of

hair was brushed down tightly to his head, but was permitted to burst

into the luxuriance of two small ringlets, which dangled in front of

each huge ear, and were as carefully curled and oiled as though they had

graced the face of beauty. The Pet was attired in a dark olive-green

cutaway coat, buttoned over a waistcoat of a violent-coloured plaid,--a

pair of white cord trousers that fitted tightly to the leg,--and a

white-spotted blue handkerchief, which was twisted round a neck that

might have served as a model for the Minotaur's. In his mouth, the Pet

cherished, according to his wont, a sprig of parsley; small fragments of

which herb he was accustomed to chew and spit out, as a pleasing relief

to the monotony of conversation.

The Pet, after having been proclaimed victor in more than one of those

playfully frolicsome "Frolics of the Fancy," in which nobly born but

ignobly-minded "Corinthians" formerly invested so much interest and

money, had at length matched his powers against the gentleman who bore

the title of "the champion of the ring;" but, after a protracted contest

of two hours and a half, in which one hundred and nineteen rounds had

been fought, the Pet's eyes had been completely closed up by an amusing

series of blows from the heavy fists of the more skilful champion; and

as the Pet, moreover, was so battered and bruised, and was altogether so

"groggy" that he was barely able to stand up to be knocked down, his

humane second had thrown up the sponge in acknowledgment of his defeat.

But though unable to deprive the champion of his belt, yet--as

_Tintinnabulum's Life_ informed its readers on the following Sunday, in

its report of this "matchless encounter,"--the Putney Pet had

"established a reputation;" and a reputation is a reputation, even

though it be one which may be offensive to the nostrils. Retiring,

therefore, from the more active public-duties of his profession, he took

unto himself a wife and a beershop,--for it seems to be a freak of "the

Fancy," when they retire from one public line to go into another,--and

placing the former in charge of the latter, the Pet came forth to the

world as a "Professor of the noble art of Self-defence."

It was in this phase of his existence, that Mr. Fosbrooke had the

pleasure of forming his acquaintance. Mr. Fosbrooke had received a card,

which intimated that the Pet would have great pleasure in giving him

"_lessons in the noble and manly art of Self-defence, either at the

gentleman's own residence, or at the Pet's spacious Sparring Academy, 5,

Cribb Court, Drury Lane, which is fitted up with every regard to the

comfort and convenience of his pupils. Gloves are provided.

N.B.--Ratting sports at the above crib every evening. Plenty of rats

always on hand. Use of the Pit gratis._" Mr. Fosbrooke, having come to

the wise conclusion that every Englishman ought to know how to be able

to use his fists in case of need, and being quite of the opinion of the

gentleman who said:--"my son should even learn to box, for do we not

meet with imposing toll-keepers, and insolent cabmen? and, as he can't

call them out, he should be able to knock them down,"[4] at once put

himself under the Pet's tuition; and, as we have before seen, still kept

up his practice with the gloves, when he had got to his own rooms at

Brazenface.

But the Pet had other Oxford pupils than Mr. Fosbrooke; and he took such

an affectionate interest in their welfare, that he came down from Town

two or three times in each term, to see if his pupils' practice had made

them perfect in the art. One of the Pet's pupils, was the gentleman who

had now introduced him to Mr. Bouncer's rooms. His name was Foote, but

he was commonly called "Footelights;" the addition having been made to

his name by way of _sobriquet_ to express his unusual fondness for the

stage, which amounted to so great a passion, that his very conversation

was redolent of "the footlights." He had only been at St. John's a

couple of terms, and Mr. Fosbrooke had picked up his acquaintance

through the medium of the Pet, and had afterwards made him known to most

of the men who were now assembled at Mr. Bouncer's wine.

"Your servant, gents!" said the Pet, touching his forehead, and making a

scrape with his leg, by way of salutation.

"Hullo, Pet!" returned Mr. Bouncer; "bring yourself to an anchor, my

man." The Pet accordingly anchored himself by dropping on to the edge

of a chair, and placing his hat underneath it; while Huz and Buz smelt

suspiciously round his legs, and looked at him with an expression of

countenance which bore a wonderful resemblance to that which they gazed

upon.

"Never mind the dogs; they're amiable little beggars," observed Mr.

Bouncer, "and they never bite any one except in play. Now then, Pet,

what sort of liquors are you given to? Here are Claret liquors, Port

liquors, Sherry liquors, egg-flip liquors, Cup liquors. You pays your

money, and you takes your choice!"

"Well, sir, thankee!" replied the Pet, "I ain't no ways pertikler, but if

you _have_ sich a thing as a glass o' sperrits, I'd prefer that--if not

objectionable."

"In course not, Pet! always call for what you like. We keep all sorts of

liquors, and are allowed to get drunk on the premises. Ain't we,

Giglamps?" Firing this raking shot as he passed our hero, little Mr.

Bouncer dived into the cupboard which served as his wine-bin, and

brought therefrom two bottles of brandy and whiskey which he set before

the Pet. "If you like gin or rum, or cherry-brandy, or old-tom, better

than these liquors," said Mr. Bouncer, astonishing the Pet with the

resources of a College wine-cellar, "just say the word, and you shall

have them. 'I can call spirits from the vasty deep;' as Shikspur says.

How will you take it, Pet? Neat, or adulterated? Are you for _callidum

cum_, or _frigidum sine_--for hot-with, or cold-without?"

"I generally takes my sperrits 'ot, sir--if not objectionable;" replied

the Pet deferentially. Whereupon Mr. Bouncer seizing his

speaking-trumpet, roared through it from the top of the stairs,

"Rob-ert! Rob-ert!" But, as Mr. Filcher did not answer the summons, Mr.

Bouncer threw up the window of his room, and bellowed out "Rob-ert" in

tones which must have been perfectly audible in the High Street. "Doose

take the feller, he's always over at the Buttery;" said the incensed

gentleman.

"I'll go up to old Sloe's room, and get his kettle," said Mr. Smalls;

"he teas all day long to keep himself awake for reading. If he don't

mind, he'll blow himself up with his gunpowder tea before he can take

his double-first."

By the time Mr. Smalls had re-appeared with the kettle, Mr. Filcher had

thought it prudent to answer his master's summons.

"Did you call, sir?" asked the Scout, as though he was doubtful on that

point.

"Call!" said Mr. Bouncer, with great irony; "oh, no! of course not! I

should rather think not! Do you suppose that you are kept here that

parties may have the chance of hollering out their lungs for you? Don't

answer me, sir! but get some hot water, and some more glasses; and be

quick about it." Mr. Filcher was gone immediately; and, in three

minutes, everything was settled to Mr. Bouncer's satisfaction, and he

gave Mr. Filcher farther orders to bring up coffee and anchovy toast, at

half-past eight o'clock. "Now, Pet, my beauty!" said the little

gentleman, "you just walk into the liquors; because you've got some

toughish work before you, you know."

[Illustration]

The Pet did not require any pressing, but did as he was told; and,

bestowing a collective nod on the company, drank their healths with the

prefatory remark, "I looks to-_wards_ you gents!"

"Will you poke a smipe, Pet?" asked Mr. Bouncer, rather enigmatically;

but, as he at the same time placed before the Pet a "yard of clay" and a

box of cigars, the professor of the art of self-defence perceived that

he was asked to smoke a pipe.

"That's right, Pet!" said the Honourable Flexible Shanks,

condescendingly, as the prizefighter scientifically filled the bowl of

his pipe; "I'm glad to see you join us in a bit of smoke. We're all

_Baccy_-nalians now!"

"Shanks, you're incorrigible!" said Charles Larkyns; "and don't you

remember what _the Oxford Parodies_ say?" and, in his clear, rich voice,

Mr. Larkyns sang the two following verses to the air of "Love not:"--

Smoke not, smoke not, your weeds nor pipes of clay!

Cigars they are made from leaves of cauliflowers;--

Things that are doomed no duty e'er to pay;--

Grown, made, and smoked in a few short hours.

Smoke not--smoke not!

Smoke not, smoke not, the weed you smoke may change

The healthfulness of your stomachic tone;

Things to the eye grow queer and passing strange;

All thoughts seem undefined--save one--to be alone!

Smoke not--smoke not!

"I know what you're thinking about, Giglamps," said Mr. Bouncer, as

Charles Larkyns ceased his parody amid an approving clatter of glasses;

"you were thinking of your first weed on the night of Small's quiet

party: wer'nt you now, old feller? Ah, you've learnt to poke a smipe,

beautiful, since then. Pet, here's your health. I'll give you a toast

and sentiment, gentlemen. May the Gown give the Town a jolly good

hiding!" The sentiment was received with great applause, and the toast

was drunk with all the honours, and followed by the customary but

inappropriate chorus, "For he's a jolly good fellow!" without the

singing of which Mr. Bouncer could not allow any toast to pass.

"How many cads could you lick at once, one off and the other on?" asked

Mr. Fosbrooke of the Pet, with the air of Boswell when he wanted to draw

out the Doctor.

"Well, sir," said the Pet, with the modesty of true genius, "I wouldn't

be pertickler to a score or so, as long as I'd got my back well up agin

some'ut, and could hit out."

"What an effective tableau it would be!" observed Mr. Foote, who had

always an eye to dramatic situations. "Enter the Pet, followed by twenty

townspeople. First T.P.--Yield, traitor! Pet--Never! the man who would

yield when ordered to do so, is unworthy the name of a Pet and an

Englishman! Floors the twenty T.P.'s one after the other. Tableau, blue

fire. Why, it would surpass the British sailor's broadsword combat for

six, and bring down the house."

"Talking of bringing down," said Mr. Blades, "did you remember to bring

down a cap and gown for the Pet, as I told you?"

"Well, I believe those _were_ the stage directions," answered Mr. Foote;

"but, really, the wardrobe was so ill provided that it would only supply

a cap. But perhaps that will do for a super."

"If by a super you mean a supernumerary, Footelights," said Mr. Cheke,

the gentleman Commoner of Corpus, "then the Pet isn't one. He's the

leading character of what you would call the _dramatis personæ_."

"True," replied Mr. Foote, "he's cast for the hero; though he will

create a new _rôle_ as the walking-into-them gentleman."

"You see, Footelights," said Mr. Blades, "that the Pet is to lead our

forces; and we depend upon him to help us on to victory: and we must put

him into academicals, not only because the town cads must think he is

one of us, but also because the proctors might otherwise deprive us of

his services--and old Towzer, the Senior Proctor, in particular, is sure

to be all alive. Who's got an old gown?"

"I will lend mine with pleasure," said Mr. Verdant Green.

"But you'll want it yourself," said Mr. Blades.

"Why, thank you," faltered our hero, "I'd rather, I think, keep within

college. I can see the--the fun--yes, the fun--from the window."

"Oh, blow it, Giglamps!" ejaculated Mr. Bouncer, "you'll never go to do

the mean, and show the white feather, will you?"

"Music expressive of trepidation," murmured Mr. Foote, by way of

parenthesis.

"But," pursued our hero, apologetically, "there will be, I dare say, a

large crowd."

"A very powerful _caste_, no doubt," observed Mr. Foote.

"And I may get my--yes, my spectacles broken; and then"----

"And then, Giglamps," said Mr. Bouncer, "why, and then you shall be

presented with another pair as a testimonial of affection from yours

truly. Come, Giglamps, don't do the mean! a man of your standing, and

with a chest like that!" and the little gentleman sounded on our hero's

shirt-front, as doctors do when they stethoscope a patient. "Come,

Giglamps, old feller, you mustn't refuse. You didn't ought to was, as

Shakspeare says."

"Pardon me! Not Shakspeare, but Wright, in the 'Green Bushes,'"

interrupted Mr. Foote, who was as painfully anxious as Mr. Payne Collier

himself that the text of the great poet should be free from corruptions.

So Mr. Verdant Green, reluctantly, it must be confessed, suffered

himself to be persuaded to join that section of the Gown which was to be

placed under the leadership of the redoubted Pet; while little Mr.

Bouncer, who had gone up into Mr. Sloe's rooms, and had vainly

endeavoured to persuade that gentleman to join in the forthcoming

_mêlée_, returned with an undergraduate's gown, and forthwith invested

the Pet with it.

"I don't mind this 'ere mortar-board, sir," remarked the professor of

the noble art of self-defence, as he pointed to the academical cap which

surmounted his head, "I don't mind the mortar-board, sir; but I shall

never be able to do nothink with this 'ere toggery on my shudders. I

couldn't use my mawleys no how!" And the Pet illustrated his remark in a

professional manner, by sparring at an imaginary opponent in a feeble

and unscientific fashion.

"But you can tie the tail-curtain round your shoulders--like this!" said

Mr. Fosbrooke, as he twisted his own gown tightly round him.

But the Pet had taken a decided objection to the drapery: "The costume

would interfere with the action," as Mr. Foote remarked, "and the

management of a train requires great practice."

"You see, sir," said the Pet, "I ain't used to the feel of it, and I

couldn't go to business properly, or give a straight nosender no how.

But the mortar-board ain't of so much consekvence." So a compromise was

made; and it was agreed that the Pet was to wear the academicals until

he had arrived at the scene of action, where he could then pocket the

gown, and resume it on any alarm of the Proctor's approach.

"Here, Giglamps, old feller! get a priming of fighting-powder!" said

little Mr. Bouncer to our hero, as the party were on the point of

sallying forth; "it'll make you hit out from your shoulder like a

steam-engine with the chill off." And, as Mr. Bouncer whispered to

Charles Larkyns,

"So he kept his spirits up

By pouring spirits down,"

Verdant--who felt extremely nervous, either from excitement or from

fear, or from a pleasing mixture of both sensations--drank off a deep

draught of something which was evidently not drawn from Nature's spring

or the college pump; for it first took away his breath, and made his

eyes water; and it next made him cough, and endeavour to choke himself;

and it then made his face flush, and caused him to declare that "the

first snob who 'sulted him should have a sound whopping."

"Brayvo, Giglamps!" cried little Mr. Bouncer, as he patted him on the

shoulder; "come along! You're the right sort of fellow for a Town and

Gown, after all!"

CHAPTER IV.

MR. VERDANT GREEN DISCOVERS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TOWN AND GOWN.

It was ten minutes past nine, and Tom,[5] with sonorous voice, was

ordering all College gates to be shut, when the wine party, which had

just left Mr. Bouncer's room, passed round the corner of St. Mary's, and

dashed across the High. The Town and Grown had already begun.

As usual, the Town had taken the initiative; and, in a dense body, had

made their customary sweep of the High Street, driving all before them.

After this gallant exploit had been accomplished to the entire

satisfaction of the oppidans, the Town had separated into two or three

portions, which had betaken themselves to the most probable fighting

points, and had gone where glory waited them, thirsting for the blood,

or, at any rate, for the bloody noses of the gowned aristocrats. Woe

betide the luckless gownsman, who, on such an occasion, ventures abroad

without an escort, or trusts to his own unassisted powers to defend

himself! He is forthwith pounced upon by some score of valiant Townsmen,

who are on the watch for these favourable opportunities for a display of

their personal prowess, and he may consider himself very fortunate if he

is able to get back to his College with nothing worse than black eyes

and bruises. It is so seldom that the members of the Oxford snobocracy

have the privilege afforded them of using their fists on the faces and

persons of the members of the Oxford aristocracy, that when they _do_

get the chance, they are unwilling to let it slip through their fingers.

Dark tales have, indeed, been told, of solitary and unoffending

undergraduates having, on such occasions, not only received a severe

handling from those same fingers, but also having been afterwards,

through their agency, bound by their own leading strings to the rails of

the Radcliffe, and there left ignominiously to struggle, and shout for

assistance. And darker tales still have been told of luckless Gownsmen

having been borne "leg and wing" fashion to the very banks of the Isis,

and there ducked, amidst the jeers and taunts of their persecutors. But

such tales as these are of too dreadful a nature for the conversation of

Gownsmen, and are very properly believed to be myths scandalously

propagated by the Town.

The crescent moon shone down on Mr. Bouncer's party, and gave ample

light

To light _them_ on _their_ prey.

A noise and shouting,--which quickly made our hero's Bob-Acreish

resolutions ooze out at his fingers' ends,--was heard coming from the

direction of Oriel Street; and a small knot of Gownsmen, who had been

cut off from a larger body, appeared, manfully retreating with their

faces to the foe, fighting as they fell back, but driven by superior

numbers up the narrow street, by St. Mary's Hall, and past the side of

Spiers's shop into the High Street.

[Illustration]

"Gown to the rescue!" shouted Mr. Blades, as he dashed across the

street; "come on, Pet! here we are in the thick of it, just in the nick

of time!" and, closely followed by Charles Larkyns, Mr. Fosbrooke, Mr.

Smalls, Mr. Bouncer, Mr. Flexible Shanks, Mr. Cheke, Mr. Foote, and our

hero, and the rest of the party, they soon plunged _in medias res_.

The movement was particularly well-timed, for the small body of Gownsmen

were beginning to get roughly handled; but the succour afforded by the

Pet and his party soon changed the aspect of affairs; and, after a brief

skirmish, there was a temporary cessation of hostilities. As

reinforcements poured in on either side, the mob which represented the

Town, wavered, and spread themselves across on each side of the High;

while a huge, lumbering bargeman, who appeared to be the generalissimo

of their forces, delivered himself of a brief but energetic speech, in

which he delivered his opinion of Gownsmen in general, and his immediate

foes in particular, in a way which would have to be expressed in proper

print chiefly by blanks, and which would have assuredly entailed upon

him a succession of five-shilling fines, had he been in a court of

justice, and before a magistrate.

"Here's a pretty blank, I don't think!" he observed in conclusion, as he

pointed to Mr. Verdant Green, who was nervously settling his spectacles,

and wishing himself safe back in his own rooms; "I would'nt give a blank

for such a blank blank. I'm blank, if he don't look as though he'd

swaller'd a blank codfish, and had bust out into blank barnacles!" As

the Bargee was apparently regarded by his party as a gentleman of

infinite humour, his highly-flavoured blank remarks were received by

them with shouts of laughter; while our hero obtained far more of the

_digito monstrari_ share of public notice than he wished for.

[Illustration]

For some brief space, the warfare between the rival parties of Town and

Gown continued to be one merely of words--a mutual discharge of _epea

pteroenta_ (_vulgariter_ "chaff"), in which a small amount of sarcasm

was mingled with a large share of vituperation. At length, a slang rhyme

of peculiar offensiveness was used to a Wadham gentleman, which so

exasperated him that he immediately, by way of a forcible reply, sent

his fist full into the speaker's face. On this, a collision took place

between those who formed the outside of the crowd; and the Gowns flocked

together to charge _en masse_. Mr. Verdant Green was not quite aware of

this sudden movement, and, for a moment, was cut off from the rest. This

did not escape the eyes of the valiant Bargee, who had already singled

out our hero as the one whom he could most easily punish, with the least

chance of getting quick returns for his small profits. Forthwith,

therefore, he rushed to his victim, and aimed a heavy blow at him, which

Verdant only half avoided by stooping. Instinctively doubling his fists,

our hero found that Necessity was, indeed, the mother of Invention; and,

with a passing thought of what would be his mother's and Aunt Virginia's

feelings could they see him fighting in the public streets with a common

bargeman, he contrived to guard off the second blow. But at the next

furious lunge of the Bargee he was not quite so fortunate, and,

receiving that gentleman's heavy fist full in his forehead, he

staggered backwards, and was only prevented from measuring his length on

the pavement by falling against the iron gates of St. Mary's. The

delighted Bargee was just on the point of putting the _coup de grâce_ to

his attack, when, to Verdant's inexpressible delight and relief, his

lumbering antagonist was sent sprawling by a well-directed blow on his

right ear. Charles Larkyns, who had kept a friendly eye on our hero, had

spied his condition, and had sprung to his assistance. He was closely

followed by the Pet, who had divested himself of the gown which had

encumbered his shoulders, and was now freely striking out in all

directions. The fight had become general, and fresh combatants had

sprung up on either side.

"Keep close to me, Verdant," said Charles Larkyns,--quite unnecessarily,

by the way, as our hero had no intention of doing otherwise until he saw

a way to escape; "keep close to me, and I'll take care you are not

hurt."

[Illustration]

"Here ye are!" cried the Pet, as he set his back against the stone-work

flanking the iron gates of the church, immediately in front of one of

the curiously twisted pillars of the Porch;[6] "come on, half a dozen of

ye, and let me have a rap at your smellers!" and he looked at the mob in

the "Come one, come all defiant" fashion of Fitz-James; while Charles

Larkyns and Verdant set their backs against the church gates, and

prepared for a rush.

The Bargee came up furious, and hit out wildly at Charles Larkyns; but

science was more than a match for brute force; and, after receiving two

or three blows which caused him to shake his head in a don't-like-it

sort of way, he endeavoured to turn his attention to Mr. Verdant Green,

who, with head in air, was taking the greatest care of his spectacles,

and endeavouring to ward off the indiscriminate lunges of half a dozen

townsmen. The Bargee's charitable designs on our hero were, however,

frustrated by the opportune appearance of Mr. Blades and Mr. Cheke, the

gentleman-commoner of Corpus, who, in their turn, were closely followed

by Mr. Smalls and Mr. Flexible Shanks; and Mr. Blades exclaiming,

"There's a smasher for your ivories, my fine fellow!" followed up his

remark with a practical application of his fist to the part referred to;

whereupon the Bargee fell back with a howl, and gave vent to several

curse-ory observations, and blank remarks.

[Illustration]

All this time the Pet was laying about him in the most determined

manner; and, to judge from his professional observations, his scientific

acquirements were in full play. He had agreeable remarks for each of his

opponents; and, doubtless, the punishment which they received from his

stalwart arms came with more stinging force when the parts affected were

pointed out by his illustrative language. To one gentleman he would

pleasantly observe, as he tapped him on the chest, "Bellows to mend for

you, my buck!" or else, "There's a regular rib-roaster for you!" or

else, in the still more elegant imagery of the Bing, "There's a

squelcher in the bread-basket, that'll stop _your_ dancing, my kivey!"

While to another he would cheerfully remark, "Your head-rails were

loosened there, wasn't they?" or, "How about the kissing-trap?" or,

"That draws the bung from the beer-barrel I'm a thinkin'." While to

another he would say, as a fact not to be disputed, "You napp'd it

heavily on your whisker-bed, didn't you?" or, "That'll raise a tidy

mouse on your ogle, my lad!" or, "That'll take the bark from your

nozzle, and distil the Dutch pink for you, won't it?" While to another

he would mention as an interesting item of news, "Now we'll tap your

best October!" or, "There's a crack on your snuff-box!" or, "That'll

damage your potato-trap!" Or else he would kindly inquire of one

gentleman, "What d'ye ask a pint for your cochineal dye?" or would

amiably recommend another that, as his peepers were a goin' fast, he'd

best put up the shutters, because the early-closing movement ought to be

follered out. All this was done in the cheeriest manner; while, at the

same time, the Pet proved himself to be not only a perfect master of his

profession, but also a skilful adept in those figures of speech, or

"nice derangements of epitaphs," as Mrs. Malaprop calls them, in which

the admirers of the fistic art so much delight. At every blow, a fresh

opponent either fell or staggered off; the supremacy of the Pet was

complete, and his claim to be considered a Professor of the noble and

manly art of Self-defence was triumphantly established. "The Putney Pet"

was a decidedly valuable acquisition to the side of Gown.

Soon the crowd became thinner, as those of the Town who liked to give,

but not to receive hard blows, stole off to other quarters; and the Pet

and his party would have been left peaceably to themselves. But this was

not what they wanted, as long as fighting was going on elsewhere; even

Mr. Verdant Green began to feel desperately courageous as the Town took

to their heels, and fled; and, having performed prodigies of valour in

almost knocking down a small cad who had had the temerity to attack him,

our hero felt himself to be a hero indeed, and announced his intention

of pursuing the mob, and sticking close to Charles Larkyns,--taking

especial care to do the latter.

"All the savage soul of _fight_ was up;"

and the Gown following the scattered remnant of the flying Town, ran

them round by All Saints' Church, and up the Turl.

Here another Town and Gown party had fought their way from the

Corn-market; and the Gown, getting considerably the worst of the

conflict, had taken refuge within Exeter College by the express order of

the Senior Proctor, the Rev. Thomas Tozer, more familiarly known as "old

Towzer." He had endeavoured to assert his proctorial authority over the

mob of the townspeople; but the _profanum vulgus_ had not only scoffed

and jeered him, but had even torn his gown, and treated his velvet

sleeves with the indignity of mud; while the only fireworks which had

been exhibited on that evening had been let off in his very face. Pushed

on, and hustled by the mob, and only partially protected by his Marshal

and Bull-dogs,[7] he was saved from further indignity by the arrival of

a small knot of Gownsmen, who rushed to his rescue. Their number was too

small, however, to make head against the mob, and the best that they

could do was to cover the Proctor's retreat. Now, the Rev. Thomas Tozer

was short, and inclined to corpulence, and, although not wanting for

courage, yet the exertion of defending himself from a superior force,

was not only a fruitless one, but was, moreover, productive of much

unpleasantness and perspiration. Deeming, therefore, that discretion was

the better part of valour, he fled, (like those who tended, or _ought_

to have attended to, the flocks of Mr. Norval, Sen.)

"for safety and for succour;"

and, being rather short of the necessary article of wind, by the time

that he had reached Exeter College, he had barely breath enough left to

tell the porter to keep the gate shut until he had assembled a body of

Gownsmen to assist him in capturing those daring ringleaders of the mob

who had set his authority at defiance. This was soon done; the call to

arms was made, and every Exeter man who was not already out, ran to "old

Towzer's" assistance.

"Now, Porter," said Mr. Tozer, "unbar the gate without noise, and I will

look forth to observe the position of the mob. Gentlemen, hold

yourselves in readiness to secure the ringleaders."

The porter undid the wicket, and the Rev. Thomas Tozer cautiously put

forth his head. It was a rash act; for, no sooner had his nose appeared

round the edge of the wicket, than it received a flattening blow from

the fist of an active gentleman who, like a clever cricketer, had been

on the lookout for an opportunity to get in to his adversary's wicket.

"Oh, this is painful! this is very painful!" ejaculated Mr. Tozer, as he

rapidly drew in his head. "Close the wicket directly, porter, and keep

it fast." It was like closing the gates of Hougomont. The active

gentleman who had damaged Mr. Tozer's nose threw himself against the

wicket, his comrades assisted him, and the porter had some difficulty in

obeying the Proctor's orders.

"Oh, this is painful!" murmured the Rev. Thomas Tozer, as he applied a

handkerchief to his bleeding nose; "this is painful, this is very

painful! this is exceedingly painful, gentlemen!"

He was immediately surrounded by sympathising undergraduates, who begged

him to allow them at once to charge the Town; but "old Towzer's" spirit

seemed to have been aroused by the indignity to which he had been forced

so publicly to submit, and he replied that, as soon as the bleeding had

ceased, he would lead them forth in person. An encouraging cheer

followed this courageous resolve, and was echoed from without by the

derisive applause of the Town.

[Illustration]

When Mr. Tozer's nose had ceased to bleed, the signal was given for the

gates to be thrown open; and out rushed Proctor, Marshall, Bull-dogs,

and undergraduates. The Town was in great force, and the fight became

desperate. To the credit of the Town, be it said, they discarded

bludgeons and stones, and fought, in John Bull fashion, with their

fists. Scarcely a Stick was to be seen. Singling out his man, Mr. Tozer

made at him valiantly, supported by his Bull-dogs, and a small band of

Gownsmen. But the heavy gown and velvet sleeves were a grievous

hindrance to the Proctor's prowess; and, although supported on either

side by his two attendant Bull-dogs, yet the weight of his robes made

poor Mr. Tozer almost as harmless as the blind King of Bohemia between

his two faithful knights at the battle of Crecy; and, as each of the

party had to look to, and fight for himself, the Senior Proctor soon

found himself in an awkward predicament.

The cry of "Gown to the rescue!" therefore, fell pleasantly on his ears;

and the reinforcement headed by Mr. Charles Larkyns and his party,

materially improved the aspect of affairs on the side of Gown. Knocking

down a cowardly fellow, who was using his heavy-heeled boots on the body

of a prostrate undergraduate, Mr. Blades, closely followed by the Pet,

dashed in to the Proctor's assistance; and never in a Town and Gown was

assistance more timely rendered; for the Rev. Thomas Tozer had just

received his first knock-down blow! By the help of Mr. Blades the fallen

chieftain was quickly replaced upon his legs; while the Pet stepped

before him, and struck out skilfully right and left. Ten more minutes of

scientific pugilism, and the fate of the battle was decided. The Town

fled every way; some round the corner by Lincoln College; some up the

Turl towards Trinity; some down Ship Street; and some down by Jesus

College, and Market Street. A few of the more resolute made a stand in

Broad Street; but it was of no avail; and they received a sound

punishment at the hands of the Gown, on the spot, where, some three

centuries before, certain mitred Gownsmen had bravely suffered

martyrdom.[8]

Now, the Rev. Thomas Tozer was a strict disciplinarian, and, although he

had so materially benefited by the Pet's assistance, yet, when he

perceived that that pugilistic gentleman was not possessed of the full

complement of academical attire, the duties of the Proctor rose superior

to the gratitude of the Man; and, with all the sternness of an ancient

Roman Father, he said to the Pet, "Why have you not on your gown, sir?"

[Illustration]

"I ax your pardon, guv'nor!" replied the Pet, deferentially; "I didn't

so much care about the mortar-board, but I couldn't do nothin' nohow

with the t'other thing, so I pocketted him; but some cove must have gone

and prigged him, for he ain't here."

"I am unable to comprehend the nature of your language, sir," observed

the Rev. Thomas Tozer, angrily; for, what with his own excitement, and

the shades of evening which had stolen over and obscured the Pet's

features, he was unable to read that gentleman's character and

profession in his face, and therefore came to the conclusion that he was

being chaffed by some impudent undergraduate. "I dou't in the least

understand you, sir; but I desire at once to know your name, and

College, sir!"

The Putney Pet stared. If the Rev. Thomas Tozer had asked him for the

name of his Academy, he would have been able to have referred him to his

spacious and convenient Sparring Academy, 5, Cribb Court, Drury Lane;

but the enquiry for his "College," was, in the language of his

profession, a "regular floorer." Mr. Blades, however, stepped forward,

and explained matters to the Proctor, in a satisfactory manner.

"Well, well!" said the pacified Mr. Tozer to the Pet; "you have used

your skill very much to our advantage, and displayed pugilistic powers

not unworthy of the athletes, and xystics of the noblest days of Rome.

As a palæstrite you would have gained palms in the gymnastic exercises

of the Circus Maximus. You might even have proved a formidable rival to

Dares, who, as you, Mr. Blades, will remember, caused the death of

Butes at Hector's tomb. You will remember, Mr. Blades, that Virgil

makes mention of his 'humeros latos' and says:--

"'Nec quisquam ex agmine tanto

Audet adire virum, manibusque inducere cæstus;'[9]

"which, in our English idiom, would signify, that every one was afraid to

put on the gloves with him. And, as your skill," resumed Mr. Tozer,

turning to the Pet, "has been exercised in defence of my person, and in

upholding the authority of the University, I will overlook your offence

in assuming that portion of the academical attire, to which you gave the

offensive epithet of "mortar-board;" more especially, as you acted at

the suggestion and bidding of those who ought to have known better. And

now, go home, sir, and resume your customary head-dress; and--stay!

here's five shillings for you."

"I'm much obleeged to you, guv'nor," said the Pet, who had been

listening with considerable surprise to the Proctor's quotations and

comparisons, and wondering whether the gentleman named Dares, who caused

the death of beauties, was a member of the P.R., and whether they made

it out a case of manslaughter against him? and if the gaining palms in a

circus was the customary "flapper-shaking" before "toeing the scratch

for business?"--"I'm much obleeged to you, guv'nor," said the Pet, as he

made a scrape with his leg; "and, whenever you _does_ come up to London,

I 'ope you'll drop in at Cribb Court, and have a turn with the gloves!"

And the Pet, very politely, handed one of his professional cards to the

Rev. Thomas Tozer.

A little later than this, a very jovial supper party might have been

seen assembled in a principal room at "the Roebuck." To enable them to

be back within their college walls, and save their gates, before the

hour of midnight should arrive, the work of consuming the grilled bones

and welch-rabbits was going on with all reasonable speed, the heavier

articles being washed down by draughts of "heavy." After the cloth was

withdrawn, several songs of a miscellaneous character were sung by "the

professional gentlemen present," including, "by particular request," the

celebrated "Marble Halls" song of our hero, which was given with more

coherency than on a previous occasion, but was no less energetically led

in its "you-loved-me-still-the-same" chorus by Mr. Bouncer. The Pet was

proudly placed on the right hand of the chairman, Mr. Blades; and, when

his health was proposed, "with many thanks to him for the gallant and

plucky manner in which he had led on the Gown to a glorious victory,"

the "three times three," and the "one cheer more," and the "again," and

"again," and the "one other little un!" were uproariously given (as Mr.

Foote expressed it) "by the whole strength of the company, assisted by

Messrs. Larkyns, Smalls, Fosbrooke, Flexible Shanks, Cheke, and Verdant

Green."

The forehead of the last-named gentleman was decorated with a patch of

brown paper, from which arose an aroma, as though of vinegar. The battle

of "Town and Gown" was over; and Mr. Verdant Green was among the number

of the wounded.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Town and Gown disturbances are of considerable antiquity. Fuller and

Matthew Paris give accounts of some which occurred as early as the year

1238. These disputes not unfrequently terminated fatally to some of the

combatants. One of the most serious Town and Gown rows on record took

place on the day of St. Scholastica the Virgin, February 10th, 1345,

when several lives were lost on either side. The University was at that

time in the Lincoln diocese; and Grostête, the Bishop, placed the

townspeople under an interdict, from which they were not released till

1357, and then only on condition that the mayor and sixty of the chief

burgesses should, on every anniversary of the day of St. Scholastica,

attend St. Mary's Church and offer up mass for the souls of the slain

scholars; and should also individually present an offering of one penny

at the high altar. They, moreover, paid a yearly fine of 100 marks to

the University, with the penalty of an additional fine of the same sum

for every omission in attending at St. Mary's. This continued up to the

time of the Reformation, when it gradually fell into abeyance. In the

fifteenth year of Elizabeth, however, the University asserted their

claim to all arrears. The matter being brought to trial, it was decided

that the town should continue the annual fine and penance, though the

arrears were forgiven. The fine was yearly paid on the 10th of February

up to our own time: the mayor and chief burgesses attended at St.

Mary's, and made the offering at the conclusion of the litany, which, on

that occasion, was read from the altar. Thia was at length put an end to

by Convocation in the year 1825.

[3] Corrupted by Oxford pronunciation (which makes Magdalen _Maudlin_

into St _Old's_.)

[4] "A Bachelor of Arts," Act I.

[5] The great bell of Christ Church. It tolls 101 times each evening at

ten minutes past nine o'clock (there being 101 students on the

foundation) and marks the time for the closing of the college gates.

"Tom" is one of the lions of Oxford. It formerly belonged to Oseney

Abbey, and weighs about 17,000 pounds, being more than double the weight

of the great bell of St. Paul's.

[6] The porch was erected in 1637 by order of Archbishop Laud. In the

centre of the porch is a statue of the Virgin with the Child in her

arms, holding a small crucifix; which at the time of its erection gave

such offence to the Puritans that it was included in the articles of

impeachment against the Archbishop. The statue remains to this day.

[7] The Marshal is the Proctor's chief officer. The name of 'Bull-dogs'

is given to the two inferior officers who attend the Proctor in his

nightly rounds.

[8] The _exact_ spot where Archbishop Cranmer and Bishops Ridley and

Latimer suffered martyrdom is not known. "The most likely supposition

is, that it was in the town ditch, the site of which is now occupied by

the houses in Broad Street, which are immediately opposite the gateway

of Balliol College, or the footpath in front of them, where an extensive

layer of wood-ashes is known to remain."--(Parker.)

[9] Æn., Book v., 378.

CHAPTER V.

MR. VERDANT GREEN IS FAVOURED WITH MR. BOUNCER'S OPINIONS REGARDING AN

UNDERGRADUATE'S EPISTOLARY COMMUNICATIONS TO HIS MATERNAL RELATIVE.

[Illustration]

"Come in, whoever you are! don't mind the dogs!" shouted little Mr.

Bouncer, as he lay, in an extremely inelegant attitude, in a red morocco

chair, which was considerably the worse for wear, chiefly on account of

the ill-usage it had to put up with, in being made to represent its

owner's antagonist, whenever Mr. Bouncer thought fit to practise his

fencing. "Oh! it's you and Giglamps, is it, Charley? I'm just refreshing

myself with a weed, for I've been desperately hard at work."

"What! Harry Bouncer devoting himself to study! But this is the age of

wonders," said Charles Larkyns, who entered the room in company with Mr.

Verdant Green, whose forehead still betrayed the effects of the blow he

had received a few nights before.

[Illustration]

"It ain't reading that I meant," replied Mr. Bouncer, "though that

always _does_ floor me, and no mistake! and what's the use of their

making us peg away so at Latin and Greek, I can't make out. When I go

out into society, I don't want to talk about those old Greek and Latin

birds that they make us get up. I don't want to ask any old dowager I

happen to fall in with at a tea-fight, whether she believes all the

crammers that Herodotus tells us, or whether she's well up in the

naughty tales and rummy nuisances that we have to pass no end of our

years in getting by heart. And when I go to a ball, and do the light

fantastic, I don't want to ask my partner what she thinks about

Euripides, or whether she prefers Ovid's Metamorphoses to Ovid's Art of

Love, and all that sort of thing; and as for requesting her to do me a

problem of Euclid, instead of working me any glorified slippers or

woolleries, I'd scorn the _h_action. I ain't like you, Charley, and I'm

not _guv_ in the classics: I saw too much of the beggars while I was at

Eton to take kindly to 'em; and just let me once get through my Greats,

and see if I don't precious soon drop the acquaintance of those old

classical parties!"

"No you won't, old fellow!" said Charles Larkyns; "you'll find that

they'll stick to you through life, just like poor relations, and you

won't be able to shake them off. And you ought not to wish to do so,

more especially as, in the end, you will find them to have been very

rich relations."

"A sort of 'O my prophetic soul, my uncle!' I suppose, Master Charley,"

observed Mr. Bouncer; "but what I meant when I said that I had been hard

at work, was, that I had been writing a letter; and, though I say it

that ought not to say it, I flatter myself it's no end of a good

letter."

"Is it a love-letter?" asked Charles Larkyns, who was leaning against

the mantelpiece, amusing himself with a cigar which he had taken from

Mr. Bouncer's box.

"A love-letter?" replied the little gentleman, contemptuously--"my gum!

no; I should rayther think not! I may have done many foolish things in

my life, but I can't have the tender passion laid to my charge. No! I've

been writing my letter to the Mum: I always write to her once a term."

Mr. Bouncer, it must be observed, always referred to his maternal

relative (his father had been long dead) by the epithet of "the Mum."

"Once a term!" said our hero, in a tone of surprise; "why I always write

home once or twice every week."

"You don't mean to say so, Giglamps!" replied Mr. Bouncer, with

admiration. "Well, some fellers have what you call a genius for that sort

of thing, you see, though what you can find to tell 'em I can't imagine.

But if I'd gone at that pace I should have got right through the Guide

Book by this time, and then it would have been all U P, and I should

have been obleeged to have invented another dodge. You don't seem to

take, Giglamps?"

"Well, I really don't know what you mean," answered our hero.

"Why," continued Mr. Bouncer, "you see, there's only the Mum and Fanny at

home: Fanny's my sister, Giglamps--a regular stunner--just suit

you!--and they, you understand, don't care to hear about wines, and Town

and Gowns, and all that sort of thing; and, you see, I ain't inventive

and that, and can't spin a yarn about nothing; so, as soon as ever I

came up to Oxford, I invested money in a Guide Book; and I began at the

beginning, and I gave the Mum three pages of Guide Book in each letter.

Of course, you see, the Mum imagines it's all my own observation; and

she thinks no end of my letters, and says that they make her know Oxford

almost as well as if she lived here; and she, of course, makes a good

deal of me; and as Oxford's the place where I hang out, you see, she

takes an interest in reading something about the jolly old place."

"Of course," observed Mr. Verdant Green; "my mamma--mother, at

least--and sisters, always take pleasure in hearing about Oxford; but

your plan never occurred to me."

"It's a first-rater, and no mistake," said Mr. Bouncer, confidently,

"and saves a deal of trouble. I think of taking out a patent for

it--'Bouncer's Complete Letter-Writer'--or get some literary swell to

put it into a book, 'with a portrait of the inventor;' it would be sure

to sell. You see, it's what you call amusement blended with information;

and that's more than you can say of most men's letters to the Home

department."

"Cocky Palmer's, for instance," said Charles Larkyns, "which always

contained a full, true, and particular account of his Wheatley doings.

He used to go over there, Verdant, to indulge in the noble sport of

cock-fighting, for which he had a most unamiable and unenviable

weakness; that was the reason why he was called 'Cocky' Palmer. His

elder brother--who was a Pembroke man--was distinguished by the pronomen

'Snuffy,' to express his excessive partiality for that titillating

compound."

"And Snuffy Palmer," remarked Mr. Bouncer, "was a long sight better

feller than Cocky, who was in the very worst set in Brazenface. But

Cocky did the Wheatley dodge once too often, and it was a good job for

the King of Oude when his friend Cocky came to grief, and had to take

his name off the books."

"You look as though you wanted a translation of this," said Charles

Larkyns to our hero, who had been listening to the conversation with

some wonderment,--understanding about as much of it as many persons who

attend the St. James's Theatre understand the dialogue of the French

Plays. "There are College _cabalia_, as well as Jewish; and College

surnames are among these. 'The King of Oude' was a man of the name of

Towlinson, who always used to carry into Hall with him a bottle of '_the

King of Oxide's Sauce_,' for which he had some mysterious liking, and

without which he professed himself unable to get through his dinner. At

one time he was a great friend of Cocky Palmer's, and used to go with

him to the cock-fights at Wheatley--that village just on the other side

Shotover Hill--where we did a 'constitutional' the other day. Cocky, as

our respected friend says, 'came to grief,' but was allowed to save

himself from expulsion by voluntarily, or rather in-voluntarily, taking

his name off the books. When his connection with Cocky had thus been

ruthlessly broken, 'the King' got into a better set, and retrieved his

character."

"The moral of which, my beloved Giglamps," observed Mr. Bouncer, "is,

that there are as many sets of men in a College as there are of

quadrilles in a ball-room, and that it's just as easy to take your place

in one as it is in another; but, that when you've once taken up your

position, you'll find it ain't an easy thing, you see, to make a change

for yourself, till the set is broken up. Whereby, Giglamps, you may

comprehend what a grateful bird you ought to be, for Charley's having

put you into the best set in Brazenface."

Mr. Verdant Green was heard to murmur, "sensible of honour,--grateful

for kindness,--endeavours to deserve,"--and the other broken sentiments

which are commonly made use of by gentlemen who get upon their legs to

return thanks for having been "tea-potted."

"If you like to hear it," said Mr. Bouncer, "I'll read you my letter to

the Mum. It ain't very private; and I flatter myself, Giglamps, that

it'll serve you as a model."

"Let's have it by all means, Harry," said Charles Larkyns. "It must be

an interesting document; and I am curious to hear what it is that you

consider a model for epistolary communication from an undergraduate to

his maternal relative."

[Illustration]

"Off she goes then;" observed Mr. Bouncer; "lend me your ears--list,

list, O list! as the recruiting-sergeant or some other feller says in

the Play. 'Now, my little dears! look straight for'ard--blow your noses,

and don't brathe on the glasses!'" and Mr. Bouncer read the letter,

interspersing it with explanatory observations:--

"'_My dearest mother,--I have been quite well since I left you, and I

hope you and Fanny have been equally salubrious._'--That's doing the

civil, you see: now we pass on to statistics.--'_We had rain the day

before yesterday, but we shall have a new moon to-night._'--You see, the

Mum always likes to hear about the weather, so I get that out of the

Almanack. Now we get on to the interesting part of the letter.--'_I will

now tell you a little about Merton College._'--That's where I had just

got to. We go right through the Guide Book, you understand.--'_The

history of this establishment is of peculiar importance, as exhibiting

the primary model of all the collegiate bodies in Oxford and Cambridge.

The statutes of Walter de Merton had been more or less copied by all

other founders in succession; and the whole constitution of both

Universities, as we now behold them, may be, not without reason,

ascribed to the liberality and munificence of this truly great

man._'--Truly great man! that's no end good, ain't it? observed Mr.

Bouncer, in the manner of the 'mobled queen is good' of Polonius.--'_His

sagacity and wisdom led him to profit by the spirit of the times; his

opulence enabled him to lay the foundation of a nobler system; and the

splendour of his example induced others, in subsequent ages, to raise a

superstructure at once attractive and solid._'--That's piling it up

mountaynious, ain't it?--'_The students were no longer dispersed through

the streets and lanes of the city, dwelling in insulated houses, halls,

inns, or hostels, subject to dubious control and precarious

discipline._'--That's stunnin', is'nt it? just like those Times fellers

write.--'_But placed under the immediate superintendence of tutors and

governors, and lodged in comfortable chambers. This was little less than

an academical revolution; and a new order of things may be dated from

this memorable era. Love to Fanny; and, believe me your affectionate

Son, Henry Bouncer._'--If the Mum don't say that's first-rate, I'm a

Dutchman! You see, I don't write very close, so that this respectably

fills up three sides of a sheet of note-paper. Oh, here's something over

the leaf. '_P.S. I hope Stump and Rowdy have got something for me,

because I want some tin very bad._' That's all! Well, Giglamps! don't

you call that quite a model letter for a University man to send to his

tender parient?"

"It certainly contains some interesting information," said our hero,

with a Quaker-like indirectness of reply.

"It seems to me, Harry," said Charles Larkyns, "that the pith of it,

like a lady's letter, lies in the postscript--the demand for money."

"You see," observed the little gentleman in explanation, "Stump and

Rowdy are the beggars that have got all my property till I come of age

next year; and they only let me have money at certain times, because

it's what they facetiously call _tied-up_: though _why_ they've tied it

up, or _where_ they've tied it up, I hav'nt the smallest idea. So,

though I tick for nearly everything,--for men at College, Giglamps, go

upon tick as naturally as the crows do on the sheep's backs,--I

sometimes am rather hard up for ready dibs; and then I give the Mum a

gentlemanly hint of this, and she tips me. By-the-way," continued Mr.

Bouncer, as he re-read his postscript, "I must alter the word 'tin' into

'money'; or else she'll be taking it literally, just as she did with

the ponies. Know what a pony is, Giglamps?"

"Why, of course I do," replied Mr. Verdant Green; "besides which, I have

kept one: he was an Exmoor pony,--a bay one, with a long tail."

[Illustration]

"Oh, Giglamps!' You'll be the death of me some fine day," faintly

exclaimed little Mr. Bouncer, as he slowly recovered from an exhausting

fit of laughter. "You're as bad as the Mum was. A pony means twenty-five

pound, old feller. But the Mum didn't know that; and when I wrote to her

and said, 'I'm very short; please to send me two ponies;' meaning, of

course, that I wanted fifty pound; what must she do, but write back and

say, that, with some difficulty, she had procured for me two Shetland

ponies, and that, as I was short, she hoped they would suit my size.

And, before I had time to send her another letter, the two little

beggars came. Well, I couldn't ride them both at once, like the fellers

do at Astley's; so I left one at Tollitt's, and I rode the other down

the High, as cool as a cucumber. You see, though I ain't a giant, and

that, yet I was big for the pony; and as Shelties are rum-looking little

beggars, I dare say we look'd rather queer and original. But the Proctor

happened to see me; and he cut up so doosed rough about it, that I

couldn't show on the Shelties any more; and Tollit was obliged to get

rid of them for me."

"Well, Harry," said Charles Larkyns; "it is to Tollitt's that you must

now go, as you keep your horse there. We want you to join us in a ride."

"What!" cried out Mr. Bouncer, "old Giglamps going outside an Oxford

hack once more! Why, I thought you'd made a vow never to do so again?"

"Why, I certainly did so," replied Mr. Verdant Green; "but Charles

Larkyns, during the holidays--the vacation, at least--was kind enough to

take me out several rides; so I have had a great deal of practice since

last term."

"And you don't require to be strapped on, or to get inside and pull down

the blinds?" inquired Mr. Bouncer.

"Oh dear, no!"

[Illustration]

The fact was, that during the long vacation Charles Larkyns had paid

considerable attention to our hero's equestrian exercises; not so much,

it must be confessed, out of friendship for his friend, as that he might

have an opportunity of riding by the side of that friend's fair sister

Mary, for whom he entertained something more than a partiality. And

herein, probably, Mr. Charles Larkyns showed both taste and judgment.

For there may be many things less pleasant in this world than cantering

down a green Warwickshire lane--on some soft summer's day when the green

is greenest and the blossoms brightest--side by side with a charming

girl whose nature is as light and sunny as the summer air and the summer

sky. Pleasant it is to watch the flushing cheek glow rosier, than the

rosiest of all the briar-roses that stoop to kiss it. Pleasant it is to

look into the lustrous light of tender eyes; and to see the loosened

ringlets reeling with the motion of the ride. Pleasant it is to canter

on from lane to lane over soft moss, and springy turf, between the high

honeysuckle hedges, and the broad-branched beeches that meet overhead in

a tangled embrace. But pleasanter by far than all is it, to hug to one's

heart the darling fancy that she who is cantering on by your side in all

the witchery of her maiden beauty, holds you in her dearest thoughts,

and dowers you with all her wealth of love. Pleasant rides indeed,

pleasant fancies, and pleasant day-dreams, had the long vacation brought

to Charles Larkyns!

"Well, come along, Verdant," said Mr. Larkyns, "we'll go to Charley

Symonds' and get our hacks. You can meet us, Harry, just over the

Maudlin Bridge; and we'll have a canter along the Henley road."

So Mr. Verdant Green and his friend walked into Holywell Street, and

passed under the archway up to Symonds' stables. But the nervous

trepidation which our hero had felt in the same place on a previous

occasion returned with full force when his horse was led out in an

exuberantly playful and "fresh" condition. The beast he had bestridden

during his long vacation rides, with his sister and his (and sister's)

friend, was a cob-like steed, whose placidity of temper was fully

equalled by its gravity of demeanour; and who would as soon have thought

of flying over a five-bar gate as he would of kicking up his respectable

heels both behind and before in the low-lived manner recorded of the

Ethiopian "Old Joe." But, if "Charley Symonds'" hacks had been of this

pacific and easy-going kind, it is highly probable that Mr. C. S. and

his stud would not have acquired that popularity which they had

deservedly achieved. For it seems to be a _sine-quâ-non_ with an Oxford

hack, that to general showiness of exterior, it must add the power of

enduring any amount of hard riding and rough treatment in the course of

the day which its _pro-tem._ proprietor may think fit to inflict upon

it; it being an axiom which has obtained, as well in Universities as in

other places, that it is of no advantage to hire a hack unless you get

out of him as much as you can for your money, you won't want to use him

to-morrow, so you don't care about over-riding him to-day.

[Illustration]

But, all this time, Mr. Verdant Green is drawing on his gloves, in the

nervous manner that tongue-tied gentlemen go through the same

performance during the conversational spasms of the first-set of

Quadrilles; the groom is leading out the exuberantly playful quadruped

on whose back Mr. Verdant Green is to disport himself; Charles Larkyns

is mounted; the November sun is shining brightly on the perspective of

the yard and stables, and the tower of New College; the dark archway

gives one a peep of Holywell Street; while the cold blue sky is flecked

with gleaming pigeons.

At last, Mr. Verdant Green has scrambled into his saddle, and is riding

cautiously down the yard, while his heart beats in an alarming

alarum-like way. As they ride under the archway, there, in the little

room underneath it, is Mr. Four-in-hand Fosbrooke, selecting his

particular tandem-whip from a group of some two score of similar whips

kept there in readiness for their respective owners.

"Charley, you're a beast!" says Mr. Fosbrooke, politely addressing

himself to Mr. Larkyns; "I wanted Bouncer to come with me in the cart to

Abingdon, and I find that the little man is engaged to you." Upon which,

Mr. Fosbrooke playfully raising his tandem-whip, Mr. Verdant Green's

horse plunges, and brings his rider's head into concussion with the lamp

which hangs within the gateway; whereupon, the hat falls off, and our

hero is within an ace of following his hat's example.

[Illustration]

By a powerful exertion, however, he recovers his proper position in the

saddle, and proceeds in an agitated and jolted condition, by Charles

Larkyns's side, down Holywell Street, past the Music Room,[10] and round

by the Long Wall, and over Magdalen Bridge. Here they are soon joined by

Mr. Bouncer, mounted, according to the custom of small men, on one of

Tollitt's tallest horses, of ever-so-many hands high. As by this time

our hero has got more accustomed to his steed, his courage gradually

returns, and he rides on with his companions very pleasantly, enjoying

the magnificent distant view of his University. When they have passed

Cowley, some very tempting fences are met with; and Mr. Bouncer and Mr.

Larkyns, being unable to resist their fascinations, put their horses at

them, and leap in and out of the road in an insane Vandycking kind of

way; while an excited agriculturist, whose smock-frock heaves with

indignation, pours down denunciations on their heads.

"Blow that bucolical party!" says Mr. Bouncer; "he's no right to

interfere with the enjoyments of the animals. If they break the fences,

it ain't their faults; it's the fault of the farmers for not making the

fences strong enough to bear them. Come along, Giglamps! put your beast

at that hedge! he'll take you over as easy as if you were sitting in an

arm-chair."

[Illustration]

But Mr. Verdant Green has doubts about the performance of this piece of

equestrian upholstery; and, thinking that the arm-chair would soon

become a reclining one, he is firm in his refusal to put the leaping

powers of his steed to the test. But having, afterwards, obtained some

"jumping powder" at a certain small road-side hostelry to which Mr.

Bouncer has piloted the party, our hero, on his way back to Oxford,

screws up his courage sufficiently to gallop his steed desperately at a

ditch which yawns, a foot wide, before him. But to his immense

astonishment--not to say, disgust--the obtuse-minded quadruped gives a

leap which would have taken him clear over a canal; and our hero, not

being prepared for this very needless display of agility, flies off the

saddle at a tangent, and finds that his "vaulting ambition," had

o'erleap'd itself, and fallen on the other side--of the ditch.

"It ain't your fault, Giglamps!" says Mr. Bouncer, when he has galloped

after Verdant's steed, and has led it up to him, and when he has

ascertained that his friend is not in the least hurt; but has only

broken--his glasses; "it ain't your fault, Giglamps, old feller! it's

the clumsiness of the hack. He tossed you up, and could'nt catch you

again!"

And so our hero rides back to Oxford. But, before the Term has ended, he

has become more accustomed to Oxford hacks, and has made himself

acquainted with the respective merits of the stables of Messrs. Symonds,

Tollitt, and Pigg; and has, moreover, ridden with the drag, and, in this

way, hunted the fabled foxes of Bagley Wood, and Whichwood Forest.

CHAPTER VI.

MR. VERDANT GREEN FEATHERS HIS OARS WITH SKILL AND DEXTERITY.

November is not always the month of fog and mist and dulness. Oftentimes

there are brilliant exceptions to that generally-received rule of

depressing weather, which, in this month (according to our lively

neighbours), induces the natives of our English metropolis to leap in

crowds from the Bridge of Waterloo. There are in November, days of calm

beauty, which are peculiar to that month--that kind of calm beauty which

is so often seen as the herald of decay.

[Illustration]

But, whatever weather the month may bring to Oxford, it never brings

gloom or despondency to Oxford men. They are a happily constituted set

of beings, and can always create their own amusements; they crown

Minerva with flowers without heeding her influenza, and never seem to

think that the rosy-bosomed Hours may be laid up with bronchitis. Winter

and summer appear to be pretty much the same to them: reading and

recreation go hand-in-hand all the year round; and, among other

pleasures, that of boating finds as many votaries in cold November, as

it did in sunny June--indeed, the chilness of the air, in the former

month, gives zest to an amusement which degenerates to hard labour in

the dog-days. The classic Isis in the month of November, therefore,

whenever the weather is anything like favourable, presents an animated

scene. Eight-oars pass along, the measured pull of the oars in the

rowlocks marking the time in musical cadence with their plashing dip in

the water; perilous skiffs flit like fire-flies over the glassy surface

of the river; men lounge about in the house-boats and barges, or gather

together at King's, or Hall's, and industriously promulgate small talk

and tobacco-smoke. All is gay and bustling. Although the feet of the

strollers in the Christ-Church meadows rustle through the sere and

yellow leaf, yet rich masses of brown and russet foliage still hang upon

the trees, and light up into gold in the sun. The sky is of a cold but

bright blue; the distant hills and woods are mellowed into sober

purplish-gray tints, but over them the sun looks down with that peculiar

red glow which is only seen in November.

[Illustration]

It was one of these bright days of "the month of gloom," that Mr.

Verdant Green and Mr. Charles Larkyns being in the room of their friend,

Mr. Bouncer, the little gentleman inquired, "Now then! what are you two

fellers up to? I'm game for anything, I am! from pitch-and-toss to

manslaughter."

"I'm afraid," said Charles Larkyns, "that we can't accommodate you in

either amusement, although we are going down to the river, with which

Verdant wishes to renew his acquaintance. Last term, you remember, you

picked him up in the Gut, when he had been played with at pitch-and-toss

in a way that very nearly resembled manslaughter."

"I remember, I remember, how old Giglamps floated by!" said Mr. Bouncer;

"you looked like a half-bred mermaid Giglamps."

"But the gallant youth," continued Mr. Larkyns, "undismayed by the

perils from which he was then happily preserved, has boldly come forward

and declared himself a worshipper of Isis, in a way worthy of the

ancient Egyptians, or of Tom Moore's Epicurean."

"Well! stop a minute you fellers," said Mr. Bouncer; "I must have my beer

first: I can't do without my Bass relief. I'm like the party in the old

song, and I likes a drop of good beer." And as he uncorked a bottle of

Bass, little Mr. Bouncer sang, in notes as musical as those produced

from his own tin horn--

"'Twixt wet and dry I always try

Between the extremes to steer;

Though I always shrunk from getting----intoxicated,

I was always fond of my beer!

For I likes a drop of good beer!

I'm particularly partial to beer!

Porter and swipes

Always give me the----stomach-ache!

But that's never the case with beer!"

"Bravo, Harry!" cried Charles Larkyns; "you roar us an' twere any

nightingale. It would do old Bishop Still's heart good to hear you; and

'sure _I_ think, that _you_ can drink with any that wears a hood,' or

that _will_ wear a hood when you take your Bachelor's, and put on your

gown." And Charles Larkyns sang, rather more musically than Mr. Bouncer

had done, from that song which, three centuries ago, the Bishop had

written in praise of good ale,--

Let back and side go bare, go bare,

Both hand and foot go cold:

But, belly, God send thee good ale enough,

Whether it be new or old.

[Illustration]

They were soon down at the river side, where Verdant was carefully put

into a tub (alas! the dear, awkward, safe, old things are fast passing

away; they are giving place to suicidal skiffs, and will soon be

numbered among the boats of other days!)--and was started off with

almost as much difficulty as on his first essay. The tub--which was,

indeed, his old friend the _Sylph_,--betrayed an awkward propensity for

veering round towards Folly Bridge, which our hero at first failed to

overcome; and it was not until he had performed a considerable amount of

crab-catching, that he was enabled to steer himself in the proper

direction. Charles Larkyns had taken his seat in an outrigger skiff (so

frail and shaky that it made Verdant nervous to look at it), and, with

one or two powerful strokes, had shot ahead, backed water, turned, and

pulled back round the tub long before Verdant had succeeded in passing

that eccentric mansion, to which allusion has before been made, as

possessing in the place of cellars, an ingenious system of small rivers

to thoroughly irrigate its foundation--a hydropathic treatment which may

(or may not) be agreeable in Venice, but strikes one as being decidedly

cold and comfortless when applied to Oxford,--at any rate, in the month

of November. Walking on the lawn which stretched from this house

towards the river, our hero espied two extremely pretty young ladies,

whose hearts he endeavoured at once to take captive by displaying all

his powers in that elegant exercise in which they saw him engaged. It

may reasonably be presumed that Mr. Verdant Green's hopes were doomed to

be blighted.

Let us leave him, and take a look at Mr. Bouncer.

Mr. Bouncer had been content to represent the prowess of his college in

the cricket-field, and had never aspired to any fame as an oar. The

exertions, as well as the fame, of aquatic honours, he had left to Mr.

Blades, and those others like him, who considered it a trifle to pull

down to Iffley and back again, two or three times a day, at racing pace

with a fresh spurt put on every five minutes. Mr. Bouncer, too, had an

antipathy to eat beefsteaks otherwise than in the state in which they

are usually brought to table; and, as it seemed a _sine quâ non_ with

the gentleman who superintended the training for the boat-races, that

his pupils should daily devour beefsteaks which had merely looked at the

fire, Mr. Bouncer, not having been brought up to cannibal habits, was

unable to conform himself to this, and those other vital principles

which seemed to regulate the science of aquatic training. The little

gentleman moreover, did not join with the "Torpids" (as the second boats

of a college are called), either, because he had a soul above them,--he

would be _aut Cæsar, aut nullus_; either in the eight, or nowhere,--or

else, because even the Torpids would cause him more trouble and

pleasurable pain than would be agreeable to him. When Mr. Bouncer sat

down on any hard substance, he liked to be able to do so without

betraying any emotion that the action caused him personal discomfort;

and he had noticed that many of the Torpids--not to mention one or two

of the eight--were more particular than young men usually are about

having a very easy, soft, and yielding chair to sit on.

Mr. Bouncer, too, was of opinion that continued blisters were both

unsightly and unpleasant; and that rawness was bad enough when taken in

conjunction with beefsteaks, without being extended to one's own hands.

He had also a summer passion for ices and creams, which were forbidden

luxuries to one in training,--although (paradoxical as it may seem to

say so) they trained, on Isis! He had also acquired a bad habit of

getting up in one day, and going to bed in the next,--keeping late

hours, and only rising early when absolutely compelled to do so in order

to keep morning chapel--a habit which the trainer would have interfered

with, considerably to the little gentleman's advantage. He had also an

amiable weakness for pastry, port, claret, "et _hock_ genus omne;" and

would have felt it a cruelty to have been deprived of his daily modicum

of "smoke;" and in all these points, boat-training would have materially

interfered with his comfort.

Mr. Bouncer, therefore, amused himself equally as much to his own

satisfaction as if he had been one of the envied eight, by occasionally

paddling about with Charles Larkyns in an old pair-oar, built by Davis

and King, and bought by Mr. Bouncer of its late Brazenfacian proprietor,

when that gentleman, after a humorous series of plucks, rustications,

and heavy debts, had finally been compelled to migrate to the King's

Bench, for that purification of purse and person commonly designated

"whitewashing." When Charles Larkyns and his partner did not use their

pair-oar, the former occupied his outrigger skiff; and the latter,

taking Huz and Buz on board a sailing boat, tacked up and down the river

with great skill, the smoke gracefully curling from his meerschaum or

short black pipe,--for Mr. Bouncer disapproved of smoking cigars at

those times when the wind would have assisted him to get through them.

[Illustration]

"Hullo, Giglamps! here we are! as the clown says in the pantermime,"

sung out the little gentleman as he came up with our hero, who was

performing some extraordinary feats in full sight of the University

crew, who were just starting from their barge; "you get no end of

exercise out of your tub, I should think, by the style you work those

paddles: They go in and out beautiful! Splish, splash; splish, splash!

You must be one of the _wherry_ identical Row-brothers-row, whose

voices kept tune and whose oars kept time, you know. You ought to go and

splish-splash in the Freshman's River, Giglamps;--but I forgot--you

ain't a freshman now, are you, old feller? Those swells in the

University boats look as though they were bursting with envy--not to

say, with laughter," added Mr. Bouncer, _sotto voce_. "Who taught you to

do the dodge in such a stunning way, Giglamps?"

"Why, last term, Charles Larkyns did," responded Mr. Verdant Green, with

the freshness of a Freshman still lingering lovingly upon him. "I've not

forgotten what he told me,--to put in my oar deep, and to bring it out

with a jerk. But though I make them go as deep as I can, and jerk them

out as much as possible, yet the boat _will_ keep turning round, and I

can't keep it straight at all; and the oars are very heavy and

unmanageable, and keep slipping out of the rowlocks--"

"Commonly called _rullochs_," put in Mr. Bouncer, as a parenthetical

correction, or marginal note on Mr. Verdant Green's words.

"And when the Trinity boat went by, I could scarcely get out of their

way; and they said very unpleasant things to me; and, altogether, I can

assure you that it has made me very hot."

"And a capital thing, too, Giglamps, this cold November day," said Mr.

Bouncer; "I'm obliged to keep my coppers warm with this pea-coat, and my

pipe. Charley came alongside me just now, on purpose to fire off one of

his poetical quotations. He said that I reminded him of Beattie's

_Minstrel_:--

"'Dainties he heeded not, nor gaud, nor toy,

Save one short pipe.'

"I think that was something like it. But you see, Giglamps, I haven't

got a figure-head for these sort of things like Charley has, so I

couldn't return his shot; but since then, to me deeply pondering, as

those old Greek parties say, a fine sample of our superior old crusted

jokes has come to hand; and when Charley next pulls alongside, I shall

tell him that I am like that beggar we read about in old Slowcoach's

lecture the other day, and that, if I had been in the humour, I could

have sung out, Io Bacche![11] _I owe baccy_--d'ye see, Giglamps? Well,

old feller! you look rather puffed, so clap on your coat; and, if

there's a rope's end, or a chain, in your tub, and you'll just pay it

out here, I'll make you fast astern, and pull you down the river; and

then you'll be in prime condition to work yourself up again. The wind's

in our back, and we shall get on jolly."

[Illustration]

So our hero made fast the tub to his friend's sailing-boat, and was

towed as far as the Haystack. During the voyage Mr. Bouncer ascertained

that Mr. Charles Larkyns had improved some of the shining hours of the

long vacation considerably to Mr. Verdant Green's benefit, by teaching

him the art of swimming--a polite accomplishment of which our hero had

been hitherto ignorant. Little Mr. Bouncer, therefore, felt easier in

his mind, if any repetition of his involuntary bath in the Gut should

befal our hero; and, after giving him (wonderful to say) some correct

advice regarding the management of the oars, he cast off the _Sylph_,

and left her and our hero to their own devices. But, profiting by the

friendly hints which he had received, Mr. Verdant Green made

considerable progress in the skill and dexterity with which he feathered

his oars; and he sat in his tub looking as wise as Diogenes may

(perhaps) have done in _his_. He moreover pulled the boat back to Hall's

without meeting with any accident worth mentioning; and when he had got

on shore he was highly complimented by Mr. Blades and a group of boating

gentlemen "for the admirable display of science which he had afforded

them."

Mr. Verdant Green was afterwards taken alternately by Charles Larkyns

and Mr. Bouncer in their pair-oar; so that, by the end of the term, he

at any rate knew more of boating than to accept as one of its

fundamental rules, "put your oar in deep, and bring it out with a jerk."