"Well, I must _have_ joints, mustn't I? How do you expect me to move?
A paint-box is invaluable on these occasions, as you'll find before you
are through. Now, my love, I'll bid you a fond adieu, for work presses.
By the by, one word in your ear! Don't ask a third-year girl to dance
with you if you value your nose!"
"What will happen to it if I do?"
"Snapped off! Never mind I look pretty and meek, and perhaps she'll ask
_you_. Now be off--be off--I must to work!"
Darsie descended to Hannah's study and proposed the idea of the Mad
Hatter, the which was instantly and scornfully declined. Hannah
explained at length that though her head might be plain, it yet
contained more brains than other heads she could mention, and that to
play the part of idiot for a whole night long was a feat beyond the
powers of a mathematical student reading for honours. She then
explained with a dignity which seemed somewhat misplaced that she had
set her heart upon representing a pillar-box, and was even now on the
point of sallying forth to purchase a trio of hat-boxes, which, being of
fashionable dimensions, would comfortably encircle her body. Fastened
together so as to form a tube, covered with red sateen, and supported by
scarlet-stockinged legs, the effect would be pleasingly true to life.
"I'll have peep-holes for eyes, and the slit will outline my mouth.
Between the dances I'll kneel down in a corner so that the box touches
the ground, and I'll look so real, that I shall expect every one to drop
in _letters--chocolate_ letters, observe! You might buy some and set
the example!"
For the next twenty-four hours an unusual air of excitement and bustle
pervaded the college, and the conversation at mealtime consisted for the
most part of fragmentary questions and answers bearing on the important
subject of costumes in making.
"Lend me your boot brushes, like a lamb!"
"Got an old pair of brown stockings you can't wear again?"
"Be an angel and lend me your striped curtains just for the night!"
"Spare _just_ ten minutes to sew up my back?"
So on it went, and in truth it was a pleasant chance to hear the merry,
inconsequent chatter; for, like every other class of the community, girl
students have their besetting sins, and one of the most obvious of these
is an air of assurance, of dogmatism, of final knowledge of life,
against which there can be no appeal. Girls of nineteen and twenty will
settle a dispute of ages with a casual word; students of economy will
advance original schemes warranted to wipe the offence of poverty from
the globe; science students with unlowered voices will indulge across
the dinner-table in scathing criticisms on historic creeds which their
fathers hold in reverence; and on each young face, on each young tongue,
can be read the same story of certainty and self-esteem.
This state of mind is either sad, amusing, or exasperating, according to
the mood of the hearer; but, whatever be his mood, he yet knows in his
heart that it is a transitory phase, and an almost inevitable result of
theoretical knowledge. A few years of personal grip with life and its
problems will make short work of that over-confidence, and replace it
with a gentler, sweeter touch.
But to-night was a night of frolic, and one would have to travel far
indeed to find a more amusing spectacle than an impromptu costume dance
in Clough Hall. Beauty is a secondary consideration, and the girl who
has achieved the oddest and most ludicrous appearance is the heroine of
the hour. Darsie Garnett made a fascinating Alice in Wonderland in her
short blue frock, white pinny, and little ankle-strap slippers, her hair
fastened back by an old-fashioned round comb, and eyebrows painted into
an inquiring arch, but she received no attention in comparison with that
lavished upon Hannah, when she dashed nimbly in at the door, and,
kneeling down in a corner of the room, presented a really lifelike
appearance of a pillar-box, a white label bearing the hours of
"Chocolate deliveries" pasted conspicuously beneath the slit. Hannah's
prophecies proved correct, for it became one of the amusements of the
evening to feed that yawning cavity with chocolates and other dainties,
so that more than one sweet tooth in the assembly made a note of the
suggestion for a future day.
The Dutch Doll was another huge success; for so dolly and so beyond all
things Dutch did she appear, standing within the doorway with jointed
arms and rigid back, with dark hair plastered over the forehead in the
well-known curve, and the three little spots of colour blazing out from
the whitened background, that it was almost impossible to believe that
she was living flesh and blood. Like a statue she stood until the
laughter and applause had lasted for several minutes, and then, stepping
jerkily on one side, made way for a new and even more startling
apparition.
Topsy, by all that was wonderful and unexpected! A beaming, grinning
little nigger girl, with tightly curled hair, rolling eyes, and white
teeth showing to the gums. A short gown of brilliantly striped cotton
reached to the knees, brown-stockinged arms and legs were matched by
brown-painted face and neck; standing side by side with the Dutch Doll,
the respective whiteness and brownness became accentuated to a
positively dazzling extent, and the onlookers were jubilant with
delight. The climax was reached when the two waltzed off together round
the room, the doll sustaining a delightful stiffness and stoniness of
mien, while Topsy's grin threatened to reach to her very ears.
Ordinary costumes fell somewhat flat after these triumphs, though to the
Freshers there was a continuing joy in beholding dignified students in
their third year pirouetting in childlike abandonment. There, for
instance, was the cleverest girl in college, of whom it was accepted as
a certainty that she would become a world-wide celebrity, an austere and
remote personage who was seldom seen to smile; there she stood, the
daintiest Christmas Cracker that one could wish to behold, in a sheath
of shimmery pink, tied in the middle by a golden string, finished at
either end with a froth of frills, and ornamented front and back with
immense bouquets of flowers. By an ingenious arrangement also, if you
pulled a string in a certain way, a mysterious cracking sound was heard,
and a motto made its appearance bearing an original couplet whose
reference was strictly and delightfully local.
The run on these mottoes was great, and after their points were fully
enjoyed, they were folded carefully away, to be kept as souvenirs of the
great scholar of later years.
The evening was half over, and the girls had settled down to the dance,
when suddenly, unexpectedly, the great excitement arrived. At a moment
when the music had ceased, and the various couples were preparing for
the usual promenade around the Hall, a loud roar was heard from without,
and into the middle of the floor there trotted nothing more nor less
than a tawny yellow lion, which, being confronted by a crowd of
spectators, drew back as if in fear, and crouched in threatening manner.
Its masked face showed a savage row of teeth; a mass of red hair,
shortened by that mysterious process known as "back combing," produced a
sufficiently convincing mane; a yellow skin hearthrug was wrapped round
the body, while paint and wadding combined had contrived a wonderfully
good imitation of claws.
It was the colour of the hair alone which revealed the identity of the
Lion to her companions. "It's that wretched little ginger Georgie!"
"That little ginger beast!" went the cry from lip to lip. But, abuse
her as they might, for the rest of the evening "Ginger Georgie" remained
the centre of attraction, as she persistently ambled after Topsy, and
gnawed at her brown feet, evidently recognising in her at once a
compatriot and a tit-bit.
Well, well! _Il faut souffrire pour etre--celebre_! When supper-time
arrived, and the lion's mask was removed, behold a countenance so
magenta with heat that compared with it even the Letter Box herself was
pale. The two sufferers were waited upon with the most assiduous
attention, as was indeed only fair. When one has voluntarily endured a
condition of semi-suffocation throughout an evening's "pleasuring" for
the unselfish reason of providing amusement for others, it's a poor
thing if one cannot be assisted to lemonade in return.
The Lion sat up well into the night combing out her mane; the Letter Box
had the first bad headache in her life, but both tumbled into bed at
last, proud and happy in the remembrance of an historic success.