language was Aristophanic and savoured strongly of faint praise. Also
one of the Old Leysians had grossly insulted him during the course
of the game. The Babe was careering about with the ball behind their
touch-line, attempting to get a try straight behind the goal-posts,
instead of being content with one a reasonable distance off, for he was
fastidious in these little matters and liked to do things well, when
he was caught up bodily by one of the opposing team and carried safely
out into the field again. A roar of appreciative laughter, and shouts
of “Good old Babe” went up from all the field, and the Babe’s feelings
were hurt. He had the satisfaction of dropping a goal a little later
on, but he asked pathetically, “Could aught atone?”
Before “Time” was called he had hurt his knee, and as already mentioned
he was Aristophanic for a few days.
The next match was against Blackheath, and the Babe had not yet
recovered sufficiently to play. He had bought an Inverness cloak “so
loud,” he said, “that you could scarcely hear yourself speak,” and a
cross-eyed bull-pup, in order to dispel that universal but distressing
illusion about his childishness, which so vexed his soul, and he was
going to lunch with Reggie and look at the match afterwards. Bill
Sykes, the bull-dog, was coming too, in order to be seen with the Babe
by as many people as possible, and his master drove to King’s gate with
his Inverness and his bull-dog, and his seraphic smile, in the best of
tempers. It was necessary to smuggle Mr. Sykes, as the Babe insisted
that strangers should call him, through the court without his being
seen, and the Babe hobbled along, still being rather lame, presenting
a curious lopsided appearance which was caused by Mr. Sykes, who was
tucked away beneath the Inverness. A confused growling sound issued at
intervals from somewhere below his left arm, drowning even the loudness
of the Inverness, and the Babe murmured encouragement and threats
alternately. The porter stared suspiciously at this odd figure as it
passed, but the serenity of the Babe’s smile was as infinite as ever.
The Babe’s hansom had been told to wait at the back gate of King’s, but
it had apparently found waiting tedious, and as there were no others
about, they had to walk. Mr. Sykes, however, took this opportunity to
behave, as the Babe said, “like the dog of a real blood,” and had a
delightful turn-up with a mongrel gentleman of his acquaintance, which
did him much credit.
The game had not yet begun when they reached the Corpus ground, and
both Sykes and the Babe’s cloak can hardly have failed to be noticed.
The Babe hobbled about among the two teams who were kicking about
before the game began, and said it was much pleasanter looking on than
playing, and that he meant to give it up, as it was a game more suited
to savages than gentlemen. Two of the home team resented these remarks,
and removed him, kindly but firmly, beyond the touch-line.
He and Reggie had secured chairs towards the centre of the ground,
and it pleased the Babe to affect a childlike ignorance of everything
connected with the rules and regulations of Rugby football, and he kept
up a flow of fatuous remarks.
“Look how they are throwing the ball about! Why do they do that,
Reggie? Which side is getting the best of it? Look at that funny little
man with a flag, why do they all stop when he holds it up? I suppose it
must be the captain. Have they got any try-downs yet, or do you call
them touches? Oh, the ball’s coming over here. I wish they’d take more
care; it might easily have hit me. Why don’t they have a better one?
It’s got all out of shape; it isn’t a bit round. Mr. Sykes wants to
play too. What a darling! Bite it then! How rough they are! Why did
Hargreaves stamp on that man so?”
The effect of Hargreaves’ “stamping on that man” was that he got the
ball and a nice clear run. He was playing three quarters on the right,
and when he got fairly off he was as fast as any man in England. His
weak point, however, was starting: he could not start full speed as
the Babe did, being heavy and a trifle clumsy. But he got twenty
yards clear now, and making the most of it he was well off before the
Blackheath team realised what was happening.
The Babe’s fatuities died away as Hargreaves started and he stood
silent a moment. It was clear that there was a good opening to hand,
barring accidents. The game was close to the University twenty-five
on the far side of the ground, and the Blackheath three-quarters were
for the moment much too close to the scrimmage. It was impossible to
get through even with the most finished passing on that side, and
Hargreaves ran right across parallel to the goal disregarding the
possibility of being collared in the centre of the ground opposite to
the home goal, but trusting to his own speed. The outside Blackheath
three-quarters came racing along, running slightly back in order to
tackle him as he turned, but in a few moments it was clear that he was
outpaced. Hargreaves ran clear round him as a yacht clears the buoy
with a few yards to spare.
“Oh, well run,” shouted the Babe. “Don’t pass; get in yourself.”
Hargreaves and the Blackheath back were now close to each other about
the level of the Blackheath twenty-five, and nearly in the middle of
the ground. The Varsity centre three-quarters had run straight up the
ground while Hargreaves ran round, and was now in a position to be
passed to again, but two Blackheath three-quarters were close to him.
Then, by a fatal error, Hargreaves wavered a moment, instead of again
trusting to his pace, got tackled, and in that moment of slack speed
his own centre three-quarters got in front of him. He passed wildly
and forward. An appeal, a whistle, a flag, and a free kick.
“Damn,” said the Babe in a loud, angry voice.
The game flickered about between the two twenty-fives for the next ten
minutes, going fast and loose, with a good deal of dribbling on the
part of the forwards, and a corresponding amount of self-immolation on
the part of the halves, who hurled themselves recklessly on the ball in
the face of the fastest rushes, and seemed to the unaccustomed eye to
be feverishly courting a swift and muddy death. Hargreaves made a few
futile attempts to run through and failed egregiously.
Half-time was called shortly afterwards, neither team having scored.
The Babe hobbled out into the field to make himself unpleasant to
his side. Mr. Sykes followed, wheezing pathetically, and the Babe’s
Inverness cloak came in for renewed comments and reproof.
“They are weak on the outside,” said the sage Babe to Hargreaves, “and
a great man like you can run round as easy as perdition. You ought to
stand much wider, and if you think you can get through the centre you
are wrong. Stoddard could stop fifty of you. Good-bye.”
The Blackheath team had come to the same conclusion as the Babe, and
they kept the game tight. They had quite realised that the Varsity
three-quarters on the left was weak, and that Hargreaves on the right
was abominably fast. In consequence they did their best to screw the
scrimmage round to Hargreaves’ side, so as to hamper him by not leaving
him room to get off. Time after time his half fed him persistently, and
time after time he was unable to get round between the touch-line and
the forwards. Meantime, the Blackheath pack, which were heavier and
rather better together than Cambridge, were working their way slowly
and steadily down the ground, keeping the ball close and comfortable
among them. Hargreaves again and again, following the Babe’s advice,
stood right away on the left of the scrimmage when it approached the
right touch-line, but his _vis-à-vis_ as regularly stood close to him,
and embraced him affectionately but roughly as soon as the ball got to
him and before he had time to pass; but for the next quarter the game
was very tight, and with the exception of a couple of free kicks given
for offside play among the Blackheath forwards, the ball rarely left
the scrimmage. Even these were returned by the back into touch, and the
forwards settled down on the ball again like swarming bees.
The Babe, meantime, had been insolent to the referee, who was an old
friend, and also an old hand. He had gone so far as to leave the game
to take care of itself for a moment to tell the Babe candidly and in a
loud, clear voice that he should be severely treated afterwards, adding
as a further insult, “Of course we all know it’s only you.” The Babe
was furious but impotent. The glory of the ulster and the bull-pup was
entirely neutralised.
But he soon forgot these insolences; there were only ten minutes
left, and neither side had scored more than minor points. To the
unprofessional eye it seemed likely that they might go on playing for
hours like this without either side scoring. The Blackheath forwards
gained ground very slowly, but this was made up for with tiresome
monotony by the quick punting of the University halves whenever
they got the chance. The three-quarters stood and shivered, and the
University back declared bitterly and audibly that he might as well
have stopped at home.
But the professional Babe knew better. If once the ball came fairly
out, the three-quarters would have a look in, and for himself he placed
his money on Hargreaves. And in defiance of law, order, and decorum he
shouted his advice to the half who was playing substitute for him.
“Don’t punt,” he shouted, “but pass.”
The half at that moment was busy punting, and the Babe repeated his
advice. Two minutes afterwards the half took it, as an exceptional
opportunity presented itself, and passed to his centre three-quarters,
and the Babe stood on his chair. Centre ran a short way and passed to
the left, who passed back to centre, and centre to right. It was as
pretty a piece of passing as one would wish to see on a winter’s day.
This was the moment for which the Babe was waiting. The field was
broken up and Hargreaves had the ball. He ran: they all ran. He ran
fastest--there is nothing like simple language for epical events. He
got a try which was not converted into a goal. But as no other points
were scored, Cambridge won the match by one point to _nil_.
The Babe and Mr. Sykes went back to take their tea with Reggie, and
Ealing who had been playing the Eton game, joined them. The Babe
ate three muffins with a rapt air, and Mr. Sykes drank his tea out
of the slop-basin like a Christian. He took cream and three lumps
of sugar. His idea of how to eat muffins was a little sketchy, but
otherwise be behaved charmingly. But, as the Babe said, to put pieces
of half-masticated muffin on the carpet while you drink your tea, is a
thing seldom, if ever, done in the best houses.
Ealing himself eschewed muffin on the ground of its being “bad
training,” and the Babe, who held peculiar views on training, proceeded
to express them.
“One does every thing best,” he said, “when one is most content.
Personally I am most content when I have eaten a large lunch. Nobody
could play Rugger in the morning. Why? Simply because no one is in a
good temper in the morning, except those under-vitalised people who
are never in a bad one, and who also never play games. Of course after
a very large lunch one cannot run quite so fast, but one is serene,
and serenity has much more to do with winning a match than pace. Yes,
another cup of tea, please. Now Hargreaves is most content when he has
had a little bread and marmalade and water. Every one to his taste. I
hate water except when it’s a hot bath. Water is meant not to drink,
but to heat and wash in.”
“Babe, do you mean to say you have hot baths in the morning?”
“Invariably when the weather is cold, and a cigarette, whatever
the weather is. I am no Charles Kingsley, though I used to collect
butterflies when I was a child.”
“But when you became a Babe, you put away childish things,” suggested
Ealing.
A malignant light beamed from the Babe’s eye.
“I ask you: do Babes have bull-pups?”
“I know one who has. I daresay he’s an exception, though.”
“When I was at a private school,” remarked the Babe severely, “and a
chap said a thing like that, we used to call him a funny ass.”
Reggie shouted.
“Good old Babe. Has the referee caught you yet? He belongs to this
college, and he may be in any minute. In fact, I asked him to come to
tea. I don’t know why he hasn’t.”
“If you want me to go, say so,” said the Babe.
“Not a bit of it. It was only for your sake I suggested it. Smoke.”
The Babe was limping about the room and came upon a set of chessmen.
“I want to play chess,” he said. “Chess is the most delightful game if
you treat it as a game of pure chance. You ought to move your queen
into the middle of the board and then see what happens. To reduce
it to the level of a sum in advanced mathematics, is a scandal and
an outrage. To calculate the effect of a move takes away all the
excitement.”
“You may always calculate it wrong.”
“In that case it becomes a nuisance. Reggie, will you play?”
“No.”
“Ealing?”
“I can’t. I don’t know the moves.”
“Nor do I. We should be about equal. Supposing you set two Heathen
Chinese to play chess, which would win?”
“Is it a riddle?”
The Babe sank down again in his chair.
“I don’t know,” he said. “If it is, I give up. By the way what are you
two chaps doing to-morrow?”
“Stop in bed till ten,” said Reggie, “it being the Day of Rest: Chapel.
Breakfast. Lunch. Pitt. Tea. Pitt. Sunday Club.”
“Do you belong to that? I thought it was semi-clerical.”
“Yes, we are all lay readers.”
“I went once,” said the Babe. “We ate what is described as a cold
collation. Then we all sat round, and somebody made jokes and we
all laughed. I made jokes too, but nobody sat round me. There was a
delightful, decorous gaiety about the proceedings. I think we sang
hymns afterwards, or else we looked at photographs of cathedrals, I
forget which. Hymns and photographs are so much alike.”
“O Lord, what do you mean?” asked Reggie.
“They are both like Sunday evening, and things which are like the same
thing are like one another. At eleven we parted.”
“The wicked old Babe doesn’t care for simple pleasures,” said Ealing.
“Oh, he knows a thing or two.”
“It’s always absurd for a lot of people to meet like that,” continued
the Babe. “The whole point of dining clubs ought to be to have a lot
of members with utterly different tastes. Then you see they can’t all
talk about their tastes, they can’t all sit round and do one thing,
and consequently they all talk rot, which is the only rational form of
conversation. If there is one thing I detest more than another it is
cliques. Individually I love most of the members of the Sunday Club,
collectively I cannot even like them. And the same thing applies to the
Athenæum.”
“Then why do you belong?”
“In order to go to Chapel in a pink and white tie, and also because
I love the members individually. I must go. Where’s Bill? Come along
under my ulster. Good-bye, you people.”
V.--THE WORK-CLUB.
For men must work.
KINGSLEY.
Reggie and Ealing were working together. They had formed a work club
consisting only of themselves, and it was to meet for the first time
this morning. In order to ensure the success of the first meeting they
had had a heavy breakfast at a quarter to nine, because, as Reggie
said, brain work is more exhausting than anything else, after which
they had played a little snob-cricket in the archway between the two
halves of Fellows’ Buildings, in order to clear the brain, until their
names were taken by the porter and entered in the report book. So they
adjourned to the bridge for a little to finish their pipes, and about a
quarter to eleven sat down one at each side of Reggie’s larger table,
with a box of cigarettes and a tobacco jar between them, Reggie’s
alarum clock, which had been induced to go, two copies of Professor
Jebb’s _Œdipus Tyrannus_, at which they were both working, one small
_Liddell & Scott_, and a translation of the play as edited in Mr.
Bohn’s helpful series of classical authors, in case Professor Jebb
proved too free in his translation, “for the difficulties,” as Reggie
acutely observed, “of rendering Greek both literally and elegantly
cannot be over-stated: indeed, it is to be feared that some of our best
English scholars sacrifice literal rendering to the latter.”
So Ealing threw a sofa cushion at his head, and the alarum clock was
knocked over on the floor, and instantly went off. The noise was
terrific, and they had to stifle it in a college gown, and put it in
the gyp cupboard. Then they began.
For ten minutes or so there was silence, and then Ealing in an
abstracted voice asked for the _Liddell & Scott_, and Reggie, not
to be behind-hand, underlined one of Professor Jebb’s notes with a
purple indelible pencil. The point was blunt, and he tried to make it
sharper by the aid of a dinner knife. This only resulted in a gradual
shortening of the pencil. Also the point became slightly notchier.
Ealing, finding it impossible to go on, while this was being done, had
been watching the proceeding at first with deep interest, which passed
into a state of wild, unreasonable impatience.
“How clumsy you are,” he said at length. “Here, pass it to me. Fancy
not being able to sharpen a pencil.”
There is, as every one knows, only one individual in the world who can
sharpen pencils, and that is oneself. The same remark applies to poking
fires. So Reggie replied airily--
“Oh, never mind, old chap. Get on with your work. I can do it
beautifully.”
But the pencil got rapidly shorter, and in order to prove to his own
satisfaction that nobody else in the world could do it, he passed
it over to Ealing with the dinner knife. His fingers were purple,
and should have been so indelibly, but he hopefully retired into his
bedroom to see if it could be washed off.
It was clear at once to Ealing that Reggie’s method was altogether at
fault, and he rough-hewed the pencil again so as to be able to set
to work properly. Then the clock on the mantelpiece, which had been
set going, after the alarum became derelict, struck eleven and Reggie
returned from his bedroom.
“Of course that clock is fast,” said Ealing.
“It’s ten minutes slow. Why should you think it was fast?”
“We must have been working longer than I thought. We had breakfast at
half-past eight and we began working almost immediately after, didn’t
we?”
“Yes. We knocked up a bit in the arch, you know.”
“Only about ten minutes. I should say we had set to work well before
ten.”
“Perhaps we did,” said Reggie, “but I haven’t got through much yet.
How’s the pencil getting on?”
“Oh, pretty well: but you went the wrong way about it at first!”
“There won’t be much left to write with, will there?” asked Reggie,
looking at it doubtfully.
“It will last you for weeks with proper care,” said Ealing. “I think I
never saw so blunt a knife. Why haven’t you got a proper knife?”
Reggie got up from the table, and strolled across to the window, and
looked out.
“Be quick, old chap,” he said. “I can’t go on till it’s ready. I’m in
the middle of underlining something.”
He saw an acquaintance below, and called to him.
“The work club’s started this morning,” he shouted. “We’re getting on
beautifully.”
(Confused sound from below, inaudible to Ealing.)
“Yes, he’s just sharpening my pencil. Isn’t it kind of him? He says
he’s getting on with it pretty well.”
(Murmur.)
“No, not very far, but I’m in the middle of a chorus, and I’m reading
Jebb’s notes and marking them.”
(Murmur.)
“Oh, hours; ever since about half-past nine or so.”
(Murmur.)
“What?”
(Murmur.)
“Yes, Jebb’s not literal enough for me. I like to get at the real
meaning of---- Oh!”
The sofa cushion flew out of the window and lay on the grass below.
When Reggie turned round Ealing was absorbed in his book.
“Where’s the pencil?” asked Reggie.
“There isn’t any,” said Ealing.
“Well, I must go and pick that cushion up. What a lot of time you’ve
made me waste. Also go to Severs’s and buy a new pencil. I can’t work
without.”
“This is all the thanks I get,” said Ealing bitterly.
“No, I’m awfully obliged to you, but it hasn’t done me much good, you
know. You see you acted with the best intention, which is always fatal.
Where’s my cap?”
“I should think you could borrow a pencil,” said Ealing.
Reggie considered a moment, with his head on one side.
“I think not. It would be better to get one of my own. Then I shall
have one, you see. Come with me?”
The two went down together. As the cushion was lying on the grass, it
was necessary to take shots in turn at Reggie’s open window, to avoid
going upstairs again. This was much more amusing but it took a little
longer than the other would have done, and the University clock struck
half-past eleven in a slow regretful manner. The successful shot,
about which an even sixpence was laid, was made by Ealing, and they
crossed King’s parade to buy a pencil. As they got to the lodge they
were further gratified by the sight of the Babe in the road opposite
on a bicycle, which he rode exceedingly badly and with a curious,
swoopy, wobbly motion. Mr. Sykes trotted along at a distance of some
twenty yards off, with the air of not belonging to anybody, thoroughly
ashamed of his master. They called to the Babe, and he being rash
enough to try to wave his hand to them, ran straight into the curbstone
opposite King’s gate, and dismounted hurriedly, stepping into a large
puddle. His face was flushed with his exertions, but, as he wrung the
water out from the bottom of his trousers, he said genially:
“This is dry work, though it doesn’t look it. A small whiskey and soda,
Reggie, would not hurt me. No doubt you have such a thing in your room.”
“What about Bill Sykes?”
The Babe thought for a moment and mopped his forehead, but in a few
seconds a smile of solution lighted his face.
“William shall be chained to the bicycle,” he said. “Thus no one will
steal the bicycle for fear of William, and William will not venture to
run away, as he wouldn’t be seen going about the streets with a bicycle
in tow for anything. He despises the bicycle. I can hardly make him
follow. Come here, darling.”
But Mr. Sykes required threats and coaxing. From the first, so the Babe
said, he was utterly opposed to the idea of the bicycle, and had, when
he thought himself unobserved, been seen to bite it maliciously.
It struck a quarter to twelve.
The Babe was in a peculiarly sociable humour this morning, and after a
whiskey and soda, “a cigarette” as he remarked, “would not be amiss,”
and it was not till he had smoked two, and been told with brutal
plainness that he was not wanted in the least, that Reggie discovered
that he had forgotten to buy his pencil. This necessitated his and
Ealing’s making another journey to King’s parade, and the Babe, who
bore no malice whatsoever at being told to go away, took an arm of
each, and insisted in walking across the grass in the hard, convincing
light of noonday.
It was now seven minutes past twelve, and opposite the fountain they
met the Provost, at the sight of whom the Babe assumed his most affable
manner, and they talked together very pleasantly for a minute or two.
“Indeed,” as he remarked as they went on their way, “this little
meeting should quite take the sting out of the fact that the Porter
of your colleges has just retired into his hole in the gate, with the
object no doubt, of reporting you both for walking across the grass.
And as you have already been reported for playing squash, this will
make twice.”
Bill Sykes meantime had been the object of much attention on the part
of the casual passers-by, and he was sitting there chattering with
impotent rage, the centre of a ring of people, in the humiliating
position of being chained to a bicycle, which he despised and detested.
At the sight of the Babe, however, he forgot for the moment about the
bicycle, jumped up, and tried to run towards him. Thus it was not
unnatural that the bicycle toppled heavily over onto the top of him.
Mr. Sykes was very angry, the bell rang loudly, and one handle of the
bicycle was bent.
Mr. Sykes was released, and the Babe who was not expert at mounting,
though he said he was the very devil when he got going, hopped slowly
down King’s Parade for a hundred yards or so with one foot on the step,
making ineffectual efforts to get into the saddle. There seemed to be
no reason to suppose that he would ever succeed, but about opposite
the north end of the Chapel, he accomplished this feat, and after
describing two or three graceful but involuntary swoops to the right
and left, secured the treadles, and settled comfortably down into one
of the tram lines. At this moment the tram came round the corner by
St. Mary’s, and the bicycle, with its precious burden, seemed doomed
to instant annihilation. The Babe, however, got off just in time, and
consoled himself by swearing at the driver, and he disappeared among
the traffic of Trinity Street still hopping.
“It’s like the White Knight riding,” said Ealing. “Look sharp, Reggie,
with that beastly pencil. It’s struck a quarter past.”