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Title: The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green

Author: Cuthbert Bede

Release date: November 1, 2003 [eBook #4644]
Most recently updated: October 6, 2021

Language: English

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The Adventures of Mr Verdant Green,
by Cuthbert Bede

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(PART I)

THE ADVENTURES

OF

MR. VERDANT GREEN,

AN OXFORD FRESHMAN.

BY CUTHBERT BEDE, B.A.

WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS,
DESIGNED AND DRAWN ON THE WOOD BY THE AUTHOR.

"A COLLEGE JOKE TO CURE THE DUMPS."
SWIFT.

LONDON: NATHANIEL COOKE,
(LATE INGRAM, COOKE, AND CO.)
MILFORD HOUSE, STRAND.

1853.

LONDON:
PRINTED BY ROBSON, LEVEY, AND FRANKLYN,
Great New Street and Fetter Lane

Forward to Part II

Forward to Part III

CONTENTS
CHAPTER

I Mr. Verdant Green's Relatives and Antecedents
II Mr. Verdant Green is to be an Oxford Freshman
III Mr. Verdant Green leaves the Home of his Ancestors
IV Mr. Verdant Green becomes an Oxford Undergraduate
V Mr. Verdant Green matriculates, and makes a sensation
VI Mr. Verdant Green dines, breakfasts, and goes to Chapel
Mr. Verdant Green calls on a Gentleman who "is licensed to
VII
sell"
Mr. Verdant Green's Morning Reflections are not so pleasant as
VIII
his Evening Diversions
Mr. Verdant Green attends Lectures, and, in despite of
IX
Sermons, has dealings with Filthy Lucre
Mr. Verdant Green reforms his Tailor's Bills and runs up others.
X He also appears in a rapid act of Horsemanship, and finds Isis
cool in Summer
XI Mr. Verdant Green's Sports and Pastimes
Mr. Verdant Green terminates his existence as an Oxford
XII
Freshman

THE ADVENTURES
OF
MR. VERDANT GREEN.

CHAPTER I.

MR. VERDANT GREEN'S RELATIVES AND ANTECEDENTS.

IF you will refer to the unpublished volume of Burke's Landed Gentry, and
turn to letter G, article "GREEN," you will see that the Verdant Greens are a
family of some respectability and of considerable antiquity. We meet with
them as early as 1096, flocking to the Crusades among the followers of
Peter the Hermit, when one of their number, Greene surnamed the Witless,
mortgaged his lands in order to supply his poorer companions with the
sinews of war. The family estate, however, appears to have been redeemed
and greatly increased by his great-grandson, Hugo de Greene, but was again
jeoparded in the year 1456, when Basil Greene, being commissioned by
Henry the Sixth to enrich his sovereign by discovering the philosopher's
stone, squandered the greater part of his fortune in unavailing experiments;
while his son, who was also infected with the spirit of the age, was blown
up in his laboratory when just on the point of discovering the elixir of life.
It seems to have been about this time that the Greenes became connected by
marriage with the equally old family of the Verdants; and, in the year 1510,
we find a Verdant Greene as justice of the peace for the county of Warwick,
presiding at the trial of three decrepid old women, who, being found guilty
of transforming themselves into cats, and in that shape attending the nightly
assemblies of evil spirits, were very properly pronounced by him to be
witches, and were burnt with all due solemnity.

In tracing the records of the family, we do not find that any of its members
attained to great eminence in the state, either in the counsels of the senate or
the active services of the field; or that they amassed any unusual amount of
wealth or landed property. But we may perhaps ascribe these circumstances

to the fact of finding the Greens, generation after generation, made the
dupes of more astute minds, and when the hour of danger came, left to
manage their own affairs in the best way they could, - a way that commonly
ended in their mismanagement and total confusion. Indeed, the idiosyncrasy
of the family appears to have been so well known, that we continually meet
with them performing the character of catspaw to some monkey who had
seen and understood much more of the world than they had, - putting their
hands to the fire, and only finding out their mistake when they had burned
their fingers.

In this way the family of the Verdant Greens never got beyond a certain
point either in wealth or station, but were always the same unsuspicious,
credulous, respectable, easy-going people in one century as another, with
the same boundless confidence in their fellow-creatures, and the same
readiness to oblige society by putting their names to little bills, merely for
form's and friendship's sake. The Vavasour Verdant Green, with the slashed
velvet doublet and point-lace fall, who (having a well-stocked purse) was
among the favoured courtiers of the Merry Monarch, and who allowed that
monarch in his merriness to borrow his purse, with the simple I.O.U. of
"Odd's fish! you shall take mine to-morrow!" and who never (of course)
saw the sun rise on the day of repayment, was but the prototype of the
Verdant Greens in the full-bottomed wigs, and buckles and shorts of George
I.'s day, who were nearly beggared by the bursting of the Mississippi
Scheme and South-Sea Bubble; and these, in their turn, were duly
represented by their successors. And thus the family character was handed
down with the family nose, until they both re-appeared (according to the
veracious chronicle of Burke, to which we have referred), in

"VERDANT GREEN, of the Manor Green, Co. Warwick, Gent., who
married Mary, only surviving child of Samuel Sappey, Esq., of Sapcot
Hall, Co. Salop; by whom he has issue, one son, and three daughters:
Mary,-VERDANT,-Helen,-Fanny."

Mr. Burke is unfeeling enough to give the dates when this bunch of Greens
first made their appearance in the world; but these dates we withhold, from
a delicate regard to personal feelings, which will be duly appreciated by

those who have felt the sacredness of their domestic hearth to be tampered
with by the obtrusive impertinences of a census-paper.

It is sufficient for our purpose to say, that our hero, Mr. Verdant Green,
junior, was born much in the same way as other folk. And although
pronounced by Mrs. Toosypegs his nurse, when yet in the first crimson
blush of his existence, to be "a perfect progidy, mum, which I ought to be
able to pronounce, 'avin nuss'd a many parties through their trouble, and
being aweer of what is doo to a Hinfant," - yet we are not aware that his
debut on the stage of life, although thus applauded by such a clacqueur as
the indiscriminating Toosypegs, was announced to the world at large by any
other means than the notices in the county papers, and the six-shilling
advertisement in the Times.

"Progidy" though he was, even as a baby, yet Mr. Verdant Green's nativity
seems to have been chronicled merely in this everyday manner, and does
not appear to have been accompanied by any of those more monstrous
phenomena, which in earlier ages attended the production of a genuine
prodigy. We are not aware that Mrs. Green's favourite Alderney spoke on
that occasion, or conducted itself otherwise than as unaccustomed to public
speaking as usual. Neither can we verify the assertion of the intelligent Mr.
Mole the gardener, that the plaster Apollo in the Long Walk was observed to
be bathed in a profuse perspiration, either from its feeling compelled to
keep up the good old classical custom, or because the weather was damp.
Neither are we bold enough to entertain an opinion that the chickens in the
poultry-yard refused their customary food; or that the horses in the stable
shook with trembling fear; or that any thing, or any body, saving and
excepting Mrs. Toosypegs, betrayed any consciousness that a real and
genuine prodigy had been given to the world.

However, during the first two years of his life, which were passed chiefly in
drinking, crying, and sleeping, Mr. Verdant Green met with as much
attention, and received as fair a share of approbation, as usually falls to the
lot of the most favoured of infants. Then Mrs. Toosypegs again took up her
position in the house, and his reign was over. Faithful to her mission, she
pronounced the new baby to be the "progidy," and she was believed. But
thus it is all through life; the new baby displaces the old; the second love

supplants the first; we find fresh friends to shut out the memories of former
ones; and in nearly everything we discover that there is a Number 2 which
can put out of joint the nose of Number 1.

Once more the shadow of Mrs. Toosypegs fell upon the walls of Manor
Green; and then, her mission being accomplished, she passed away for ever;
and our hero was left to be the sole son and heir, and the prop and pride of
the house of Green.

And if it be true that the external forms of nature exert a hidden but
powerful sway over the dawning perceptions of the mind, and shape its
thoughts to harmony with the things around, then most certainly ought Mr.
Verdant Green to have been born a poet; for he grew up amid those scenes
whose immortality is, that they inspired the soul of Shakespeare with his
deathless fancies!

The Manor Green was situated in one of the loveliest spots in all
Warwickshire; a county so rich in all that constitutes the picturesqueness of
a true English landscape. Looking from the drawing-room windows of the
house, you saw in the near foreground the pretty French garden, with its
fantastic parti-coloured beds, and its broad gravelled walks and terrace;
proudly promenading which, or perched on the stone balustrade, might be
seen perchance a peacock flaunting his beauties in the sun. Then came the
carefully kept gardens, bounded on the one side by the Long Walk and a
grove of shrubs and oaks; and on the other side by a double avenue of
stately elms, that led, through velvet turf of brightest green, down past a
little rustic lodge, to a gently sloping valley, where were white walls and
rose-clustered gables of cottages peeping out from the embosoming trees,
that betrayed the village beauties they seemed loth to hide. Then came the
grey church-tower, dark with shrouding ivy; then another clump of stately
elms, tenanted by cawing rooks; then a yellow stretch of bright meadow-
land, dappled over with browsing kine knee-deep in grass and flowers; then
a deep pool that mirrored all, and shone like silver; then more trees with
floating shade, and homesteads rich in wheat-stacks; then a willowy brook
that sparkled on merrily to an old mill-wheel, whose slippery stairs it lazily
got down, and sank to quiet rest in the stream below; then came, crowding
in rich profusion, wide-spreading woods and antlered oaks; and golden

gorse and purple heather; and sunny orchards, with their dark-green waves
that in Spring foamed white with blossoms; and then gently swelling hills
that rose to close the scene and frame the picture.

Such was the view from the Manor Green. And full of inspiration as such a
scene was, yet Mr. Verdant Green never accomplished (as far as poetical
inspiration was concerned) more than an "Address to the Moon," which he
could just as well have written in any other part of the country, and which,
commencing with the noble aspiration,

"O moon, that shinest in the heaven so blue,
I only wish that I could shine like you!"

and terminating with one of those fine touches of nature which rise superior
to the trammels of ordinary versification,

"But I to bed must be going soon,
So I will not address thee more, O moon!"

will no doubt go down to posterity in the Album of his sister Mary.

For the first fourteen years of his life, the education of Mr. Verdant Green
was conducted wholly under the shadow of his paternal roof, upon
principles fondly imagined to be the soundest and purest for the formation
of his character. Mrs. Green, who was as good and motherly a soul as ever
lived, was yet (as we have shewn) one of the Sappeys of Sapcot, a family
that were not renowned either for common sense or worldly wisdom, and
her notions of a boy's education were of that kind laid down by her
favourite poet, Cowper, in his "Tirocinium" that we are

"Well-tutor'd only while we share
A mother's lectures and a nurse's care;"

and in her horror of all other kind of instruction (not that she admitted Mrs.
Toosypegs to her counsels), she fondly kept Master Verdant at her own
apron-strings. The task of teaching his young idea how to shoot was
committed chiefly to his sisters' governess, and he regularly took his place
with them in the school-room. These daily exercises and mental drillings

were subject to the inspection of their maiden-aunt, Miss Virginia Verdant, a
first cousin of Mr. Green's, who had come to visit at the Manor during
Master Verdant's infancy, and had remained there ever since; and this
generalship was crowned with such success, that her nephew grew up the
girlish companion of his sisters, with no knowledge of boyish sports, and no
desire for them.

The motherly and spinsterial views regarding his education were favoured
by the fact that he had no playmates of his own sex and age; and since his
father was an only child, and his mother's brothers had died in their infancy,
there were no cousins to initiate him into the mysteries of boyish games and
feelings. Mr. Green was a man who only cared to live a quiet, easy-going
life, and would have troubled himself but little about his neighbours, if he
had had any; but the Manor Green lay in an agricultural district, and, saving
the Rectory, there was no other large house for miles around. The rector's
wife, Mrs. Larkyns, had died shortly after the birth of her first child, a son,
who was being educated at a public school; and this was enough, in Mrs.
Green's eyes, to make a too intimate acquaintance between her boy and
Master Larkyns a thing by no means to be desired. With her favourite poet
she would say,

"For public schools, 'tis public folly feeds;"

and, regarding them as the very hotbeds of all that is wrong, she would turn
a deaf, though polite, ear to the rector whenever he said, "Why don't you let
your Verdant go with my Charley? Charley is three years older than
Verdant, and would take him under his wing." Mrs. Green would as soon
think of putting one of her chickens under the wing of a hawk, as intrusting
the innocent Verdant to the care of the scape-grace Charley; so she still
persisted in her own system of education, despite all that the rector could
advise to the contrary.

As for Master Verdant, he was only too glad at his mother's decision, for he
partook of all her alarm about public schools, though from a different cause.
It was not very often that he visited at the Rectory during Master Charley's
holidays; but when he did, that young gentleman favoured him with such
accounts of the peculiar knack the second master possessed of finding out
all your tenderest places when he "licked a feller" for a false quantity, that,

"by Jove! you couldn't sit down for a fortnight without squeaking;" and of
the jolly mills they used to have with the town cads, who would lie in wait
for you, and half kill you if they caught you alone; and of the fun it was to
make a junior form fag for you, and do all your dirty work; - that Master
Verdant's hair would almost stand on end at such horrors, and he would
gasp for very dread lest such should ever be his dreadful doom.

And then Master Charley would take a malicious pleasure in consoling him,
by saying, "Of course, you know, you'll only have to fag for the first two or
three years; then - if you get into the fourth form - you'll be able to have a
fag for yourself. And it's awful fun, I can tell you, to see the way some of
the fags get riled at cricket! You get a feller to give you a few balls, just for
practice, and you hit the ball into another feller's ground; and then you tell
your fag to go and pick it up. So he goes to do it, when the other feller sings
out, 'Don't touch that ball, or I'll lick you!' So you tell the fag to come to
you, and you say, 'Why don't you do as I tell you?' And he says, 'Please, sir!'
and then the little beggar blubbers. So you say to him, 'None of that, sir!
Touch your toes!' We always make 'em wear straps on purpose. And then
his trousers go tight and beautiful, and you take out your strap and warm
him! And then he goes to get the ball, and the other feller sings out, 'I told
you to let that ball alone! Come here, sir! Touch your toes!' So he warms
him too; and then we go on all jolly. It's awful fun, I can tell you!"

Master Verdant would think it awful indeed; and, by his own fireside, would
recount the deeds of horror to his trembling mother and sisters, whose
imagination shuddered at the scenes from which they hoped their darling
would be preserved.

Perhaps Master Charley had his own reasons for making matters worse than
they really were; but, as long as the information he derived concerning
public schools was of this description, so long did Master Verdant Green
feel thankful at being kept away from them. He had a secret dread, too, of
his friend's superior age and knowledge; and in his presence felt a bashful
awe that made him glad to get back from the Rectory to his own sisters;
while Master Charley, on the other hand, entertained a lad's contempt for
one that could not fire off a gun, or drive a cricket-ball, or jump a ditch
without falling into it. So the Rectory and the Manor Green lads saw but

very little of each other; and, while the one went through his public-school
course, the other was brought up at the women's apron-string.

But though thus put under petticoat government, Mr. Verdant Green was not
altogether freed from those tyrants of youth - the dead languages. His aunt
Virginia was as learned a Blue as her esteemed ancestress in the court of
Elizabeth, the very Virgin Queen of Blues; and under her guidance Master
Verdant was dragged with painful diligence through the first steps of the
road that was to take him to Parnassus. It was a great sight to see her sitting
stiff and straight; - with her wonderfully undeceptive "false front" of
(somebody else's) black hair, graced on either side by four sausage-looking
curls - as, with spectacles on nose and dictionary in hand, she instructed her
nephew in those ingenuous arts which should soften his manners, and not
permit him to be brutal. And, when they together entered upon the romantic
page of Virgil (which was the extent of her classical reading), nothing
would delight her more than to declaim their sonorous Arma-virumque-
cano lines, where the intrinsic qualities of the verse surpassed the quantities
that she gave to them.

Fain would Miss Virginia have made Virgil the end and aim of an
educational existence, and so have kept her pupil entirely under her own
care; but, alas! she knew nothing further; she had no acquaintance with
Greek, and she had never flirted with Euclid; and the rector persuaded Mr.
Green that these were indispensable to a boy's education. So, when Mr.
Verdant Green was (in stable language) "rising" sixteen, he went thrice a
week to the Rectory, where Mr. Larkyns bestowed upon him a couple of
hours, and taught him to conjugate {tupto}, and get over the Pons
Asinorum. Mr. Larkyns found his pupil not a particularly brilliant scholar,
but he was a plodding one; and though he learned slowly, yet the little he
did learn was learned well.

Thus the Rectory and the home studies went hand and hand, and continued
so, with but little interruption, for more than two years; and Mr. Verdant
Green had for some time assumed the toga virilis of stick-up collars and
swallow-tail coats, that so effectually cut us off from the age of innocence;
and the small family festival that annually celebrated his birthday had just
been held for the eighteenth time, when

"A change came o'er the spirit of his dream."

Back to Contents

CHAPTER II.

MR. VERDANT GREEN IS TO BE AN OXFORD-MAN.

ONE day when the family at the Manor Green had assembled for luncheon,
the rector was announced. He came in and joined them, saying,with his
usual friendly bonhomie, "A very well-timed visit, I think! Your bell rang
out its summons as I came up the avenue. Mrs. Green, I've gone through the
formality of looking over the accounts of your clothing-club, and, as usual,
I find them correctness itself; and here is my subscription for the next year.
Miss Green, I hope that you have not forgotten the lesson in logic that
Tommy Jones gave you yesterday afternoon?"

"Oh, what was that?" cried her two sisters; who took it in turns with her to
go for a short time in every day to the village-school which their father and
the rector had established: "Pray tell us, Mr. Larkyns! Mary has said
nothing about it."

"Then," replied the rector, "I am tongue-tied, until I have my fair friend's
permission to reveal how the teacher was taught."

Mary shook her sunny ringlets, and laughingly gave him the required
permission.

"You must know, then," said Mr. Larkyns, "that Miss Mary was giving one
of those delightful object-lessons, wherein she blends so much instructive-"

"I'll trouble you for the butter, Mr. Larkyns," interrupted Mary, rather
maliciously.

The rector was grey-headed, and a privileged friend. "My dear," he said, "I
was just giving it you. However, the object-lesson was going on; the subject
being Quadrupeds, which Miss Mary very properly explained to be 'things
with four legs.' Presently, she said to her class, 'Tell me the names of some
quadrupeds?' when Tommy Jones, thrusting out his hand with the full
conviction that he was making an important suggestion, exclaimed, 'Chairs
and tables!' That was turning the tables upon Miss Mary with a vengeance!"

During luncheon the conversation glided into a favourite theme with Mrs.
Green and Miss Virginia, - Verdant's studies: when Mr. Larkyns, after some
good-natured praise of his diligence, said, "By the way, Green, he's now
quite old enough, and prepared enough for matriculation: and I suppose you
are thinking of it."

Mr. Green was thinking of no such thing. He had never been at college
himself, and had never heard of his father having been there; and having the
old-fashioned, what-was-good-enough-for-my-father-is-good-enough-for-
me sort of feeling, it had never occurred to him that his son should be
brought up otherwise than he himself had been. The setting-out of Charles
Larkyns for college, two years before, had suggested no other thought to
Mr. Green's mind, than that a university was the natural sequence of a
public school; and since Verdant had not been through the career of the one,
he deemed him to be exempt from the other.

The motherly ears of Mrs. Green had been caught by the word
"matriculation," a phrase quite unknown to her; and she said, "If it's
vaccination that you mean, Mr. Larkyns, my dear Verdant was done only
last year, when we thought the small-pox was about; so I think he's quite
safe."

Mr. Larkyns' politeness was sorely tried to restrain himself from giving vent
to his feelings in a loud burst of laughter; but Mary gallantly came to his
relief by saying, "Matriculation means, being entered at a university. Don't
you remember, dearest mamma, when Mr. Charles Larkyns went up to
Oxford to be matriculated last January two years?"

"Ah, yes! I do now. But I wish I had your memory, my dear."

And Mary blushed, and flattered herself that she succeeded in looking as
though Mr. Charles Larkyns and his movements were objects of perfect
indifference to her.

So, after luncheon, Mr. Green and the rector paced up and down the long-
walk, and talked the matter over. The burden of Mr. Green's discourse was
this: "You see, sir, I don't intend my boy to go into the Church, like yours;
but, when anything happens to me, he'll come into the estate, and have to
settle down as the squire of the parish. So I don't exactly see what would be
the use of sending him to a university, where, I dare say, he'd spend a good
deal of money, - not that I should grudge that, though; - and perhaps not be
quite such a good lad as he's always been to me, sir. And, by George! (I beg
your pardon,) I think his mother would break her heart to lose him; and I
don't know what we should do without him, as he's never been away from
us a day, and his sisters would miss him. And he's not a lad, like your
Charley, that could fight his way in the world, and I don't think he'd be
altogether happy. And as he's not got to depend upon his talents for his
bread and cheese, the knowledge he's got at home, and from you, sir, seems
to me quite enough to carry him through life. So, altogether, I think Verdant
will do very well as he is, and perhaps we'd better say no more about the
matriculation."

But the rector would say more; and he expressed his mind thus: "It is not so
much from what Verdant would learn in Latin and Greek, and such things as
make up a part of the education, that I advise your sending him to a
university; but more from what he would gain by mixing with a large body
of young men of his own age, who represent the best classes of a mixed
society, and who may justly be taken as fair samples of its feelings and
talents. It is formation of character that I regard as one of the greatest of the
many great ends of a university system; and if for this reason alone, I
should advise you to send your future country squire to college. Where else
will he be able to meet with so great a number of those of his own class,
with whom he will have to mix in the after changes of life, and for whose
feelings and tone a college-course will give him the proper key-note?
Where else can he learn so quickly in three years, what other men will
perhaps be striving for through life, without attaining, - that self-reliance
which will enable him to mix at ease in any society, and to feel the equal of

its members? And, besides all this, - and each of these points in the
education of a young man is, to my mind, a strong one, - where else could
he be more completely 'under tutors and governors,' and more thoroughly
under surveillance, than in a place where college-laws are no respecters of
persons, and seek to keep the wild blood of youth within its due bounds?
There is something in the very atmosphere of a university that seems to
engender refined thoughts and noble feelings; and lamentable indeed must
be the state of any young man who can pass through the three years of his
college residence, and bring away no higher aims, no worthier purposes, no
better thoughts, from all the holy associations which have been crowded
around him. Such advantages as these are not to be regarded with
indifference; and though they come in secondary ways, and possess the
mind almost imperceptibly, yet they are of primary importance in the
formation of character, and may mould it into the more perfect man. And as
long as I had the power, I would no more think of depriving a child of mine
of such good means towards a good end, than I would of keeping him from
any thing else that was likely to improve his mind or affect his heart."

Mr. Larkyns put matters in a new light; and Mr. Green began to think that a
university career might be looked at from more than one point of view. But
as old prejudices are not so easily overthrown as the lath-and-plaster
erections of mere newly-formed opinion, Mr. Green was not yet won over
by Mr. Larkyns' arguments. "There was my father," he said, "who was one
of the worthiest and kindest men living; and I believe he never went to
college, nor did he think it necessary that I should go; and I trust I'm no
worse a man than my father."

"Ah! Green," replied the rector; "the old argument! But you must not judge
the present age by the past; nor measure out to your son the same degree of
education that your father might think sufficient for you. When you and I
were boys, Green, these things were thought of very differently to what they
are in the present day; and when your father gave you a respectable
education at a classical school, he did all that he thought was requisite to
form you into a country gentleman, and fit you for that station in life you
were destined to fill. But consider what a progressive age it is that we live
in; and you will see that the standard of education has been considerably
raised since the days when you and I did the 'propria quae maribus'

together; and that when he comes to mix in society, more will be demanded
of the son than was expected from the father. And besides this, think in how
many ways it will benefit Verdant to send him to college. By mixing more
in the world, and being called upon to act and think for himself, he will
gradually gain that experience, without which a man cannot arm himself to
meet the difficulties that beset all of us, more or less, in the battle of life. He
is just of an age, when some change from the narrowed circle of home is
necessary. God forbid that I should ever speak in any but the highest terms
of the moral good it must do every young man to live under his mother's
watchful eye, and be ever in the company of pure-minded sisters. Indeed I
feel this more perhaps than many other parents would, because my lad,
from his earliest years, has been deprived of such tender training, and cut
off from such sweet society. But yet, with all this high regard for such home
influences, I put it to you, if there will not grow up in the boy's mind, when
he begins to draw near to man's estate, a very weariness of all this, from its
very sameness; a surfeiting, as it were, of all these delicacies, and a longing
for something to break the monotony of what will gradually become to him
a humdrum horse-in-the-mill kind of country life? And it is just at this
critical time that college life steps in to his aid. With his new life a new light
bursts upon his mind; he finds that he is not the little household-god he had
fancied himself to be; his word is no longer the law of the Medes and
Persians, as it was at home; he meets with none of those little flatteries from
partial relatives, or fawning servants, that were growing into a part of his
existence; but he has to bear contradiction and reproof, to find himself only
an equal with others, when he can gain that equality by his own deserts;
and, in short, he daily progresses in that knowledge of himself, which, from
the gnothiseauton days down to our own, has been found to be about the
most useful of all knowledge; for it gives a man stability of character, and
braces up his mental energies to a healthy enjoyment of the business of life.
And so, Green, I would advise you, above all things, to let Verdant go to
college."

Much more did the rector say, not only on this occasion, but on others; and
the more frequently he returned to the charge, the less resistance were his
arguments met with; and the result was, that Mr. Green was fully persuaded
that a university was the proper sphere for his son to move in. But it was not
without many a pang and much secret misgiving that Mrs. Green would

consent to suffer her beloved Verdant to run the risk of those dreadful
contaminations which she imagined would inevitably accompany every
college career. Indeed, she thought it an act of the greatest heroism (or, if
you object to the word, heroineism) to be won over to say "yes" to the
proposal; and it was not until Miss Virginia had recited to her the deeds of
all the mothers of Greece and Rome who had suffered for their children's
sake, that Mrs. Green would consent to sacrifice her maternal feelings at the
sacred altar of duty.

When the point had been duly settled, that Mr. Verdant Green was to
receive a university education, the next question to be decided was, to
which of the three Universities should he go? To Oxford, Cambridge, or
Durham? But this was a matter which was soon determined upon. Mr.
Green at once put Durham aside, on account of its infancy, and its wanting
the prestige that attaches to the names of the two great Universities.
Cambridge was treated quite as summarily, because Mr. Green had
conceived the notion that nothing but mathematics were ever thought or
talked of there; and as he himself had always had an abhorrence of them
from his youth up, when he was hebdomadally flogged for not getting-up
his weekly propositions, he thought that his son should be spared some of
the personal disagreeables that he himself had encountered; for Mr. Green
remembered to have heard that the great Newton was horsed during the
time that he was a Cambridge undergraduate, and he had a hazy idea that
the same indignities were still practised there.

But the circumstance that chiefly decided Mr. Green to choose Oxford as
the arena for Verdant's performances was, that he would have a companion,
and, as he hoped, a mentor, in the rector's son, Mr. Charles Larkyns, who
would not only be able to cheer him on his first entrance, but also would
introduce him to select and quiet friends, put him in the way of lectures, and
initiate him into all the mysteries of the place; all which the rector professed
his son would be glad to do, and would be delighted to see his old friend
and playfellow within the classic walls of Alma Mater.

Oxford having been selected for the university, the next point to be decided
was the college.

"You cannot," said the rector, "find a much better college than Brazenface,
where my lad is. It always stands well in the class-list, and keeps a good
name with its tutors. There are a nice gentlemanly set of men there; and I
am proud to say, that my lad would be able to introduce Verdant to some of
the best. This will of course be much to his advantage. And besides this, I
am on very intimate terms with Dr. Portman, the master of the college; and,
if they should not happen to be very full, no doubt I could get Verdant
admitted at once. This too will be of advantage to him; for I can tell you
that there are secrets in all these matters, and that at many colleges that I
could name, unless you knew the principal, or had some introduction or
other potent spell to work with, your son's name would have to remain on
the books two or three years before he could be entered; and this, at
Verdant's age, would be a serious objection. At one or two of the colleges
indeed this is almost necessary, under any circumstances, on account of the
great number of applicants; but at Brazenface there is not this over-
crowding; and I have no doubt, if I write to Dr. Portman, but what I can get
rooms for Verdant without much loss of time."

"Brazenface be it then!" said Mr. Green, "and I am sure that Verdant will
enter there with very many advantages; and the sooner the better, so that he
may be the longer with Mr. Charles. But when must his - his what-d'ye-call-
it, come off?"

"His matriculation?" replied the rector. "Why although it is not usual for
men to commence residence at the time of their matriculation, still it is
sometimes done. And as my lad will, if all goes on well, be leaving Oxford
next year, perhaps it would be better, on that account, that Verdant should
enter upon his residence as soon as he has matriculated."

Mr. Green thought so too; and Verdant, upon being appealed to, had no
objection to this course, or, indeed, to any other that was decided to be
necessary for him; though it must be confessed, that he secretly shared
somewhat of his mother's feelings as he looked forward into the blank and
uncertain prospect of his college life. Like a good and dutiful son, however,
his father's wishes were law; and he no more thought of opposing them,
than he did of discovering the north pole, or paying off the national debt.

So all this being duly settled, and Mrs. Green being entirely won over to the
proceeding, the rector at once wrote to Dr. Portman, and in due time
received a reply to the effect, that they were very full at Brazenface, but that
luckily there was one set of rooms which would be vacant at the
commencement of the Easter term; at which time he should be very glad to
see the gentleman his friend spoke of.

Portraits of MR. VERDANT GREEN AND HIS FAMILY.

1. Mr. Green, senior., 2. Miss Virginia Verdant., 3. Mrs. Green., 4. Mr.
Verdant Green., 5. Miss Helen Green., 6. Miss Fanny Green., 7. Miss Mary
Green.

Back to Contents

CHAPTER III.

MR. VERDANT GREEN LEAVES THE HOME OF HIS
ANCESTORS.

THE time till Easter passed very quickly, for much had to be done in it.
Verdant read up most desperately for his matriculation, associating that
initiatory examination with the most dismal visions of plucking, and other
college tortures.

His mother was laying in for him a new stock of linen, sufficient in quantity
to provide him for years of emigration; while his father was busying
himself about the plate that it was requisite to take, buying it bran-new, and
of the most solid silver, and having it splendidly engraved with the family
crest, and the motto "Semper virens."

Infatuated Mr. Green! If you could have foreseen that those spoons and
forks would have soon passed, - by a mysterious system of loss which
undergraduate powers can never fathom, - into the property of Mr. Robert
Filcher, the excellent, though occasionally erratic, scout of your beloved
son, and from thence have melted, not "into thin air," but into a residuum
whose mass might be expressed by the equivalent of coins of a thin and
golden description, - if you could but have foreseen this, then, infatuated
but affectionate parent, you would have been content to have let your son
and heir represent the ancestral wealth by mere electro-plate, albata, or any
sham that would equally well have served his purpose!

As for Miss Virginia Verdant, and the other woman portion of the Green
community, they fully occupied their time until the day of separation came,
by elaborating articles of feminine workmanship, as souvenirs, by which
dear Verdant might, in the land of the strangers, recall visions of home.
These were presented to him with all due state on the morning of the day
previous to that on which he was to leave the home of his ancestors.

All the articles were useful as well as ornamental. There was a purse from
Helen, which, besides being a triumph of art in the way of bead decoration,
was also, it must be allowed, a very useful present, unless one happened to
carry one's riches in a porte-monnaie. There was a pair of braces from
Mary, worked with an ecclesiastical pattern of a severe character - very
appropriate for academical wear, and extremely effective for all occasions
when the coat had to be taken off in public. And there was a watch-pocket
from Fanny, to hang over Verdant's night-capped head, and serve as a
depository for the golden mechanical turnip that had been handed down in

the family, as a watch, for the last three generations. And there was a pair of
woollen comforters knit by Miss Virginia's own fair hands; and there were
other woollen articles of domestic use, which were contributed by Mrs.
Green for her son's personal comfort. To these, Miss Virginia thoughtfully
added an infallible recipe for the toothache, - an infliction to which she was
a martyr, and for the general relief of which in others, she constituted
herself a species of toothache missionary; for, as she said, "You might, my
dear Verdant, be seized with that painful disease, and not have me by your
side to cure it": which it was very probable he would not, if college rules
were strictly carried out at Brazenface.

All these articles were presented to Mr. Verdant Green with many speeches
and great ceremony; while Mr. Green stood by, and smiled benignantly
upon the scene, and his son beamed through his glasses (which his defective
sight obliged him constantly to wear) with the most serene aspect.

It was altogether a great day of preparation, and one which it was well for
the constitution of the household did not happen very often; for the house
was reduced to that summerset condition usually known in domestic
parlance as "upside down." Mr. Verdant Green personally superintended the
packing of his goods; a performance which was only effected by the united
strength of the establishment. Butler, Footman, Coachman, Lady's-maid,
Housemaid, and Buttons were all pressed into the service; and the
coachman, being a man of some weight, was found to be of great use in
effecting a junction of the locks and hasps of over-filled book-boxes. It was

astonishing to see all the amount of literature that Mr. Verdant Green was
about to convey to the seat of learning: there was enough to stock a small
Bodleian. As the owner stood, with his hands behind him, placidly
surveying the scene of preparation, a meditative spectator might have
possibly compared him to the hero of the engraving "Moses going to the
fair," that was then hanging just over his head; for no one could have set out
for the great Oxford booth of this Vanity Fair with more simplicity and
trusting confidence than Mr. Verdant Green.

When the trunks had at last been packed, they were then, by the thoughtful
suggestion of Miss Virginia, provided each with a canvas covering, after the
manner of the luggage of females, and labelled with large direction-cards
filled with the most ample particulars concerning their owner and his
destination.

It had been decided that Mr. Verdant Green, instead of reaching Oxford by
rail, should make his entree behind the four horses that drew the
Birmingham and Oxford coach; - one of the few four-horse coaches that
still ran for any distance [1]; and which, as the more pleasant means of
conveyance, was generally patronized by Mr. Charles Larkyns in preference
to the rail; for the coach passed within three miles of the Manor Green,
whereas the nearest railway was at a much greater distance, and could not
be so conveniently reached. Mr. Green had determined upon accompanying
Verdant to Oxford, that he might have the satisfaction of seeing him safely
landed there, and might also himself form an acquaintance with a city of
which he had heard so much, and which would be doubly interesting to him
now that his son was enrolled a member of its University. Their seats had
been secured a fortnight previous; for the rector had told Mr. Green that so
many men went up by the coach, that unless he made an early application,
he would altogether fail in obtaining places; so a letter had been dispatched
to "the Swan" coach-office at Birmingham, from which place the coach
started, and two outside seats had been put at Mr. Green's disposal.

---
[1] This well-known coach ceased to run between Birmingham and Oxford
in the last week of August 1852, on the opening of the Birmingham and
Oxford Railway.
-=-

The day at length arrived, when Mr. Verdant Green for the first time in his
life (on any important occasion) was to leave the paternal roof; and it must
be confessed that it was a proceeding which caused him some anxiety, and
that he was not sorry when the carriage was at the door to bear him away,
before (shall it be confessed?) his tears had got the mastery over him.

As it was, by the judicious help of his sisters, he passed the Rubicon in
courageous style, and went through the form of breakfast with the greatest
hilarity, although with several narrow escapes of suffocation from choking.
The thought that he was going to be an Oxford MAN fortunately assisted
him in the preservation of that tranquil dignity and careless ease which he
considered to be the necessary adjuncts of the manly character, more
especially as developed in that peculiar biped he was about to be
transformed into; and Mr. Verdant Green was enabled to say "Good-by"
with a firm voice and undimmed spectacles.

All crowded to the door to have a last shake of the hand; the maid-servants
peeped from the upper windows; and Miss Virginia sobbed out a blessing,
which was rendered of a striking and original character by being mixed up
with instructions never to forget what she had taught him in his Latin
grammar, and always to be careful to guard against the toothache. And amid
the good-byes and write-oftens that usually accompany a departure, the
carriage rolled down the avenue to the lodge, where was Mr. Mole the
gardener, and also Mrs. Mole, and, moreover, the Mole olive-branches, all
gathered at the open gate to say farewell to the young master. And just as
they were about to mount the hill leading out of the village, who should be
there but the rector lying in wait for them and ready to walk up the hill by
their side, and say a few kindly words at parting. Well might Mr. Verdant
Green begin to regard himself as the topic of the village, and think that
going to Oxford was really an affair of some importance.

They were in good time for the coach; and the ringing notes of the guard's
bugle made them aware of its approach some time before they saw it
rattling merrily along in its cloud of dust. What a sight it was when it did
come near! The cloud that had enveloped it was discovered to be not dust
only, but smoke from the cigars, meerschaums, and short clay pipes of a full
complement of gentlemen passengers, scarcely one of whom seemed to
have passed his twentieth year. No bonnet betokening a female traveller
could be seen either inside or out; and that lady was indeed lucky who
escaped being an inside passenger on the following day. Nothing but a lapse
of time, or the complete re-lining of the coach, could purify it from the
attacks of the four gentlemen who were now doing their best to convert it
into a divan; and the consumption of tobacco on that day between
Birmingham and Oxford must have materially benefited the revenue. The
passengers were not limited to the two-legged ones, there were four-footed
ones also. Sporting dogs, fancy dogs, ugly dogs, rat-killing dogs, short-
haired dogs, long-haired dogs, dogs like muffs, dogs like mops, dogs of all
colours and of all breeds and sizes, appeared thrusting out their black noses
from all parts of the coach. Portmanteaus were piled upon the roof; gun-
boxes peeped out suspiciously here and there; bundles of sticks, canes,
foils, fishing-rods, and whips, appeared strapped together in every
direction; while all round about the coach,

"Like a swarth Indian with his belt of beads,"

hat-boxes dangled in leathery profusion. The Oxford coach on an occasion
like this was a sight to be remembered.

A "Wo-ho-ho, my beauties!" brought the smoking wheelers upon their
haunches; and Jehu, saluting with his elbow and whip finger, called out in
the husky voice peculiar to a dram-drinker, "Are you the two houtside gents
for Hoxfut?" To which Mr. Green replied in the affirmative; and while the
luggage (the canvas-covered, ladylike look of which was such a contrast to
that of the other passengers) was being quickly transferred to the coach-top,
he and Verdant ascended to the places reserved for them behind the
coachman. Mr. Green saw at a glance that all the passengers were Oxford
men, dressed in every variety of Oxford fashion, and exhibiting a pleasing
diversity of Oxford manners. Their private remarks on the two new-comers
were, like stage "asides," perfectly audible.

"Decided case of governor!" said one.

"Undoubted ditto of freshman!" observed another.

"Looks ferociously mild in his gig-lamps!" remarked a third, alluding to Mr.
Verdant Green's spectacles.

"And jolly green all over!" wound up a fourth.

Mr. Green, hearing his name (as he thought) mentioned, turned to the small
young gentleman who had spoken, and politely said, "Yes, my name is
Green; but you have the advantage of me, sir."

"Oh! have I?" replied the young gentleman in the most affable manner, and
not in the least disconcerted; "my name's Bouncer: I remember seeing you
when I was a babby. How's the old woman?" And without waiting to hear
Mr. Green loftily reply, "Mrs. Green - my WIFE, sir - is quite well - and I
do NOT remember to have seen you, or ever heard your name, sir!" - little
Mr. Bouncer made some most unearthly noises on a post-horn as tall as
himself, which he had brought for the delectation of himself and his friends,
and the alarm of every village they passed through.

"Never mind the dog, sir," said the gentleman who sat between Mr. Bouncer
and Mr. Green; "he won't hurt you. It's only his play; he always takes notice
of strangers."

"But he is tearing my trousers," expostulated Mr. Green, who was by no
means partial to the "play" of a thoroughbred terrier.

"Ah! he's an uncommon sensible dog," observed his master; "he's always on
the look-out for rats everywhere. It's the Wellington boots that does it; he's
accustomed to have a rat put into a boot, and he worries it out how he can. I
daresay he thinks you've got one in yours."

"But I've got nothing of the sort, sir; I must request you to keep your dog --"
A violent fit of coughing, caused by a well-directed volley of smoke from
his neighbour's lips, put a stop to Mr. Green's expostulations.

"I hope my weed is no annoyance?" said the gentleman; "if it is, I will
throw it away."

To which piece of politeness Mr. Green could, of course, only reply,
between fits of coughing, "Not in the least I - assure you, - I am very fond -
of tobacco - in the open air."

"Then I daresay you'll do as we are doing, and smoke a weed yourself," said
the gentleman, as he offered Mr. Green a plethoric cigar-case. But Mr.
Green's expression of approbation regarding tobacco was simply
theoretical; so he treated his neighbour's offer as magazine editors do the
MSS. of unknown contributors - it was "declined with thanks."

Mr. Verdant Green had already had to make a similar reply to a like
proposal on the part of his left-hand neighbour, who was now expressing
violent admiration for our hero's top-coat.

"Ain't that a good style of coat, Charley?" he observed to his neighbour. "I
wish I'd seen it before I got this over-coat! There's something sensible about
a real, unadulterated top-coat; and there's a style in the way in which they've
let down the skirts, and put on the velvet collar and cuffs regardless of
expense, that really quite goes to one's heart. Now I daresay the man that

built that," he said, more particularly addressing the owner of the coat,
"condescends to live in a village, and waste his sweetness on the desert air,
while a noble field might be found for his talent in a University town. That
coat will make quite a sensation in Oxford. Won't it, Charley?"

And when Charley, quoting a popular actor (totally unknown to our hero),
said, "I believe you, my bo-oy!" Mr. Verdant Green began to feel quite
proud of the abilities of their village tailor, and thought what two delightful
companions he had met with. The rest of the journey further cemented (as
he thought) their friendship; so that he was fairly astonished, when on
meeting them the next day, they stared him full in the face, and passed on
without taking any more notice of him. But freshmen cannot learn the
mysteries of college etiquette in a day.

However, we are anticipating. They had not yet got to Oxford, though, from
the pace at which they were going, it appeared as if they would soon reach
there; for the coachman had given up his seat and the reins to the box-
passenger, who appeared to be as used to the business as the coachman
himself; and he was now driving them, not only in a most scientific manner,
but also at a great pace. Mr. Green was not particularly pleased with the
change in the four-wheeled government; but when they went down the hill
at a quick trot, the heavy luggage making the coach rock to and fro with the
speed, his fears increased painfully. They culminated, as the trot increased
into a canter, and then broke into a gallop as they swept along the level road
at the bottom of the hill, and rattled up the rise of another. As the horses
walked over the brow of the hill, with smoking flanks and jingling harness,
Mr. Green recovered sufficient breath to expostulate with the coachman for
suffering - "a mere lad," he was about to say but fortunately checked
himself in time, - for suffering any one else than the regular driver to have
the charge of the coach.

"You never fret yourself about that, sir," replied the man; "I knows my
bis'ness, as well as my dooties to self and purprietors, and I'd never go for
to give up the ribbins to any party but wot had shewed hisself fitted to
'andle 'em. And I think I may say this for the genelman as has got 'em now,
that he's fit to be fust vip to the Queen herself; and I'm proud to call him my
poople. Why, sir, - if his honour here will pardon me for makin' so free, -
this 'ere gent is Four-in-hand Fosbrooke, of which you must have heerd on."

Mr. Green replied that he had not had that pleasure.

"Ah! a pleasure you may call it, sir, with parfect truth," replied the
coachman; "but, lor bless me, sir, weer can you have lived?"

The "poople" who had listened to this, highly amused, slightly turned his
head, and said to Mr. Green, "Pray don't feel any alarm, sir; I believe you
are quite safe under my guidance. This is not the first time by many that I
have driven this coach - not to mention others; and you may conclude that I

should not have gained the sobriquet to which my worthy friend has alluded
without having some pretensions to a knowledge of the art of driving."

Mr. Green murmured his apologies for his mistrust, - expressed perfect faith
in Mr. Fosbrooke's skill - and then lapsed into silent meditation on the
various arts and sciences in which the gentlemen of the University of
Oxford seemed to be most proficient, and pictured to himself what would
be his feelings if he ever came to see Verdant driving a coach! There
certainly did not appear to be much probability of such an event; but can
any pater familias say what even the most carefully brought up young
Hopeful will do when he has arrived at years of indiscretion?

Altogether, Mr. Green did not particularly enjoy the journey. Besides the
dogs and cigars, which to him were equal nuisances, little Mr. Bouncer was
perpetually producing unpleasant post-horn effects, - which he called
"sounding his octaves," - and destroying the effect of the airs on the guard's
key-bugle, by joining in them at improper times and with discordant
measures. Mr. Green, too, could not but perceive that the majority of the
conversation that was addressed to himself and his son (though more
particularly to the latter), although couched in politest form, was yet of a
tendency calculated to "draw them out" for the amusement of their fellow-
passengers. He also observed that the young gentlemen severally exhibited
great capacity for the beer of Bass and the porter of Guinness, and were not
averse even to liquids of a more spirituous description. Moreover, Mr.
Green remarked that the ministering Hebes were invariably addressed by
their Christian names, and were familiarly conversed with as old
acquaintances; most of them receiving direct offers of marriage or the
option of putting up the banns on any Sunday in the middle of the week;
while the inquiries after their grandmothers and the various members of
their family circles were both numerous and gratifying. In all these verbal
encounters little Mr. Bouncer particularly distinguished himself.

Woodstock was reached: "Four-in-hand Fosbrooke" gave up the reins to the
professional Jehu; and at last the towers, spires, and domes of Oxford
appeared in sight. The first view of the City of Colleges is always one that
will be long remembered. Even the railway traveller, who enters by the least
imposing approach, and can scarcely see that he is in Oxford before he has

reached Folly Bridge, must yet regard the city with mingled feelings of
delight and surprise as he looks across the Christ Church meadows and rolls
past the Tom Tower. But he who approaches Oxford from the Henley Road,
and looks upon that unsurpassed prospect from Magdalen Bridge, - or he
who enters the city, as Mr. Green did, from the Woodstock Road, and rolls
down the shady avenue of St. Giles', between St. John's College and the
Taylor Buildings, and past the graceful Martyrs' Memorial, will receive
impressions such as probably no other city in the world could convey.

As the coach clattered down the Corn-market, and turned the corner by
Carfax into High Street, Mr. Bouncer, having been compelled in deference
to University scruples to lay aside his post-horn, was consoling himself by
chanting the following words, selected probably in compliment to Mr.
Verdant Green.

"To Oxford, a Freshman so modest,
I enter'd one morning in March;
And the figure I cut was the oddest,
All spectacles, choker, and starch.

Whack fol lol, lol iddity, &c.

From the top of 'the Royal Defiance,'
Jack Adams, who coaches so well,
Set me down in these regions of science,
In front of the Mitre Hotel.

Whack fol lol, lol iddity, &c.

'Sure never man's prospects were brighter,'
I said, as I jumped from my perch;
'So quickly arrived at the Mitre,
Oh, I'm sure, to get on in the Church!"

Whack fol lol, lol iddity, &c."

By the time Mr. Bouncer finished these words, the coach appropriately
drew up at the "Mitre," and the passengers tumbled off amid a knot of
gownsmen collected on the pavement to receive them. But no sooner were
Mr. Green and our hero set down, than they were attacked by a horde of the
aborigines of Oxford, who, knowing by vulture-like sagacity the aspect of a
freshman and his governor, swooped down upon them in the guise of
impromptu porters, and made an indiscriminate attack upon the luggage. It
was only by the display of the greatest presence of mind that Mr. Verdant
Green recovered his effects, and prevented his canvas-covered boxes from
being carried off in the wheel-barrows that were trundling off in all
directions to the various colleges.

But at last all were safely secured. And soon, when a snug dinner had been
discussed in a quiet room, and a bottle of the famous (though I have heard
some call it "in-famous") Oxford port had been produced, Mr. Green, under
its kindly influence, opened his heart to his son, and gave him much advice
as to his forthcoming University career; being, of course, well calculated to
do this from his intimate acquaintance with the subject.

Whether it was the extra glass of port, or whether it was the nature of his
father's discourse, or whether it was the novelty of his situation, or whether
it was all these circumstances combined, yet certain it was that Mr. Verdant
Green's first night in Oxford was distinguished by a series, or rather
confusion, of most remarkable dreams, in which bishops, archbishops, and
hobgoblins elbowed one another for precedence; a beneficent female
crowned him with laurel, while Fame lustily proclaimed the honours he had
received, and unrolled the class-list in which his name had first rank.

Sweet land of visions, that will with such ease confer even a treble first
upon the weary sleeper, why must he awake from thy gentle thraldom, to

find the class-list a stern reality, and Graduateship too often but an empty
dream!

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CHAPTER IV.

MR. VERDANT GREEN BECOMES AN OXFORD
UNDERGRADUATE.

MR. VERDANT GREEN arose in the morning more or less refreshed; and
after breakfast proceeded with his father to Brazenface College to call upon
the Master; the porter directed them where to go, and they sent up their
cards. Dr. Portman was at home, and they were soon introduced to his
presence.

Instead of the stern, imposing-looking personage that Mr. Verdant Green
had expected to see in the ruler among dons, and the terror of offending
undergraduates, the master of Brazenface was a mild-looking old
gentleman, with an inoffensive amiability of expression and a shy, retiring
manner that seemed to intimate that he was more alarmed at the strangers
than they had need to be at him. Dr. Portman seemed to be quite a part of
his college, for he had passed the greatest portion of his life there. He had
graduated there, he had taken Scholarships there, he had even gained a
prize-poem there; he had been elected a Fellow there, he had become a
Tutor there, he had been Proctor and College Dean there; there, during the
long vacation, he had written his celebrated "Disquisition on the Greek
Particles," afterwards published in eight octavo volumes; and finally, there
he had been elected Master of his college, in which office, honoured and
respected, he appeared likely to end his days. He was unmarried; perhaps he
had never found time to think of a wife; perhaps he had never had the
courage to propose for one; perhaps he had met with early crosses and
disappointments, and had shrined in his heart a fair image that should never

be displaced. Who knows? for dons are mortals, and have been
undergraduates once.

The little hair he had was of a silvery white, although his eye-brows
retained their black hue; and to judge from the fine fresh-coloured features
and the dark eyes that were now nervously twinkling upon Mr. Green, Dr.
Portman must, in his more youthful days, have had an ample share of good
looks. He was dressed in an old-fashioned reverend suit of black, with
knee-breeches and gaiters, and a massive watch-seal dangling from under
his waistcoat, and was deep in the study of his favourite particles. He
received our hero and his father both nervously and graciously, and bade
them be seated.

"I shall al-ways," he said, in monosyllabic tones, as though he were reading
out of a child's primer, - "I shall al-ways be glad to see any of the young
friends of my old col-lege friend Lar-kyns; and I do re-joice to be a-ble to
serve you, Mis-ter Green; and I hope your son, Mis-ter, Mis-ter Vir---Vir-
gin-ius,--"

"Verdant, Dr. Portman," interrupted Mr. Green, suggestively, "Verdant."

"Oh! true, true, true! and I do hope that he will be a ve-ry good young man,
and try to do hon-our to his col-lege."

"I trust he will, indeed, sir," replied Mr. Green; "it is the great wish of my
heart. And I am sure that you will find my son both quiet and orderly in his
conduct, regular in his duties, and always in bed by ten o'clock."

"Well, I hope so too, Mis-ter Green," said Dr. Portman, monosyllabically;
"but all the young gen-tle-men do pro-mise to be regu-lar and or-der-ly
when they first come up, but a

term makes a great dif-fer-ence. But I dare say my young friend Mis-ter
Vir-gin-ius,---"

"Verdant," smilingly suggested Mr. Green.

"I beg your par-don," apologized Dr. Portman; "but I dare say that he will
do as you say, for in-deed my friend Lar-kyns speaks well of him."

"I am delighted - proud!" murmured Mr. Green, while Verdant felt himself
blushing up to his spectacles.

"We are ve-ry full," Dr. Portman went on to say, "but as I do ex-pect great
things from Mis-ter Vir-gin --- Verdant, Verdant, I have put some rooms at
his ser-vice; and if you would like to see them, my ser-vant shall shew you
the way." The servant was accordingly summoned, and received orders to
that effect; while the Master told Verdant that he must, at two o'clock,
present himself to Mr. Slowcoach, his tutor, who would examine him for his
matriculation.

"I am sor-ry, Mis-ter Green," said Dr. Portman, "that my en-gage-ments will
pre-vent me from ask-ing you and Mis-ter Virg--- Ver-dant, to dine with me
to-day; but I do hope that the next time you come to Ox-ford I shall be more
for-tu-nate."

Old John, the Common-room man, who had heard this speech made to
hundreds of "governors" through many generations of freshmen, could not
repress a few pantomimic asides, that

were suggestive of anything but full credence in his master's words. But Mr.
Green was delighted with Dr. Portman's affability, and perceiving that the
interview was at an end, made his conge, and left the Master of Brazenface
to his Greek particles.

They had just got outside, when the servant said, "Oh, there is the scout!
Your scout, sir!" at which our hero blushed from the consciousness of his
new dignity; and, by way of appearing at his ease, inquired the scout's
name.

"Robert Filcher, sir," replied the servant; "but the gentlemen always call 'em
by their Christian names." And beckoning the scout to him, he bade him
shew the gentlemen to the rooms kept for Mr. Verdant Green; and then took
himself back to the Master.

Mr. Robert Filcher might perhaps have been forty years of age, perhaps
fifty; there was cunning enough in his face to fill even a century of wily
years; and there was a depth of expression in his look, as he asked our hero
if he was Mr. Verdant Green, that proclaimed his custom of reading a
freshman at a glance. Mr. Filcher was laden with coats and boots that had
just been brushed and blacked for their respective masters; and he was
bearing a jug of Buttery ale (they are renowned for their ale at Brazenface)
to the gentleman who owned the pair of "tops" that were now flashing in the
sun as they dangled from the scout's hand.

"Please to follow me, gentlemen," he said; "it's only just across the quad.
Third floor, No. 4 staircase, fust quad; that's about the mark, I think, sir."

Mr. Verdant Green glanced curiously round the Quadrangle, with its
picturesque irregularity of outline, its towers and turrets and battlements, its
grey time-eaten walls, its rows of mullioned heavy-headed windows, and
the quiet cloistered air that spoke of study and reflection; and perceiving on
one side a row of large windows, with great buttresses between, and a
species of steeple on the high-pitched roof, he made bold (just to try the
effect) to address Mr. Filcher by the name assigned to him at an early period
of his life by his godfathers and godmothers, and inquired if that building
was the chapel.

"No, sir," replied Robert, "that there's the 'All, sir, that is - where you dines,
sir, leastways when you ain't 'AEger,' or elseweer. That at the top is the
lantern, sir, that is; called so because it never has no candle in it. The
chapel's the hopposite side, sir. -Please not to walk on the grass, sir; there's
a fine agen it, unless you're a Master. This way if you please, gentlemen!"
Thus the scout beguiled them, as he led them to an open doorway with a
large 4 painted over it; inside was a door on either hand, while a coal-bin
displayed its black face from under a staircase that rose immediately before
them. Up this they went, following the scout (who had vanished for a

moment with the boots and beer), and when they had passed the first floor
they found the ascent by no means easy to the body, or pleasant to the sight.
The once white-washed walls were coated with the uncleansed dust of the
three past terms; and where the plaster had not been chipped off by flying
porter-bottles, or the heels of Wellington boots, its surface had afforded an
irresistible temptation to those imaginative undergraduates who displayed
their artistic genius in candle-smoke cartoons of the heads of the University,
and other popular and unpopular characters. All Mr. Green's caution, as he
crept up the dark, twisting staircase, could not prevent him from crushing
his hat against the low, cobwebbed ceiling, and he gave vent to a very
strong but quiet anathema, which glided quietly and audibly into the
remark, "Confounded awkward staircase, I think!"

"Just what Mr. Bouncer says," replied the scout, "although he don't reach so
high as you, sir; but he do say, sir, when he comes home pleasant at night
from some wine-party, that it is the aukardest staircase as was ever put
before a gentleman's

legs. And he did go so far, sir, as to ask the Master, if it wouldn't be better to
have a staircase as would go up of hisself, and take the gentlemen up with
it, like one as they has at some public show in London - the Call-and-see-
em, I think he said."

"The Colosseum, probably," suggested Mr. Green. "And what did Dr.
Portman say to that, pray?"

"Why he said, sir, - leastways so Mr. Bouncer reported, - that it worn't by no
means a bad idea, and that p'raps Mr. Bouncer'd find it done in six months'
time, when he come back again from the country. For you see, sir, Mr.
Bouncer had made hisself so pleasant, that he'd been and got the porter out
o' bed, and corked his face dreadful; and then, sir, he'd been and got a Hinn-
board from somewhere out of the town, and hung it on the Master's private
door; so that when they went to early chapel in the morning, they read as
how the Master was 'licensed to sell beer by retail,' and 'to be drunk on the
premises'. So when the Master came to know who it was as did it, which in
course the porter told him, he said as how Mr. Bouncer had better go down
into the country for a year, for change of hair, and to visit his friends."

"Very kind indeed of Dr. Portman," said our hero, who missed the moral of
the story, and took the rustication for a kind forgiveness of injuries.

"Just what Mr. Bouncer said, sir," replied the scout, "he said it were
pertickler kind and thoughtful. This is his room, sir, he come up on'y
yesterday." And he pointed to a door, above which was painted in white
letters on a black ground, "BOUNCER."

"Why," said Mr. Green to his son, "now I think of it, Bouncer was the name
of that short young gentleman who came with us on the coach yesterday,
and made himself so - so unpleasant with a tin horn."

"That's the gent, sir," observed the scout; "that's Mr. Bouncer, agoing the
complete unicorn, as he calls it. I dare say you'll find him a pleasant
neighbour, sir. Your rooms is next to his."

With some doubts of these prospective pleasures, the Mr. Greens, pere et
fils, entered through a double door painted over the outside, with the name
of "SMALLS"; to which Mr. Filcher directed our hero's attention by saying,
"You can have that name took out, sir, and your own name painted in. Mr.
Smalls has just moved hisself to the other quad, and that's why the rooms is
vacant, sir."

Mr. Filcher then went on to point out the properties and capabilities of the
rooms, and also their mechanical contrivances.

"This is the hoak, this 'ere outer door is, sir, which the gentlemen sports,
that is to say, shuts, sir, when they're a readin'. Not as Mr. Smalls ever
hinterfered with his constitootion by too much 'ard study, sir; he only
sported his hoak when people used to get troublesome about their little bills.
Here's a place for coals, sir, though Mr. Smalls, he kept his bull-terrier
there, which was agin the regulations, as you know, sir." (Verdant nodded
his head, as though he were perfectly aware of the fact.) "This ere's your
bed-room, sir. Very small, did you say, sir? Oh, no, sir; not by no means! We
thinks that in college reether a biggish bed-room, sir. Mr. Smalls thought so,
sir, and he's in his second year, he is." (Mr. Filcher thoroughly understood
the science of "flooring" a freshman.)

"This is my room, sir, this is, for keepin' your cups and saucers, and wine-
glasses and tumblers, and them sort o' things, and washin' 'em up when you
wants 'em. If you likes to keep your wine and sperrits here, sir - Mr. Smalls
always did - you'll find it a nice cool place, sir: or else here's this 'ere
winder-seat; you see, sir, it opens with a lid, 'andy for the purpose."

"If you act upon that suggestion, Verdant," remarked Mr. Green aside to his
son, "I trust that a lock will be added."

There was not a superfluity of furniture in the room; and Mr. Smalls having
conveyed away the luxurious part of it, that which was left had more of the
useful than the ornamental character; but as Mr. Verdant Green was no
Sybarite, this point was but of little consequence.

The window looked with a sunny aspect down upon the quad, and over the
opposite buildings were seen the spires of churches, the dome of the
Radcliffe, and the gables, pinnacles, and turrets of other colleges. This was
pleasant enough: pleasanter than the stale odours of the Virginian weed that
rose from the faded green window-curtains, and from the old Kidderminster
carpet that had been charred and burnt into holes with the fag-ends of
cigars.

"Well, Verdant," said Mr. Green, when they had completed their inspection,
"the rooms are not so very bad, and I think you may be able to make
yourself comfortable in them. But I wish they were not so high up. I don't
see how you can escape if a fire was to break out, and I am afraid collegians
must be very careless on these points. Indeed, your mother made me
promise that I would speak to Dr. Portman about it, and ask him to please to
allow your tutor, or somebody, to see that your fire was safely raked out at
night; and I had intended to have done so, but somehow it quite escaped
me. How your mother and all at home would like to see you in your own
college room!" And the thoughts of father and son flew back to the Manor
Green and its occupants, who were doubtless at the same time thinking of
them.

Mr. Filcher then explained the system of thirds, by which the furniture of
the room was to be paid for; and, having accompanied his future master and
Mr. Green downstairs, the latter accomplishing the descent not without
difficulty and contusions, and having pointed out the way to Mr.
Slowcoach's rooms, Mr. Robert Filcher relieved his feelings by indulging in
a ballet of action, or pas d'extase; in which poetry of motion he declared his
joy at the last valuable addition to Brazenface, and his own perquisites.

Mr. Slowcoach was within, and would see Mr. Verdant Green. So that
young gentleman, trembling with agitation, and feeling as though he would
have given pounds for the staircase to have been as high as that of Babel,
followed the servant upstairs, and left his father, in almost as great a state of
nervousness, pacing the quad below. But it was not the formidable affair,
nor was Mr. Slowcoach the formidable man, that Mr. Verdant Green had
anticipated; and by the time that he had turned a piece of Spectator into
Latin, our hero had somewhat recovered his usual equanimity of mind and
serenity of expression: and the construing of half a dozen lines of Livy and
Homer, and the answering of a few questions, was a mere form; for Mr.
Slowcoach's long practice enabled him to see in a very few minutes if the
freshman before him (however nervous he might be) had the usual average
of abilities, and was up to the business of lectures. So Mr. Verdant Green
was soon dismissed, and returned to his father radiant and happy.

Back to Contents

CHAPTER V.

MR. VERDANT GREEN MATRICULATES, AND MAKES A
SENSATION.

AS they went out at the gate, they inquired of the porter for Mr. Charles
Larkyns, but they found that he had not yet returned from the friend's house
where he had been during the vacation; whereupon Mr. Green said that they
would go and look at the Oxford lions, so that he might be able to answer
any of the questions that should be put to him on his return.

They soon found a guide, one of those wonderful people to which show-
places give birth, and of whom Oxford can boast a very goodly average;
and under this gentleman's guidance Mr. Verdant Green made his first
acquaintance with the fair outside of his Alma Mater.

The short, thick stick of the guide served to direct attention to the various
objects he enumerated in his rapid career: "This here's Christ Church
College," he said, as he trotted them down St Aldate's, "built by Card'nal

Hoolsy four underd feet long and the famous Tom Tower as tolls wun
underd and wun hevery night that being the number of stoodents on the
foundation;" and thus the guide went on, perfectly independent of the
artificial trammels of punctuation, and not particular whether his hearers
understood him or not: that was not his business. And as it was that
gentleman's boast that he "could do the alls, collidges, and principal
hedifices in a nour and a naff," it could not be expected but that Mr. Green
should take back to Warwickshire otherwise than a slightly confused
impression of Oxford.

When he unrolled that rich panorama before his "mind's eye," all its
component parts were strangely out of place. The rich spire of St. Mary's
claimed acquaintance with her poorer sister at the cathedral.

The cupola of the Tom Tower got into close quarters with the huge dome of
the Radcliffe, that shrugged up its great round shoulders at the intrusion of
the cross-bred Graeco-Gothic tower of All Saints. The theatre had walked
up to St. Giles's to see how the Taylor Buildings agreed with the University
galleries; while the Martyrs' Memorial had stepped down to Magdalen

Bridge, in time to see the college taking a walk in the Botanic Gardens. The
Schools and the Bodleian had set their back against the stately portico of the
Clarendon Press; while the antiquated Ashmolean had given place to the
more modern Townhall. The time-honoured, black-looking front of
University College had changed into the cold cleanliness of the "classic"
facade of Queen's. The two towers of All Souls' - whose several stages
seem to be pulled out of each other like the parts of a telescope, - had,
somehow, removed themselves from the rest of the building, which had
gone, nevertheless, on a tour to Broad Street; behind which, as every one
knows, are the Broad Walk and the Christ Church meadows. Merton Chapel
had got into New quarters; and Wadham had gone to Worcester for change
of air. Lincoln had migrated from near Exeter to Pembroke; and Brasenose
had its nose quite put out of joint by St. John's. In short, if the maps of
Oxford are to be trusted, there had been a general pousset movement among
its public buildings.

But if such a shrewd and practised observer as Sir Walter Scott, after a
week's hard and systematic sight-seeing, could only say of Oxford, "The
time has been much too short to convey to me separate and distinct ideas of
all the variety of wonders that I saw: my memory only at present furnishes a
grand but indistinct picture of towers, and chapels, and oriels, and vaulted
halls, and libraries, and paintings;" - if Sir Walter Scott could say this after a
week's work, it is not to be wondered at that Mr. Green, after so brief and
rapid a survey of the city at the heels of an unintelligent guide, should feel
himself slightly confused when, on his return to the Manor Green, he
attempted to give a slight description of the wonderful sights of Oxford.

There was one lion of Oxford, however, whose individuality of expression
was too striking either to be forgotten or confused with the many other lions
around. Although (as in Byron's Dream)

"A mass of many images

Crowded like waves upon"

Mr. Green, yet clear and distinct through all there ran

"The stream-like windings of that glorious street," [2]

to which one of the first critics of the age [3] has given this high testimony
of praise: "The High Street of Oxford has not its equal in the whole world."

Mr. Green could not, of course, leave Oxford until he had seen his beloved
son in that elegant cap and preposterous gown which constitute the present
academical dress of the Oxford undergraduate; and to assume which, with a
legal right to the same, matriculation is first necessary. As that amusing and
instructive book, the University Statutes, says in its own delightful and
unrivalled canine Latin, "Statutum est, quod nemo pro Studente, seu
Scholari, habeatur, nec ullis Universitatis privilegiis, aut beneficiis" (the
cap and gown, of course, being among these), "gaudeat, nisi qui in aliquod
Collegium vel Aulam admissus fuerit, et intra quindenam post talem
admissionem in matriculam Universitatis fuerit relatus." So our hero put on
the required white tie, and then went forth to complete his proper costume.

---
[2] Wordsworth, Miscellaneous Sonnets.
[3] Dr. Waagen, Art and Artists in England.
-=-

There were so many persons purporting to be "Academical robe-makers,"
that Mr. Green was some little time in deciding who should be the
tradesman favoured with the order for his son's adornment. At last he fixed
upon a shop, the window of which contained a more imposing display than
its neighbours of gowns, hoods, surplices, and robes of all shapes and
colours, from the black velvet-sleeved proctor's to the blushing
gorgeousness of the scarlet robe and crimson silk sleeves of the D.C.L.

"I wish you," said Mr. Green, advancing towards a smirking individual,
who was in his shirt-sleeves and slippers, but in all other respects was
attired with great magnificence, - "I wish you to measure this gentleman for
his academical robes, and also to allow him the use of some to be
matriculated in."

"Certainly, sir," said the robe-maker, who stood bowing and smirking before
them, - as Hood expressively says,

"Washing his hands with invisible soap,
In imperceptible water;"-

"certainly, sir, if you wish it: but it will scarcely be necessary, sir; as our
custom is so extensive, that we keep a large ready-made stock constantly on
hand."

"Oh, that will do just as well," said Mr. Green; "better, indeed. Let us see
some."

"What description of robe would be required?" said the smirking
gentleman, again making use of the invisible soap; "a scholar's?"

"A scholar's!" repeated Mr. Green, very much wondering at the question,
and imagining that all students must of necessity be also scholars; "yes, a
scholar's, of course."

A scholar's gown was accordingly produced: and its deep, wide sleeves, and
ample length and breadth, were soon displayed to some advantage on Mr.
Verdant Green's tall figure. Reflected in a large mirror, its charms were seen
in their full perfection; and when the delighted Mr. Green exclaimed, "Why,
Verdant, I never saw you look so well as you do now!" our hero was
inclined to think that his father's words were the words of truth, and that a
scholar's gown was indeed becoming. The tout ensemble was complete
when the cap had been added to the gown; more especially as Verdant put it
on in such a manner that the polite robe-maker was obliged to say, "The
hother way, if you please, sir. Immaterial perhaps, but generally preferred.
In fact, the shallow part is always the forehead, - at least, in Oxford, sir."

While Mr. Green was paying for the cap and gown (N.B. the money of
governors is never refused), the robe-maker smirked, and said, "Hexcuse
the question; but may I hask, sir, if this is the gentleman that has just gained
the Scotland Scholarship?"

"No," replied Mr. Green. "My son has just gained his matriculation, and, I
believe, very creditably; but nothing more, as we only came here
yesterday."

"Then I think, sir," said the robe-maker, with redoubled smirks - "I think,
sir, there is a leetle mistake here. The gentleman will be hinfringing the
University statues, if he wears a scholar's gown and hasn't got a scholarship;
and these robes'll be of no use to the gentleman, yet awhile at least. It will
be an undergraduate's gown that he requires, sir."

It was fortunate for our hero that the mistake was discovered so soon, and
could be rectified without any of those unpleasant consequences of
iconoclasm to which the robe-maker's infringement of the "statues" seemed
to point; but as that gentleman put the scholar's gown on one side, and
brought out a commoner's, he might have been heard to mutter, "I don't
know which is the freshest, - the freshman or his guv'nor."

When Mr. Verdant Green once more looked in the glass, and saw hanging
straight from his shoulders a yard of blueish-black stuff, garnished with a
little lappet, and two streamers whose upper parts were gathered into double
plaits, he regretted that he was not indeed a scholar, if it were only for the
privilege of wearing so elegant a gown. However, his father smiled
approvingly, the robe-maker smirked judiciously; so he came to the
gratifying conclusion that the commoner's gown was by no means ugly, and
would be thought a great deal of at the Manor Green when he took it home
at the end of the term.

Leaving his hat with the robe-maker, who, with many more smirks and
imaginary washings of the hands, hoped to be favoured with the
gentleman's patronage on future occasions, and begged further to trouble
him with a card of his establishment, - our hero proceeded with his father
along the High Street, and turned round by St. Mary's, and so up Cat Street
to the Schools, where they made their way to the classic "Pig-market," [4]
to await the arrival of the Vice-Chancellor.

When he came, our freshman and two other white-tied fellow-freshmen
were summoned to the great man's presence; and there, in the ante-chamber
of the Convocation House, [5] the edifying and imposing spectacle of
Matriculation was enacted. In the first place, Mr. Verdant Green took divers
oaths, and sincerely promised and swore that he would be faithful and bear
true allegiance to her Majesty Queen Victoria. He also professed (very
much to his own astonishment) that he did "from his heart abhor, detest, and
abjure, as impious and heretical, that damnable doctrine and position, that
princes excommunicated or deprived by the pope, or any authority of the
see of Rome, may be deposed or murdered by their subjects, or any other
whatsoever." And, having almost lost his breath at this novel "position," Mr.
Verdant Green could only gasp his declaration, "that no foreign prince,
person, prelate, state, or potentate, hath, or ought to have, any jurisdiction,
power, superiority, pre-eminence, or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual,
within this realm." When he had sufficiently recovered his presence of
mind, Mr. Verdant Green inserted his name in the University books as
"Generosi filius natu maximus"; and then signed his name to the Thirty-
nine Articles, - though he did not endanger his matriculation, as Theodore
Hook did, by professing his readiness to sign forty if they wished it! Then
the Vice-Chancellor concluded the performance by presenting to the three
freshmen (in the most liberal manner) three brown-looking volumes, with
these words: "Scitote vos in Matriculam Universitatis hodie relatos esse,
sub hac conditione, nempe ut omnia Statuta hoc libro comprehensa pro
virili observetis." And the ceremony was at an end, and Mr. Verdant Green
was a matriculated member of the University of Oxford. He was far too
nervous, - from the weakening effect of the popes, and the excommunicate
princes, and their murderous subjects, - to be able to translate and
understand what the Vice-Chancellor had said to him, but he thought his

present to be particularly kind; and he found it a copy of the University
Statutes, which he determined forthwith to read and obey.

---
[4] The reason why such a name has been given to the Schools' quadrangle
may be found in the following extract from Ingram's Memorials: "The
schools built by Abbot Hokenorton being inadequate to the increasing
wants of the University, they applied to the Abbot of Reading for stone to
rebuild them; and in the year 1532 it appears that considerable sums of
money were expended on them; but they went to decay in the latter part of
the reign of Henry VIII, and during the whole reign of Edward VI. The
change of religion having occasioned a suspension of the usual exercises
and scholastic acts in the University, in the year 1540 only two of these
schools were used by determiners, and within two years after none at all.
The whole area between these schools and the divinity school was
subsequently converted into a garden and pig-market; and the schools
themselves, being completely abandoned by the masters and scholars, were
used by glovers and laundresses."
[5] "In apodyterio domui congregationis."
-=-

Though if he had known that he had sworn to observe statutes which
required him, among other things, to wear garments only of a black or
"subfusk" hue; to abstain from that absurd and proud custom of walking in
public in boots, and the ridiculous one of wearing the hair long; [6] -
statutes, moreover, which demanded of him to refrain from all taverns,
wine-shops, and houses in which they sold wine or any other drink, and the
herb called nicotiana or "tobacco"; not to hunt wild beasts with dogs or
snares or nets; not to carry cross-bows or other "bombarding" weapons, or
keep hawks for fowling; not to frequent theatres or the strifes of gladiators;
and only to carry a bow and arrows for the sake of honest recreation; [7] - if
Mr. Verdant Green had known that he had covenanted to do this, he would,
perhaps, have felt some scruples in taking the oaths of matriculation. But
this by the way.

---
[6] See the Oxford Statutes, tit. xiv, "De vestitu et habitu scholastico."

[7] See the Oxford Statutes, tit. xv, "De moribus conformandis."
-=-

Now that Mr. Green had seen all that he wished to see, nothing remained
for him but to discharge his hotel bill. It was accordingly called for, and
produced by the waiter, whose face - by a visitation of that complaint
against which vaccination is usually considered a safeguard - had been
reduced to a state resembling the interior half of a sliced muffin. To judge
from the expression of Mr. Green's features as he regarded the document
that had been put into his hand, it is probable that he had not been much
accustomed to Oxford hotels; for he ran over the several items of the bill
with a look in which surprise contended with indignation for the mastery,
while the muffin-faced waiter handled his plated salver, and looked fixedly
at nothing.

Mr. Green, however, refraining from observations, paid the bill; and,
muffling himself in greatcoat and travelling-cap, he prepared himself to
take a comfortable journey back to Warwickshire, inside the Birmingham
and Oxford coach. It was not loaded in the same way that it had been when
he came up by it, and his fellow-passengers were of a very different
description; and it must be confessed that, in the absence of Mr. Bouncer's
tin horn, the attacks of intrusive terriers, and the involuntary fumigation of
himself with tobacco (although its presence was still perceptible within the
coach), Mr. Green found his journey from Oxford much more agreeable
than it had been to that place. He took an affectionate farewell of his son,
somewhat after the manner of the "heavy fathers" of the stage; and then the

coach bore him away from the last lingering look of our hero, who felt any
thing but heroic at being left for the first time in his life to shift for himself.

His luggage had been sent up to Brazenface, so thither he turned his steps,
and with some little difficulty found his room. Mr. Filcher had partly
unpacked his master's things, and had left everything uncomfortable and in
"the most admired disorder"; and Mr. Verdant Green sat himself down upon
the "practicable" window-seat, and resigned himself to his thoughts. If they
had not already flown to the Manor Green, they would soon have been
carried there; for a German band, just outside the college-gates, began to
play "Home, sweet home," with that truth and delicacy of expression which
the wandering minstrels of Germany seem to acquire intuitively. The sweet
melancholy of the simple air, as it came subdued by distance into softer
tones, would have powerfully affected most people who had just been torn
from the bosom of their homes, to fight, all inexperienced, the battle of life;
but it had such an effect on Mr. Verdant Green, that - but it little matters
saying what he did; many people will give way to feelings in private that
they would stifle in company; and if Mr. Filcher on his return found his
master wiping his spectacles, why that was only a simple proceeding which
all glasses frequently require.

To divert his thoughts, and to impress upon himself and others the fact that
he was an Oxford MAN, our freshman set out for a stroll; and as the
unaccustomed feeling of the gown about his shoulders made him feel
somewhat embarrassed as to the carriage of his arms, he stepped into a shop

on the way and purchased a light cane, which he considered would greatly
add to the effect of the cap and gown.

Armed with this weapon, he proceeded to disport himself in the Christ
Church meadows, and promenaded up and down the Broad Walk.

The beautiful meadows lay green and bright in the sun; the arching trees
threw a softened light, and made a chequered pavement of the great Broad
Walk; "witch-elms did counter-change the floor" of the gravel-walks that
wound with the windings of the Cherwell; the drooping willows were
mirrored in its stream; through openings in the trees there were glimpses of
grey, old college-buildings; then came the walk along the banks, the Isis

shining like molten silver, and fringed around with barges and boats; then
another stretch of green meadows; then a cloud of steam

from the railway-station; and a background of gently-rising hills. It was a
cheerful scene, and the variety of figures gave life and animation to the
whole.

Young ladies and unprotected females were found in abundance, dressed in
all the engaging variety of light spring dresses; and, as may be supposed,
our hero attracted a great deal of their attention, and afforded them no small

amusement. But the unusual and terrific appearance of a spectacled
gownsman with a cane produced the greatest alarm among the juveniles,
who imagined our freshman to be a new description of beadle or Bogy,
summoned up by the exigencies of the times to preserve a rigorous
discipline among the young people; and, regarding his cane as the symbol
of his stern sway, they harassed their nursemaids by unceasingly charging at
their petticoats for protection.

Altogether, Mr. Verdant Green made quite a sensation.

Back to Contents

CHAPTER VI.

MR. VERDANT GREEN DINES, BREAKFASTS, AND GOES TO
CHAPEL.

OUR hero dressed himself with great care, that he might make his first
appearance in Hall with proper eclat - and, having made his way towards
the lantern-surmounted building, he walked up the steps and under the
groined archway with a crowd of hungry undergraduates who were hurrying
in to dinner. The clatter of plates would have alone been sufficient to guide
his steps; and, passing through one of the doors in the elaborately carved
screen that shut off the passage and the buttery, he found himself within the
hall of Brazenface. It was of noble size, lighted by lofty windows, and
carried up to a great height by an open roof, dark (save where it opened to
the lantern) with great oak beams, and rich with carved pendants and gilded
bosses. The ample fire-places displayed the capaciousness of those
collegiate mouths of "the wind-pipes of hospitality," and gave an idea of the
dimensions of the kitchen ranges. In the centre of the hall was a huge plate-
warmer, elaborately worked in brass with the college arms. Founders and
benefactors were seen, or suggested, on all sides; their arms gleamed from
the windows in all the glories of stained glass; and their faces peered out
from the massive gilt frames on the walls, as though their shadows loved to

linger about the spot that had been benefited by their substance. At the
further end of the hall a deep bay-window threw its painted light upon a
dais, along which stretched the table for the Dons; Masters and Bachelors
occupied side-tables; and the other tables were filled up by the
undergraduates; every one, from the Don downwards, being in his gown.

Our hero was considerably impressed with the (to him) singular character of
the scene; and from the "Benedictus benedicat" grace-before-meat to the
"Benedicto benedicamur" after-meat, he gazed curiously around him in
silent wonderment. So much indeed was he wrapped up in the novelty of
the scene, that he ran a great risk of losing his dinner. The scouts fled about
in all directions with plates, and glasses, and pewter dishes, and massive
silver mugs that had gone round the tables for the last two centuries, and
still no one waited upon Mr. Verdant Green. He twice ventured to timidly
say, "Waiter!" but as no one answered to his call, and as he was too bashful
and occupied with his own thoughts to make another attempt, it is probable
that he would have risen from dinner as unsatisfied as when he sat down,
had not his right-hand companion (having partly relieved his own wants)
perceived his neighbour to be a freshman, and kindly said to him, "I think
you'd better begin your dinner, because we don't stay here long.

What is your scout's name?" And when he had been told it, he turned to Mr.
Filcher and asked him, "What the doose he meant by not waiting on his
master?" which, with the addition of a few gratuitous threats, had the effect
of bringing that gentleman to his master's side, and reducing Mr. Verdant
Green to a state of mind in which gratitude to his companion and a desire to
beg his scout's pardon were confusedly blended. Not seeing any dishes
upon the table to select from, he referred to the list, and fell back on the
standard roast beef.

"I am sure I am very much obliged to you," said Verdant, turning to his
friendly neighbour. "My rooms are next to yours, and I had the pleasure of
being driven by you on the coach the other day."

"Oh!" said Mr. Fosbrooke, for it was he; "ah, I remember you now! I
suppose the old bird was your governor. He seemed to think it any thing but
a pleasure, being driven by Four-in-hand Fosbrooke."

"Why, pap - my father - is rather nervous on a coach," replied Verdant: "he
was bringing me to college for the first time."

"Then you are the man that has just come into Smalls' old rooms? Oh, I see.
Don't you ever drink with your dinner? If you don't holler for your rascal,
he'll never half wait upon you. Always bully them well at first, and then
they learn manners."

So, by way of commencing the bullying system without loss of time, our
hero called out very fiercely "Robert!" and then, as Mr. Filcher glided to his
side, he timidly dropped his tone into a mild "Glass of water, if you please,
Robert."

He felt rather relieved when dinner was over, and retired at once to his own
rooms; where, making a rather quiet and sudden entrance, he found them
tenanted by an old woman, who wore a huge bonnet tilted on the top of her
head, and was busily and dubiously engaged at one of his open boxes.
"Ahem!" he coughed, at which note of warning the old lady jumped round
very quickly, and said, - dabbing curtseys where there were stops, like the
beats of a conductor's baton, - "Law bless me, sir. It's beggin' your parding
that I am. Not seein' you a comin' in. Bein' 'ard of hearin' from a hinfant.
And havin' my back turned. I was just a puttin' your things to rights, sir. If
you please, sir, I'm Mrs. Tester. Your bed-maker, sir."

"Oh, thank you," said our freshman, with the shadow of a suspicion that
Mrs. Tester was doing something more than merely "putting to rights" the
pots of jam and marmalade, and the packages of tea and coffee, which his
doting mother had thoughtfully placed in his box as a provision against
immediate distress. "Thank you."

"I've done my rooms, sir," dabbed Mrs. Tester. "Which if thought agreeable,
I'd stay and put these things in their places. Which it certainly is Robert's
place. But I never minds putting myself out. As I always perpetually am
minded. So long as I can obleege the gentlemen."

So, as our hero was of a yielding disposition, and could, under skilful
hands, easily be moulded into any form, he allowed Mrs. Tester to remain,

and conclude the unpacking and putting away of his goods, in which
operations she displayed great generalship.

"You've a deal of tea and coffee, sir," she said, keeping time by curtseys.
"Which it's a great blessin' to have a mother. And not to be left dissolute
like some gentlemen. And tea and coffee is what I mostly lives on. And
mortial dear it is to poor folks. And a package the likes of this, sir, were a
blessin' I should never even dream on."

"Well, then," said Verdant, in a most benevolent mood, "you can take one of
the packages for your trouble."

Upon this, Mrs. Tester appeared to be greatly overcome. "Which I once had
a son myself," she said. "And as fine a young man as you are, sir. With a
strawberry mark in the small of his back. And beautiful red whiskers, sir;
with a tendency to drink. Which it were his rewing, and took him to be
enlisted for a sojer. When he went across the seas to the West Injies. And
was took with the yaller fever, and buried there. Which the remembrance,
sir, brings on my spazzums. To which I'm an hafflicted martyr, sir. And can
only be heased with three spots of brandy on a lump of sugar. Which your
good mother, sir, has put a bottle of brandy. Along with the jam and the
clean linen, sir. As though a purpose for my complaint. Ugh! oh!"

And Mrs. Tester forthwith began pressing and thumping her sides in such a
terrific manner, and appeared to be undergoing such internal agony, that Mr.
Verdant Green not only gave her brandy there and then, for her immediate
relief - "which it heases the spazzums deerectly, bless you," observed Mrs.
Tester, parenthetically; but also told her where she could find the bottle, in
case she should again be attacked when in his rooms; attacks which, it is
needless to say, were repeated at every subsequent visit. Mrs. Tester then
finished putting away the tea and coffee, and entered into further particulars
about her late son; though what connection there was between him and the
packages of tea, our hero could not perceive. Nevertheless he was much
interested with her narrative, and thought Mrs. Tester a very affectionate,
motherly sort of woman; more especially, when (Robert having placed his
tea-things on the table) she showed him how to make the tea; an apparently
simple feat that the freshman found himself perfectly unable to accomplish.
And then Mrs. Tester made a final dab, and her exit, and our hero sat over

his tea as long as he could, because it gave an idea of cheerfulness; and
then, after directing Robert to be sure not to forget to call him in time for
morning chapel, he retired to bed.

The bed was very hard, and so small, that, had it not been for the wall, our
hero's legs would have been visible (literally) at the foot; but despite these
novelties, he sank into a sound rest, which at length passed into the
following dream. He thought that he was back again at dinner at the Manor
Green, but that the room was curiously like the hall of Brazenface, and that
Mrs. Tester and Dr. Portman were on either side of him, with Mr. Fosbrooke
and Robert talking to his sisters; and that he was reaching his hand to help
Mrs. Tester to a packet of tea, which her son had sent them from the West
Indies, when he threw over a wax-light, and set every thing on fire; and that
the parish engine came up; and that there was a great noise, and a loud
hammering; and, "Eh? yes! oh! the half-hour is it? Oh, yes! thank you!"
And Mr. Verdant Green sprang out of bed much relieved in mind to find
that the alarm of fire was nothing more than his scout knocking vigorously
at his door, and that it was chapel-time.

"Want any warm water, sir?" asked Mr. Filcher, putting his head in at the
door.

"No, thank you," replied our hero; "I - I -"

"Shave with cold. Ah! I see, sir. It's much 'ealthier, and makes the 'air grow.
But any thing as you does want, sir, you've only to call."

"If there is any thing that I want, Robert," said Verdant, "I will ring."

"Bless you, sir," observed Mr. Filcher, "there ain't no bells never in
colleges! They'd be rung off their wires in no time. Mr. Bouncer, sir, he uses
a trumpet like they does on board ship. By the same token, that's it, sir!"
And Mr. Filcher vanished, just in time to prevent little Mr. Bouncer from
finishing a furious solo, from an entirely new version of Robert le Diable,
which he was giving with novel effects through the medium of a speaking-
trumpet.

Verdant found his bed-room inconveniently small; so contracted, indeed, in
its dimensions, that his toilette was not completed without his elbows
having first suffered severe abrasions. His mechanical turnip shewed him
that he had no time to lose, and the furious ringing of a bell, whose noise
was echoed by the bells of other colleges, made him dress with a rapidity
quite unusual, and hurry down stairs and across quad. to the chapel steps,
up which a throng of students were hastening. Nearly all betrayed
symptoms of having been aroused from their sleep without having had any
spare time for an elaborate toilette, and many, indeed, were completing it,
by thrusting themselves into surplices and gowns as they hurried up the
steps.

Mr. Fosbrooke was one of these; and when he saw Verdant close to him, he
benevolently recognized him, and said, "Let me put you up to a wrinkle.
When they ring you up sharp for chapel, don't you lose any time about your
absolutions, - washing, you know; but just jump into a pair of bags and
Wellingtons; clap a top-coat on you, and button it up to the chin, and there
you are, ready dressed in the twinkling of a bed-post."

Before Mr. Verdant Green could at all comprehend why a person should
jump into two bags, instead of dressing himself in the normal manner, they
went through the ante-chapel, or "Court of the Gentiles," as Mr. Fosbrooke
termed it, and entered the choir of the chapel through a screen elaborately
decorated in the Jacobean style, with pillars and arches, and festoons of
fruit and flowers, and bells and pomegranates. On either side of the door
were two men, who quickly glanced at each one who passed, and as quickly
pricked a mark against his name on the chapel lists. As the freshman went
by, they made a careful study of his person, and took mental daguerreotypes
of his features. Seeing no beadle, or pew-opener (or, for the matter of that,
any pews), or any one to direct him to a place, Mr. Verdant Green quietly
took a seat in the first place that he found empty, which happened to be the
stall on the right hand of the door.

Unconscious of the trespass he was committing, he at once put his cap to
his face and knelt down; but he had no sooner risen from his knees, than he
found an imposing-looking Don, as large as life and quite as natural, who
was staring at him with the greatest astonishment, and motioning him to
immediately "come out of that!" This our hero did with the greatest speed
and confusion, and sank breathless on the end of the nearest bench; when,
just as in his agitation, he had again said his prayer, the service fortunately
commenced, and somewhat relieved him of his embarrassment.

Although he had the glories of Magdalen, Merton, and New College
chapels fresh in his mind, yet Verdant was considerably impressed with the
solemn beauties of his own college chapel. He admired its harmonious
proportions, and the elaborate carving of its decorated tracery. He noted
every thing: the great eagle that seemed to be spreading its wings for an
upward flight, - the pavement of black and white marble, - the dark

canopied stalls, rich with the later work of Grinling Gibbons, - the elegant
tracery of the windows; and he lost himself in a solemn reverie as he looked
up at the saintly forms through which the rays of the morning sun streamed
in rainbow tints.

But the lesson had just begun; and the man on Verdant's right appeared to
be attentively following it. Our freshman, however, could not help seeing
the book, and, much to his astonishment, he found it to be a Livy, out of
which his neighbour was getting up his morning's lecture. He was still more
astonished, when the lesson had come to an end, by being suddenly pulled
back when he attempted to rise, and finding the streamers of his gown had
been put to a use never intended for them, by being tied round the finial of
the stall behind him, - the silly work of a boyish gentleman, who, in his
desire to play off a practical joke on a freshman, forgot the sacredness of the
place where college rules compelled him to shew himself on morning
parade.

Chapel over, our hero hurried back to his rooms, and there, to his great joy,
found a budget of letters from home; and surely the little items of
intelligence that made up the news of the Manor Green had never seemed to
possess such interest as now! The reading and re-reading of these occupied
him during the whole of breakfast-time; and Mr. Filcher found him still
engaged in perusing them when he came to clear away the things.

Then it was that Verdant discovered the extended meaning that the word
"perquisites" possesses in the eyes of a scout, for, to a remark that he had
made, Robert replied in a tone of surprise, "Put away these bits o' things as
is left, sir!" and then added, with an air of mild correction, "you see, sir,
you's fresh to the place, and don't know that gentlemen never likes that sort
o' thing done here, sir; but you gets your commons, sir, fresh and fresh
every morning and evening, which must be much more agreeable to the
'ealth than a heating of stale bread and such like. No, sir!" continued Mr.
Filcher, with a manner that was truly parental, "no sir! you trust to me, sir,
and I'll take care of your things, I will." And from the way that he carried
off the eatables, it seemed probable that he would make good his words.

But our freshman felt considerable awe of his scout, and murmuring broken
accents, that sounded like "ignorance - customs - University," he
endeavoured, by a liberal use of his pocket-handkerchief, to appear as if he
were not blushing.

As Mr. Slowcoach had told him that he would not have to begin lectures
until the following day, and as the Greek play fixed for the lecture was one
with which he had been made well acquainted by Mr. Larkyns, Verdant
began to consider what he could do with himself, when the thought of Mr.
Larkyns suggested the idea that his son Charles had probably by this time
returned to college. He determined therefore at once to go in search of him;
and looking out a letter which the rector had commissioned him to deliver
to his son, he inquired of Robert, if he was aware whether Mr. Charles
Larkyns had come back from his holidays.

"'Ollidays, sir?," said Mr. Filcher. "Oh! I see, sir! Vacation, you mean, sir.
Young gentlemen as is men, sir, likes to call their 'ollidays by a different

name to boys', sir. Yes, sir, Mr. Charles Larkyns, he come up last arternoon,
sir; but he and Mr. Smalls, the gent as he's been down with this vacation,
the same as had these rooms, sir, they didn't come to 'All, sir, but went and
had their dinners comfortable at the Star, sir; and very pleasant they made
theirselves; and Thomas, their scout, sir, has had quite a horder for sober-
water this morning, sir."

With somewhat of a feeling of wonder how one scout contrived to know so
much of the proceedings of gentlemen who were waited on by another
scout, and wholly ignorant of his allusion to his fellow-servant's dealings in
soda-water, Mr. Verdant Green inquired where he could find Mr. Larkyns,
and as the rooms were but just on the other side of the quad., he put on his
hat, and made his way to them. The scout was just going into the room, so
our hero gave a tap at the door and followed him.

Back to Contents

CHAPTER VII.

MR. VERDANT GREEN CALLS ON A GENTLEMAN WHO "IS
LICENSED TO SELL".

MR. VERDANT GREEN found himself in a room that had a pleasant look-
out over the gardens of Brazenface, from which a noble chestnut tree
brought its pyramids of bloom close up to the very windows. The walls of
the room were decorated with engravings in gilt frames, their variety of
subject denoting the catholic taste of their proprietor. "The start for the
Derby," and other coloured hunting prints, shewed his taste for the field and
horseflesh; Landseer's "Distinguished Member of the Humane Society,"
"Dignity and Impudence," and others, displayed his fondness for dog-flesh;
while Byron beauties, "Amy Robsart," and some extremely au naturel pets
of the ballet, proclaimed his passion for the fair sex in general. Over the
fire-place was a mirror (for Mr. Charles Larkyns was not averse to the
reflection of his good-looking features, and was rather glad than otherwise
of "an excuse for the glass,") its frame stuck full of tradesmen's cards and
(unpaid) bills, invites, "bits of pasteboard" pencilled with a mystic "wine,"
and other odds and ends: - no private letters though! Mr. Larkyns was too
wary to leave his "family secrets" for the delectation of his scout. Over the
mirror was displayed a fox's mask, gazing vacantly from between two
brushes; leaving the spectator to imagine that Mr. Charles Larkyns was a
second Nimrod, and had in some way or other been intimately concerned in
the capture of these trophies of the chase. This supposition of the
imaginative spectator would be strengthened by the appearance of a list of
hunting appointments (of the past season) pinned up over a list of lectures,
and not quite in character with the tabular views of prophecies, kings of
Israel and Judah, and the Thirty-nine Articles, which did duty elsewhere on
the walls, where they were presumed to be studied in spare minutes - which
were remarkably spare indeed.

The sporting character of the proprietor of the rooms was further suggested
by the huge pair of antlers over the door, bearing on their tines a collection
of sticks, whips, and spurs; while, to prove that Mr. Larkyns was not wholly
taken up by the charms of the chase, fishing-rods, tandem-whips, cricket-
bats, and Joe Mantons, were piled up in odd corners; and single-sticks,
boxing-gloves, and foils, gracefully arranged upon the walls, shewed that he
occasionally devoted himself to athletic pursuits. An ingenious wire-rack
for pipes and meerschaums, and the presence of one or two suspicious-
looking boxes, labelled "collorados," "regalia," "lukotilla," and with other
unknown words, seemed to intimate that, if Mr. Larkyns was no smoker
himself, he at least kept a bountiful supply of "smoke" for his friends; but
the perfumed cloud that was proceeding from his lips as Verdant entered the
room, dispelled all doubts on the subject.

He was much changed in appearance during the somewhat long interval
since Verdant had last seen him, and his handsome features had assumed a
more manly, though perhaps a more rakish look. He was lolling on a couch
in the neglige attire of dressing-gown and slippers, with his pink striped
shirt comfortably open at the neck. Lounging in an easy chair opposite to
him was a gentleman clad in tartan-plaid, whose face might only be
partially discerned through the glass bottom of a pewter, out of which he
was draining the last draught. Between them was a table covered with the
ordinary appointments for a breakfast, and the extra-ordinary ones of beer-
cup and soda-water. Two Skye terriers, hearing a strange footstep,
immediately barked out a challenge of "Who goes there?" and made Mr.
Larkyns aware that an intruder was at hand.

Slightly turning his head, he dimly saw through the smoke a spectacled
figure taking off his hat, and holding out an envelope, and without looking
further, he said, "It's no use coming here, young man, and stealing a march
in this way! I don't owe you any thing; and if I did, it is not convenient to
pay it. I told Spavin not to send me any more of his confounded reminders;
so go back and tell him that he'll find it all right in the long-run, and that I'm
really going to read this term, and shall stump the examiners at last. And
now, my friend, you'd better make yourself scarce and vanish! You know
where the door lies!"

Our hero was so confounded at this unusual manner of receiving a friend,
that he was some little time before he could gasp out, "Why, Charles
Larkyns - don't you remember me? Verdant Green!"

Mr. Larkyns, astonished in his turn, jumped up directly, and came to him
with outstretched hands. "'Pon my word, old fellow," he said, "I really beg
you ten thousand pardons for not recognizing you; but you are so altered -
allow me to add, improved, - since I last saw you; you were not a bashaw of
two tails, then, you know; and, really, wearing your beaver up, like Hamlet's
uncle, I altogether took you for a dun. For I am a victim of a very
remarkable monomania.

There are in this place wretched beings calling themselves tradesmen, who
labour under the impression that I owe them what they facetiously term
little bills; and though I have frequently assured their messengers, who are
kind enough to come here to inquire for Mr. Larkyns, that that unfortunate
gentleman has been obliged to hide himself from persecution in a convent
abroad, yet the wretches still hammer at my oak, and disturb my peace of
mind. But bring yourself to an anchor, old fellow! This man is Smalls; a

capital fellow, whose chief merit consists in his devotion to literature;
indeed, he reads so hard that he is called a fast man. Smalls! let me
introduce my friend Verdant Green, a freshman, - ahem! - and the
proprietor, I believe, of your old rooms."

Our hero made a profound bow to Mr. Smalls, who returned it with great
gravity, and said he "had great pleasure in forming the acquaintance of a
freshman like Mr. Verdant Green;" which was doubtless quite true; and he
then evinced his devotion to literature by continuing the perusal of one of
those vivid and refined accounts of "a rattling set-to between Nobby Buffer
and Hammer Sykes," for which Tintinnabulum's Life is so justly famous.

"I heard from my governor," said Mr. Larkyns, "that you were coming up;
and in the course of the morning I should have come and looked you up; but
the - the fatigues of travelling yesterday," continued Mr. Larkyns, as a lively
recollection of the preceding evening's symposium stole over his mind,
"made me rather later than usual this morning. Have you done any thing in
this way?"

Verdant replied that he had breakfasted, although he had not done any thing
in the way of cigars, because he never smoked.

"Never smoked! Is it possible!" exclaimed Mr. Smalls, violently
interrupting himself in the perusal of Tintinnabulum's Life, while some
private signals were rapidly telegraphed between him and Mr. Larkyns; "ah!
you'll soon get the better of that weakness! Now, as you're a freshman,
you'll perhaps allow me to give you a little advice. The Germans, you know,
would never be the deep readers that they are, unless they smoked; and I
should advise you to go to the Vice-Chancellor as soon as possible, and ask
him for an order for some weeds. He'd be delighted to think you are
beginning to set to work so soon!" To which our hero replied, that he was
much obliged to Mr. Smalls for his kind advice, and if such were the
customs of the place, he should do his best to fulfil them.

"Perhaps you'll be surprised at our simple repast, Verdant," said Mr.
Larkyns; "but it's our misfortune. It all comes of hard reading and late
hours: the midnight oil, you know, must be supplied, and will be paid for;
the nervous system gets strained to excess, and you have to call in the

doctor. Well, what does he do? Why, he prescribes a regular course of
tonics; and I flatter myself that I am a very docile patient, and take my bitter
beer regularly, and without complaining." In proof of which Mr. Charles
Larkyns took a long pull at the pewter.

"But you know, Larkyns," observed Mr. Smalls, "that was nothing to my
case, when I got laid up with elephantiasis on the biceps of the lungs, and
had a fur coat in my stomach!"

"Dear me!" said Verdant sympathizingly; "and was that also through too
much study?"

"Why, of course!" replied Mr. Smalls; "it couldn't have been anything else -
from the symptoms, you know! But then the sweets of learning surpass the
bitters. Talk of the pleasures of the dead languages, indeed! why, how many
jolly nights have you and I, Larkyns, passed 'down among the dead men!' "

Charles Larkyns had just been looking over the letter which Verdant had
brought him, and said, "The governor writes that you'd like me to put you
up to the ways of the place, because they are fresh to you, and you are fresh
(ahem! very!) to them. Now, I am going to wine with Smalls to-night, to
meet a few nice, quiet, hard-working men (eh, Smalls?), and I daresay
Smalls will do the civil, and ask you also."

"Certainly!" said Mr. Smalls, who saw a prospect of amusement, "delighted,
I assure you! I hope to see you - after Hall, you know, - but I hope you don't
object to a very quiet party?"

"Oh, dear no!" replied Verdant; "I much prefer a quiet party; indeed, I have
always been used to quiet parties; and I shall be very glad to come."

"Well, that's settled then," said Charles Larkyns; "and, in the mean time,
Verdant, let us take a prowl about the old place, and I'll put you up to a
thing or two, and shew you some of the freshman's sights. But you must go
and get your cap and gown, old fellow, and then by that time I'll be ready
for you."

Whether there are really any sights in Oxford that are more especially
devoted, or adapted, to its freshmen, we will not undertake to affirm; but if
there are, they could not have had a better expositor than Mr. Charles
Larkyns, or a more credible visitor than Mr. Verdant Green.

His credibility was rather strongly put to the test as they turned into the
High Street, when his companion directed his attention to an individual on
the opposite side of the street, with a voluminous gown, and enormous
cocked hat profusely adorned with gold lace. "I suppose you know who that
is, Verdant? No! Why, that's the Bishop of Oxford! Ah, I see, he's a very
different-looking man to what you had expected; but then these university
robes so change the appearance. That is his official dress, as the Visitor of
the Ashmolean!"

Mr. Verdant Green having "swallowed" this, his friend was thereby enabled,
not only to use up old "sells," but also to draw largely on his invention for
new ones. Just then, there came along the street, walking in a sort of young
procession, - the Vice-Chancellor, with his Esquire and Yeoman-bedels. The
silver maces, carried by these latter gentlemen, made them by far the most
showy part of the procession, and accordingly Mr. Larkyns seized the
favourable opportunity to point out the foremost bedel, and say, "You see
that man with the poker and loose cap? Well, that's the Vice-Chancellor."

"But what does he walk in procession for?" inquired our freshman.

"Ah, poor man!" said Mr. Larkyns, "he's obliged to do it." 'Uneasy lies the
head that wears a crown,' you know; and he can never go anywhere, or do
anything, without carrying that poker, and having the other minor pokers to
follow him. They never leave him, not even at night. Two of the pokers
stand on each side his bed, and relieve each other every two hours. So, I
need hardly say, that he is obliged to be a bachelor."

"It must be a very wearisome office," remarked our freshman, who fully
believed all that was told to him.

"Wearisome, indeed; and that's the reason why they are obliged to change
the Vice-Chancellors so often. It would kill most people, only they are
always selected for their strength, - and height," he added, as a brilliant idea
just struck him.

They had turned down Magpie Lane, and so by Oriel College, where one of
the fire-plug notices had caught Mr. Larkyns' eye. "You see that," he said;
"well, that's one of the plates they put up to record the Vice's height. F.P. 7
feet, you see: the initials of his name, - Frederick Plumptre!"

"He scarcely seemed so tall as that," said our hero, "though certainly a tall
man. But the gown makes a difference, I suppose."

"His height was a very lucky thing for him, however," continued Mr.
Larkyns; "I dare say when you have heard that it was only those who stood
high in the University that were elected to rule it, you little thought of the
true meaning of the term?"

"I certainly never did," said the freshman, innocently; "but I knew that the
customs of Oxford must of course be very different from those of other
places."

"Yes, you'll soon find that out," replied Mr. Larkyns, meaningly. "But here
we are at Merton, whose Merton ale is as celebrated as Burton ale. You see
the man giving in the letters to the porter?

Well, he's one of their principal men. Each college does its own postal
department; and at Merton there are fourteen postmasters, [8] for they get
no end of letters there."

"Oh, yes!" said our hero, "I remember Mr. Larkyns, - your father, the rector,
I mean, - telling us that the son of one of his old friends had been a
postmaster of Merton; but I fancied that he had said it had something to do
with a scholarship."

"Ah, you see, it's a long while since the governor was here, and his memory
fails him," remarked Mr. Charles Larkyns, very unfilially. "Let us turn
down the Merton fields, and round into St. Aldate's. We may perhaps be in
time to see the Vice come down to Christ Church."

---
[8] Exhibitioners of Merton College are called "postmasters."
-=-

"What does he go there for?" asked Mr. Verdant Green.

"To wind up the great clock, and put big Tom in order. Tom is the bell that
you hear at nine each night; the Vice has to see that he is in proper
condition, and, as you have seen, goes out with his pokers for that purpose."

On their way, Charles Larkyns pointed out, close to Folly Bridge, a house
profusely decorated with figures and indescribable ornaments, which he
informed our freshman was Blackfriars' Hall, where all the men who had

been once plucked were obliged to migrate to; and that Folly Bridge
received its name from its propinquity to the Hall.

They were too late to see the Vice-Chancellor wind up the clock of Christ
Church; but as they passed by the college, they met two gownsmen who
recognized Mr. Larkyns by a slight nod. "Those are two Christ Church
men," he said, "and noblemen. The one with the Skye-terrier's coat and eye-
glass is the Earl of Whitechapel, the Duke of Minories' son. I dare say you
know the other man. No! Why, he is Lord Thomas Peeper, eldest son of the
Lord Godiva who hunts our county. I knew him in the field."

"But why do they wear gold tassels to their caps?" inquired the freshman.

"Ah," said the ingenious Mr. Larkyns, shaking his head; "I had rather you'd
not have asked me that question, because that's the disgraceful part of the
business. But these lords, you see, they will live at a faster pace than us
commoners, who can't stand a champagne breakfast above once a term or
so. Why, those gold tassels are the badges of drunkenness!" [9]

"Of drunkenness! dear me!"

---
[9] As "Tufts" and "Tuft-hunters" have become "household words," it is
perhaps needless to tell any one that the gold tassel is the distinguishing
mark of a nobleman.
-=-

"Yes, it's very sad, isn't it?" pursued Mr. Larkyns; "and I wonder that Peeper
in particular should give way to such things. But you see how they brazen it
out, and walk about as coolly as though nothing had happened. It's just the
same sort of punishment," continued Mr. Larkyns, whose inventive powers
increased with the demand that the freshman's gullibility imposed upon

them, - "it is just the same sort of thing that they do with the Greenwich
pensioners. When they have been trangressing the laws of sobriety, you
know, they are made marked men by having to wear a yellow coat as a
punishment; and our dons borrowed the idea, and made yellow tassels the
badges of intoxication. But for the credit of the University, I'm glad to say
that you'll not find many men so disgraced."

They now turned down the New Road, and came to a strongly castellated
building, which Mr. Larkyns pointed out (and truly) as Oxford Castle or the
Gaol; and he added (untruly), "if you hear Botany-Bay College [10] spoken
of, this is the place that's meant. It's a delicate way of referring to the
temporary sojourn that any undergrad has been forced to make there, to say
that he belongs to Botany-Bay College."

---
[10] A name given to Worcester College, from its being the most distant
college.
-=-

They now turned back, up Queen Street and High Street, when, as they
were passing All Saints, Mr. Larkyns pointed out a pale, intellectual looking
man who passed them, and said, "That man is Cram, the patent safety. He's
the first coach in Oxford."

"A coach!" said our freshman, in some wonder.

"Oh, I forgot you didn't know college-slang. I suppose a royal mail is the
only gentleman coach that you know of. Why, in Oxford, a coach means a
private tutor, you must know; and those who can't afford a coach, get a cab,
- alias a crib, - alias a translation. You see, Verdant, you are gradually being
initiated into Oxford mysteries."

"I am, indeed," said our hero, to whom a new world was opening.

They had now turned round by the west end of St. Mary's, and were passing
Brasenose; and Mr. Larkyns drew Verdant's attention to the brazen nose that
is such a conspicuous object over the entrance-gate.

"That," said he, "was modelled from a cast of the Principal feature of the
first Head of the college; and so the college was named Brazen-nose. [11]
The nose was formerly used as a place of punishment for any misbehaving
Brazennosian, who had to sit upon it for two hours, and was not
countenanced until he had done so. These punishments were so frequent
that they gradually wore down the nose to its present small dimensions."

---
[11] Although we have a great respect for Mr. Larkyns, yet we strongly
suspect that he is intentionally deceiving his friend. He has, however, the
benefit of a doubt, as the authorities differ on the origin and meaning of the
word Brasenose, as may be seen by the following notices, to the last two of
which the editor of Notes and Queries has directed our attention:
"This curious appellation, which, whatever was the origin of it, has been
perpetuated by the symbol of a brazen nose here and at Stamford, occurs
with the modern orthography, but in one undivided word, so early as 1278,
in an inquisition now printed in The Hundred Rolls, though quoted by Wood
from the manuscript record." -Ingram's Memorials of Oxford.
"There is a spot in the centre of the city where Alfred is said to have lived,
and which may be called the native place or river-head of three separate
societies still existing, University, Oriel, and Brasenose. Brasenose claims
his palace, Oriel his church, and University his school or academy. Of
these, Brasenose College is still called in its formal style ' the King's Hall,'
which is the name by which Alfred himself, in his laws, calls his palace;
and it has its present singular name from a corruption of brasinium, or
brasin-huse, as having been originally located in that part of the royal
mansion which was devoted to the then important accommodation of a
brew house." -From a Review of Ingram's Memorials in the British Critic,
vol. xxiv, p. 139.
"Brasen Nose Hall, as the Oxford antiquary has shewn, may be traced as far
back as the time of Henry III., about the middle of the thirteenth century;
and early in the succeeding reign, 6th Edward I., 1278, it was known by the

name of Brasen Nose Hall, which peculiar name was undoubtedly owing, as
the same author observes, to the circumstance of a nose of brass affixed to
the gate. It is presumed, however, that this conspicuous appendage of the
portal was not formed of the mixed metal which the word now denotes, but
the genuine produce of the mine; as is the nose, or rather face, of a lion or
leopard still remaining at Stamford, which also gave name to the edifice it
adorned. And hence, when Henry VIII. debased the coin by an alloy of
copper, it was a common remark or proverb, that 'Testons were gone to
Oxford, to study in Brasen Nose.' " -Churton's Life of Bishop Smyth, p. 227.
-=-

"This round building," continued Mr. Larkyns, pointing to the Radcliffe, "is
the Vice-Chancellor's house. He has to go each night up to that balcony on
the top, and look round to see if all's safe. Those heads," he said, as they
passed the Ashmolean, "are supposed to be the twelve Caesars; only there
happen, I believe, to be thirteen of them. I think that they are the busts of
the original Heads of Houses."

Mr. Larkyns' inventive powers having been now somewhat exhausted, he
proposed that they should go back to Brazenface and have some lunch. This
they did; after which Mr. Verdant Green wrote to his mother a long account
of his friend's kindness, and the trouble he had taken to explain the most
interesting sights that could be seen by a Freshman.

"Are you writing to your governor, Verdant?" asked the friend, who had
made his way to our hero's rooms, and was now perfuming them with a
little tobacco-smoke.

"No; I am writing to my mama - mother, I mean!"

"Oh! to the missis!" was the reply; "that's just the same. Well, had you not
better take the opportunity to ask them to send you a proper certificate that
you have been vaccinated, and had the measles favourably?"

"But what is that for?" inquired our Freshman, always anxious to learn.
"Your father sent up the certificate of my baptism, and I thought that was
the only one wanted."

"Oh," said Mr. Charles Larkyns, "they give you no end of trouble at these
places; and they require the vaccination certificate before you go in for your
responsions, - the Little-go, you know. You need not mention my name in
your letter as having told you this. It will be quite enough to say that you
understand such a thing is required."

Verdant accordingly penned the request; and Charles Larkyns smoked on,
and thought his friend the very beau-ideal of a Freshman. "By the way,
Verdant," he said, desirous not to lose any opportunity, "you are going to
wine with Smalls this evening; and, - excuse me mentioning it, - but I
suppose you would go properly dressed, - white tie, kids, and that sort of
thing, eh? Well! ta, ta, till then. 'We meet again at Philippi!' "

Acting upon the hint thus given, our hero, when Hall was over made
himself uncommonly spruce in a new white tie, and spotless kids; and as he
was dressing, drew a mental picture of the party to which he was going. It
was to be composed of quiet, steady men, who were such hard readers as to
be called "fast men." He should therefore hear some delightful and rational
conversation on the literature of ancient Greece and Rome, the present
standard of scholarship in the University, speculations on the forthcoming
prize-poems, comparisons between various expectant class-men, and
delightful topics of a kindred nature; and the evening would be passed in a
grave and sedate manner; and after a couple of glasses of wine had been
leisurely sipped, they should have a very enjoyable tea, and would separate
for an early rest, mutually gratified and improved.

This was the nature of Mr. Verdant Green's speculations; but whether they
were realized or no, may be judged by transferring the scene a few hours
later to Mr. Smalls' room.

Back to Contents

CHAPTER VIII.

MR. VERDANT GREEN'S MORNING REFLECTIONS ARE NOT
SO PLEASANT AS HIS EVENING DIVERSIONS.

MR. SMALLS' room was filled with smoke and noise. Supper had been
cleared away; the glasses were now sparkling on the board, and the wine
was ruby bright. The table, moreover, was supplied with spirituous liquors
and mixtures of all descriptions, together with many varieties of "cup," - a
cup which not only cheers, but occasionally inebriates; and this miscellany
of liquids was now being drunk on the premises by some score and a half of
gentlemen, who were sitting round the table, and standing or lounging about
in various parts of the room. Heading the table, sat the host, loosely attired
in a neat dressing gown of crimson and blue, in an attitude which allowed
him to swing his legs easily, if not gracefully, over the arm of his chair, and
to converse cheerfully with Charles Larkyns, who was leaning over the
chair-back. Visible to the naked eye, on Mr. Smalls' left hand, appeared the
white tie and full evening dress which decorated the person of Mr. Verdant
Green.

A great consumption of tobacco was going on, not only through the medium
of cigars, but also of meerschaums, short "dhudheens" of envied colour, and
the genuine yard of clay; and Verdant, while he was scarcely aware of what
he was doing, found himself, to his great amazement, with a real cigar in his
mouth, which he was industriously sucking, and with great difficulty
keeping alight. Our hero felt that the unexpected exigencies of the case
demanded from him some sacrifice; while he consoled himself by the
reflection, that, on the homoeopathic principle of "likes cure likes," a cigar

was the best preventive against any ill effects arising from the combination
of the thirty gentlemen who were generating smoke with all the ardour of
lime-kilns or young volcanoes, and filling Mr. Smalls' small room with an
atmosphere that was of the smoke, smoky. Smoke produces thirst; and the
cup, punch, egg-flip, sherry-cobblers, and other liquids, which had been so
liberally provided, were being consumed by the members of the party as
though it had been their drink from childhood; while the conversation was
of a kind very different to what our hero had anticipated, being for the most
part vapid and unmeaning, and (must it be confessed?) occasionally too
highly flavoured with improprieties for it to be faithfully recorded in these
pages of most perfect propriety.

The literature of ancient Greece and Rome was not even referred to; and
when Verdant, who, from the unusual combination of the smoke and
liquids, was beginning to feel extremely amiable and talkative, - made a
reflective observation (addressed to the company generally) which sounded
like the words "Nunc vino pellite curas, Cras ingens," [12] - he was
immediately interrupted by the voice of Mr. Bouncer, crying out, "Who's
that talking shop about engines? Holloa, Gig-lamps!" - Mr. Bouncer, it must
be observed, had facetiously adopted the sobriquet which had been
bestowed on Verdant and his spectacles on their first appearance outside the
Oxford coach, - "Holloa, Gig-lamps, is that you ill-treating the dead
languages? I'm ashamed of you! a venerable party like you ought to be
above such things. There! don't blush, old feller, but give us a song! It's the
punishment for talking shop, you know."

---
[12] Horace, car. i od. vii
-=-

There was an immediate hammering of tables and jingling of glasses,
accompanied with loud cries of "Mr. Green for a song! Mr. Green! Mr. Gig-
lamps' song!" cries which nearly brought our hero to the verge of idiotcy.

Charles Larkyns saw this, and came to the rescue. "Gentlemen," he said,
addressing the company, "I know that my friend Verdant can sing, and that,
like a good bird, he will sing. But while he is mentally looking over his
numerous stock of songs, and selecting one for our amusement, I beg to fill
up our valuable time, by asking you to fill up a bumper to the health of our
esteemed host Smalls (vociferous cheers) - a man whose private worth is
only to be equalled by the purity of his milk-punch and the excellence of his
weeds (hear hear). Bumpers, gentlemen, and no heel-taps! and though I am
sorry to interfere with Mr. Fosbrooke's private enjoyments, yet I must beg
to suggest to him that he has been so much engaged in drowning his
personal cares in the bowl over which he is so skilfully presiding, that my
glass has been allowed to sparkle on the board empty and useless." And as

Charles Larkyns held out his glass towards Mr. Fosbrooke and the punch-
bowl, he trolled out, in a rich, manly voice, old Cowley's anacreontic:

"Fill up the bowl then, fill it high!
Fill all the glasses there! For why
Should every creature drink but I?
Why, man of morals, tell me why?"

By the time that the "man of morals" had ladled out for the company, and
that Mr. Smalls' health had been drunk and responded to amid uproarious
applause, Charles Larkyns' friendly diversion in our hero's favour had
succeeded, and Mr. Verdant Green had regained his confidence, and had
decided upon one of those vocal efforts which, in the bosom of his own
family, and to the pianoforte accompaniment of his sisters, was accustomed
to meet with great applause. And when he had hastily tossed off another
glass of milk-punch (merely to clear his throat), he felt bold enough to
answer the spirit-rappings which were again demanding "Mr. Green's
song!" It was given much in the following manner:

Mr. Verdant Green (in low plaintive tones, and fresh alarm at hearing the
sounds of his own voice). "I dreamt that I dwe-elt in mar-arble halls, with" -

Mr. Bouncer (interrupting). "Spit it out, Gig-lamps! Dis child can't hear
whether it's Maudlin Hall you're singing about, or what."

Omnes. "Order! or-der! Shut up, Bouncer!"

Charles Larkyns (encouragingly). "Try back, Verdant: never mind."

Mr. Verdant Green (tries back, with increased confusion of ideas, resulting
principally from the milk-punch and tobacco). "I dreamt that I dwe-elt in
mar-arble halls, with vassals and serfs at my si-hi-hide; and - and - I beg
your pardon, gentlemen, I really forget - oh, I know! - and I also dre-eamt,
which ple-eased me most - no, that's not it" -

Mr. Bouncer (who does not particularly care for the words of a song, but
only appreciates the chorus) - "That'll do, old feller! We ain't pertickler,-

(rushes with great deliberation and noise to the chorus) "That you lo-oved
me sti-ill the sa-ha-hame - chorus, gentlemen!"

Omnes (in various keys and time). "That you lo-oved me sti-ill the same."

Mr. Bouncer (to Mr. Green, alluding remotely to the opera). "Now my
Bohemian gal, can't you come out to-night? Spit us out a yard or two more,
Gig-lamps."

Mr. Verdant Green (who has again taken the opportunity to clear his
throat). "I dreamt that I dwe-elt in mar-arble- no! I beg pardon! sang that
(desperately) - that sui-uitors sou-ught my hand, that knights on their (hic)
ben-ended kne-e-ee - had (hic) riches too gre-eat to" - (Mr. Verdant Green
smiles benignantly upon the company) - "Don't rec'lect anymo."

Mr. Bouncer (who is not to be defrauded of the chorus). "Chorus,
gentlemen! - That you'll lo-ove me sti-ill the sa-a-hame!"

Omnes (ad libitum). "That you'll lo-ove me sti-ill the same!"

Though our hero had ceased to sing, he was still continuing to clear his
throat by the aid of the milk-punch, and was again industriously sucking his
cigar, which he had not yet succeeded in getting half through, although he
had re-lighted it about twenty times. All this was observed by the watchful
eyes of Mr. Bouncer, who, whispering to his neighbour, and bestowing a
distributive wink on the company generally, rose and made the following
remarks:-

"Mr. Smalls, and gents all: I don't often get on my pins to trouble you with a
neat and appropriate speech; but on an occasion like the present, when we
are honoured with the presence of a party who has just delighted us with
what I may call a flood of harmony (hear, hear), - and has pitched it so
uncommon strong in the vocal line, as to considerably take the shine out of
the woodpecker-tapping, that we've read of in the pages of history (hear,
hear: "Go it again, Bouncer!"), - when, gentlemen, I see before me this old
original Little Wobbler, - need I say that I allude to Mr. Verdant Green? -
(vociferous cheers)- I feel it a sort of, what you call a privilege, d'ye see, to
stand on my pins, and propose that respected party's jolly good health

(renewed cheers). Mr. Verdant Green, gentlemen, has but lately come
among us, and is, in point of fact, what you call a freshman; but, gentlemen,
we've already seen enough of him to feel aware that - that Brazenface has
gained an acquisition, which - which - (cries of "Tally-ho! Yoicks! Hark
forrud!") Exactly so, gentlemen: so, as I see you are all anxious to do
honour to our freshman, I beg, without further preface, to give you the
health of Mr. Verdant Green! With all the honours. Chorus, gents!

"For he's a jolly good fellow!
For he's a jolly good fellow!!
For he's a jolly good f-e-e-ell-ow!!!

Which nobody can deny!"

This chorus was taken up and prolonged in the most indefinite manner;
little Mr. Bouncer fairly revelling in it, and only regretting that he had not
his post-horn with him to further contribute to the harmony of the evening.
It seemed to be a great art in the singers of the chorus to dwell as long as
possible on the third repetition of the word "fellow," and in the most defiant
manner to pounce down on the bold affirmation by which it is followed;
and then to lyrically proclaim that, not only was it a way they had in the
Varsity to drive dull care away, but that the same practice was also pursued
in the army and navy for the attainment of a similar end.

When the chorus had been sung over three or four times, and Mr. Verdant
Green's name had been proclaimed with equal noise, that gentleman rose
(with great difficulty), to return thanks. He was understood to speak as
follows:

"Genelum anladies (cheers), - I meangenelum. ("That's about the ticket, old
feller!" from Mr. Bouncer.) Customd syam plic speakn, I - I - (hear, hear) -
feel bliged drinkmyel. I'm fresman, genelum, and prowtitle (loud cheers).
Myfren Misserboucer, fallowme callm myfren! ("In course, Gig-lamps, you
do me proud, old feller.") Myfren Misserboucer seszime fresman - prow
title, sureyou (hear, hear). Genelmun, werall jolgoodfles, anwe
wogohotillmorrin! ("We won't, we won't! not a bit of it!") Gelmul, I'm
fresmal, an namesgreel, gelmul (cheers). Fanyul dousmewor,
herescardinpocklltellm! Misser Verdalgreel, Braseface, Oxul fresmal,
anprowtitle! (Great cheering and rattling of glasses, during which Mr.
Verdant Green's coat-tails are made the receptacles for empty bottles,
lobsters' claws, and other miscellaneous articles.) Misserboucer said was
fresmal. If Misserboucer wantsultme ("No, no!"), herescardinpock'lltellm
namesverdalgreel, Braseface! Not shameofitgelmul! prowtitle! (Great
applause.) I doewaltilsul Misserboucer! thenwhysee sultme? thaswaw
Iwaltknow! (Loud cheers, and roars of laughter, in which Mr. Verdant
Green suddenly joins to the best of his ability.) I'm anoxful fresmal, gelmul,
'fmyfrel Misserboucer loumecallimso. (Cheers and laughter, in which Mr.
Verdant Green feebly joins.) Anweerall jolgoodfles, anwe wogohotilmorril,
an I'm fresmal, gelmul, anfanyul dowsmewor - an I - doefeel quiwell!"

This was the termination of Mr. Verdant Green's speech, for after making a
few unintelligible sounds, his knees suddenly gave way, and with a
benevolent smile he disappeared beneath the table.

Half an hour afterwards two gentlemen might have been seen, bearing with
staggering steps across the moonlit quad the huddled form of a third
gentleman, who was clothed in full evening dress, and appeared incapable
of taking care of himself. The two first gentlemen set down their burden
under an open doorway, painted over with a large 4; and then, by pulling
and pushing, assisted it to guide its steps up a narrow and intricate staircase,
until they had gained the third floor, and stood before a door, over which the
moonlight revealed, in newly-painted white letters, the name of "MR.
VERDANT GREEN."

"Well, old feller," said the first gentleman, "how do you feel now, after 'Sich
a getting up stairs'?"

"Feel much berrer now," said their late burden; "feel quite-comfurble!
Shallgotobed!"

"Well, Gig-lamps," said the first speaker, "and By-by won't be at all a bad
move for you. D'ye think you can unrig yourself and get between the sheets,
eh, my beauty?"

"Its allri, allri!" was the reply; "limycandle!"

"No, no," said the second gentleman, as he pulled up the window-blind, and
let in the moonlight; "here's quite as much light as you want. It's almost
morning."

"Sotis," said the gentleman in the evening costume: "anlittlebirds
beginsingsoon! Ilike littlebirds sing! jollittlebirds!" The speaker had
suddenly fallen upon his bed, and was lying thereon at full length, with his
feet on the pillow.

"He'll be best left in this way," said the second speaker, as he removed the
pillow to the proper place, and raised the prostrate gentleman's head; "I'll
take off his choker and make him easy about the neck, and then we'll shut
him up, and leave him. Why the beggar's asleep already!" And so the two
gentlemen went away, and left him safe and sleeping.

It is conjectured, however, that he must have got up shortly after this, and
finding himself with his clothes on, must have considered that a lighted
candle was indispensably necessary to undress by; for when Mrs. Tester
came at her usual early hour to light the fires and prepare the sitting-rooms,
she discovered him lying on the carpet embracing the coal-skuttle, with a
candle by his side. The good woman raised him, and did not leave him until
she had, in the most motherly manner, safely tucked him up in bed.

Clink, clank! clink, clank! tingle, tangle! tingle, tangle! Are demons smiting
ringing hammers into Mr. Verdant Green's brain, or is the dreadful bell
summoning him to rise for morning chapel?

Mr. Filcher puts an end to the doubt by putting his head in at the bedroom
door, and saying, "Time for chapel, sir! Chapel," thought Mr. Filcher; "here
is a chap ill, indeed! - Bain't you well, sir? Restless you look!"

Oh, the shame and agony that Mr. Verdant Green felt! The desire to bury his
head under the clothes, away from Robert's and everyone else's sight; the
fever that throbbed his brain and parched his lips, and made him long to
drink up Ocean; the eyes that felt like burning lead; the powerless hands
that trembled like a weak old man's; the voice that came in faltering tones
that jarred the brain at every word! How he despised himself; how he
loathed the very idea of wine; how he resolved never, never to transgress so
again! But perhaps Mr. Verdant Green was not the only Oxford freshman
who has made this resolution.

"Bain't you well, sir?" repeated Mr. Filcher, with a passing thought that
freshmen were sadly degenerating, and could not manage their three bottles
as they did when he was first a scout: "bain't you well, sir?"

"Not very well, Robert, thank you. I - my head aches, and I'm afraid I shall
not be able to get up for chapel. Will the Master be very angry?"

"Well, he might be, you see, sir," replied Mr. Filcher, who never lost an
opportunity of making anything out of his master's infirmities; "but if you'll
leave it to me, sir, I'll make it all right for you, I will. Of course you'd like to
take out an aeger, sir; and I can bring you your Commons just the same.
Will that do, sir?"

"Oh, thank you; yes, any thing. You will find five shillings in my waistcoat-
pocket, Robert; please to take it; but I can't eat."

"Thank'ee, sir," said the scout, as he abstracted the five shillings; "but you'd
better have a bit of somethin', sir; - a cup of strong tea, or somethin'. Mr.

Smalls, sir, when he were pleasant, he always had beer, sir; but p'raps you
ain't been used to bein' pleasant, sir, and slops might suit you better, sir."

"Oh, any thing, any thing!" groaned our poor, unheroic hero, as he turned
his face to the wall, and endeavoured to recollect in what way he had been
"pleasant" the night before. But, alas! the wells of his memory had, for the
time, been poisoned, and nothing clear or pure could be drawn therefrom.
So he got up and looked at himself in the glass, and scarcely recognized the
tangled-haired, sallow-faced wretch, whose bloodshot eyes gazed heavily at
him from the mirror. So he nervously drained the water-bottle, and buried
himself once more among the tossed and tumbled bed-clothes.

The tea really did him some good, and enabled him to recover sufficient
nerve to go feebly through the operation of dressing; though it was lucky
that nature had not yet brought Mr. Verdant Green to the necessity of
shaving, for the handling of a razor might have been attended with suicidal
results, and have brought these veracious memoirs and their hero to an
untimely end.

He had just sat down to a second edition of tea, and was reading a letter that
the post had brought him from his sister Mary, in which she said, "I dare say
by this time you have found Mr. Charles Larkyns a very delightful
companion, and I am sure a very valuable one; as, from what the rector
says, he appears to be so steady, and has such nice quiet companions:" - our
hero had read as far as this, when a great noise just without his door, caused
the letter to drop from his trembling hands; and, between loud fanfares from
a post-horn, and heavy thumps upon the oak, a voice was heard, demanding
"Entrance in the Proctor's name."

Mr. Verdant Green had for the first time "sported his oak." Under any
circumstances it would have been a mere form, since his bashful politeness
would have induced him to open it to any comer; but, at the dreaded name
of the Proctor, he sprang from his chair, and while impositions, rustications,
and expulsions rushed tumultuously through his disordered brain, he
nervously undid the springlock, and admitted - not the Proctor, but the
"steady" Mr. Charles Larkyns and his "nice quiet companion," little Mr.
Bouncer, who testified his joy at the success of their coup d'etat, by blowing

on his horn loud blasts that might have been borne by Fontarabian echoes,
and which rang through poor Verdant's head with indescribable jarrings.

"Well, Verdant," said Charles Larkyns, "how do you find yourself this
morning? You look rather shaky."

"He ain't a very lively picter, is he?" remarked little Mr. Bouncer, with the
air of a connoisseur; "peakyish you feel, don't you, now, with a touch of the
mulligrubs in your collywobbles? Ah, I know what it is, my boy."

It was more than our hero did; and he could only reply that he did not feel
very well. "I - I had a glass of claret after some lobster-salad, and I think it
disagreed with me."

"Not a doubt of it, Verdant," said Charles Larkyns very gravely; "it would
have precisely the same effect that the salmon always has at a public dinner,
- bring on great hilarity, succeeded by a pleasing delirium, and concluding
in a horizontal position, and a demand for soda-water."

"I hope," said our hero, rather faintly, "that I did not conduct myself in an
unbecoming manner last night; for I am sorry to say that I do not remember
all that occurred."

"I should think not, Gig-lamps, You were as drunk as a besom," said little
Mr. Bouncer, with a side wink to Mr. Larkyns, to prepare that gentleman for
what was to follow. "Why, you got on pretty well till old Slowcoach came
in, and then you certainly did go it, and no mistake!"

"Mr. Slowcoach!" groaned the freshman. "Good gracious! is it possible that
he saw me? I don't remember it."

"And it would be lucky for you if he didn't," replied Mr, Bouncer. "Why his
rooms, you know, are in the same angle of the quad as Smalls'; so, when
you came to shy the empty bottles out of Smalls' window at his window -"

"Shy empty bottles! Oh!" gasped the freshman.

"Why, of course, you see, he couldn't stand that sort of game - it wasn't to
be expected; so he puts his head out of the bedroom window - and then,
don't you remember crying out, as you pointed to the tassel of his night-cap
sticking up straight on end, 'Tally-ho! Unearth'd at last! Look at his brush!'
Don't you remember that, Gig-lamps?"

"Oh, oh, no!" groaned Mr. Bouncer's victim: "I can't remember, - oh, what
could have induced me!"

"By Jove, you must have been screwed! Then I daresay you don't remember
wanting to have a polka with him, when he came up to Smalls' rooms?"

"A polka! Oh dear! Oh no! Oh!"

"Or asking him if his mother knew he was out, - and what he'd take for his
cap without the tassel; and telling him that he was the joy of your heart, -
and that you should never be happy unless he'd smile as he was wont to
smile, and would love you then as now, - and saying all sorts of bosh?
What, not remember it! 'Oh, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!' as some
cove says in Shakespeare. But how screwed you must have been, Gig-
lamps!"

"And do you think," inquired our hero, after a short but sufficiently painful
reflection, - "do you think that Mr. Slowcoach will - oh! - expel me?"

"Why, it's rather a shave for it," replied his tormentor; "but the best thing
you can do is to write an apology at once: pitch it pretty strong in the
pathetic line, - say it's your first offence, and that you'll never be a naughty
boy again, and all that sort of thing. You just do that, Gig-lamps, and I'll see
that the note goes to - the proper place."

"Oh, thank you!" said the freshman; and while, with equal difficulty from
agitation both of mind and body, he composed and penned the note, Mr.
Bouncer ordered up some buttery beer, and Charles Larkyns prepared some
soda-water with a dash of brandy, which he gave Verdant to drink, and
which considerably refreshed that gentleman.

"And I should advise you," he said, "to go out for a constitutional; for
walking-time's come, although you have but just done your breakfast. A
blow up Headington Hill will do you good, and set you on your legs again."

So Verdant, after delivering up his note to Mr. Bouncer, took his friend's
advice, and set out for his constitutional in his cap and gown, feeling afraid
to move without them, lest he should thereby trespass some law. This, of
course, gained him some attention after he had crossed Magdalen Bridge;
and he might have almost been taken for the original of that impossible
gownsman who appears in Turner's well-known "View of Oxford, from
Ferry Hincksey," as wandering-

"Remote, unfriended, solitary, slow," -

in a corn-field, in the company of an umbrella!

Among the many pedestrians and equestrians that he encountered, our
freshman espied a short and very stout gentleman, whose shovel-hat, short
apron, and general decanical costume, proclaimed him to be a don of some
importance.

He was riding a pad-nag, who ambled placidly along, without so much as
hinting at an outbreak into a canter; a performance that, as it seemed, might
have been attended with disastrous consequences to his rider. Our hero
noticed, that the trio of undergraduates who were walking before him, while
they passed others, who were evidently dons, without the slightest notice
(being in mufti), yet not only raised their hats to the stout gentleman, but
also separated for that purpose, and performed the salute at intervals of
about ten yards. And he further remarked, that while the stout gentleman
appeared to be exceedingly gratified at the notice he received, yet that he
had also very great difficulty in returning the rapid salutations; and only
accomplished them and retained his seat by catching at the pommel of his
saddle, or the mane of his steed, - a proceeding which the pad-nag seemed
perfectly used to.

Mr. Verdant Green returned home from his walk, feeling all the better for
the fresh air and change of scene; but he still looked, as his neighbour, Mr.
Bouncer, kindly informed him, "uncommon seedy, and doosid fishy about
the eyes;" and it was some days even before he had quite recovered from
the novel excitement of Mr. Smalls' "quiet party."

Back to Contents

CHAPTER IX.

MR. VERDANT GREEN ATTENDS LECTURES AND, IN DESPITE
OF SERMONS, HAS DEALINGS WITH FILTHY LUCRE.

OUR freshman, like all other freshmen, now began to think seriously of
work, and plunged desperately into all the lectures that it was possible for
him to attend, beginning every course with a zealousness that shewed him
to be filled with the idea that such a plan was eminently necessary for the
attainment of his degree; in all this in every respect deserving the Humane
Society's medal for his brave plunge into the depths of the Pierian spring, to
fish up the beauties that had been immersed therein by the poets of old.
When we say that our freshman, like other freshmen, "began" this course,
we use the verb advisedly; for, like many other freshmen who start with a
burst in learning's race, he soon got winded, and fell back among the ruck.
But the course of lectures, like the course of true love, will not always run
smooth, even to those who undertake it with the same courage as Mr.
Verdant Green.

The dryness of the daily routine of lectures, which varied about as much as
the steak-and-chop, chop-and-steak dinners of ancient taverns, was
occasionally relieved by episodes, which, though not witty in themselves,
were yet the cause of wit in others; for it takes but little to cause amusement
in a lecture-room, where a bad construe; or the imaginative excuses of late-
comers; or the confusion of some young gentleman who has to turn over the
leaf of his Greek play and finds it uncut; or the pounding of the same
gentleman in the middle of the first chorus; or his offensive extrication
therefrom through the medium of some Cumberland barbarian; or the
officiousness of the same barbarian to pursue the lecture when every one
else has, with singular unanimity, "read no further;" - all these
circumstances, although perhaps dull enough in themselves, are
nevertheless productive of some mirth in a lecture-room.

But if there were often late-comers to the lectures, there were occasionally
early-goers from them. Had Mr. Four-in-hand Fosbrooke an engagement to
ride his horse Tearaway in the amateur steeple-chase, and was he
constrained, by circumstances over which (as he protested) he had no
control, to put in a regular appearance at Mr. Slowcoach's lectures, what
was it necessary for him to do more than to come to lecture in a long
greatcoat, put his handkerchief to his face as though his nose were bleeding,
look appealingly at Mr. Slowcoach, and, as he made his exit, pull aside the
long greatcoat, and display to his admiring colleagues the snowy cords and
tops that would soon be pressing against Tearaway's sides, that gallant
animal being then in waiting, with its trusty groom, in the alley at the back
of Brazenface?

And if little Mr. Bouncer, for astute reasons of his own, wished Mr.
Slowcoach to believe that he (Mr. B.) was particularly struck with his (Mr.
S.'s) remarks on the force of {kata} in composition, what was to prevent
Mr. Bouncer from feigning to make a note of these remarks by the aid of a
cigar instead of an ordinary pencil?

But besides the regular lectures of Mr. Slowcoach, our hero had also the
privilege of attending those of the Rev. Richard Harmony. Much learning,
though it had not made Mr. Harmony mad, had, at least in conjunction with
his natural tendencies, contributed to make him extremely eccentric; while
to much perusal of Greek and Hebrew MSS., he probably owed his
defective vision. These infirmities, instead of being regarded with
sympathy, as wounds received by Mr. Harmony in the classical
engagements in the various fields of literature, were, to Mr. Verdant Green's
surprise, much imposed upon; for it was a favourite pastime with the
gentlemen who attended Mr. Harmony's lectures, to gradually raise up the
lecture-table by a concerted action, and when Mr. Harmony's book had
nearly reached to the level of his nose, to then suddenly drop the table to its
original level; upon which Mr. Harmony, to the immense gratification of all
concerned, would rub his eyes, wipe his glasses, and murmur, "Dear me!
dear me! how my head swims this morning!" And then he would perhaps
ring for his servant, and order his usual remedy, an orange, at which he
would suck abstractedly, nor discover any difference in the flavour even
when a lemon was surreptitiously substituted.

And thus he would go on through the lecture, sucking his orange (or
lemon), explaining and expounding in the most skilful and lucid manner,
and yet, as far as the "table-movement" was concerned, as unsuspecting and
as witless as a little child.

Mr. Verdant Green not only (at first) attended lectures with exemplary
diligence and regularity, but he also duly went to morning and evening
chapel; nor, when Sundays came, did he neglect to turn his feet towards St.
Mary's to hear the University sermons. Their effect was as striking to him as
it probably is to most persons who have only been accustomed to the usual
services of country churches. First, there was the peculiar character of the
congregation: down below, the vice-chancellor in his throne, overlooking
the other dons in their stalls (being "a complete realization of stalled Oxon!"
as Charles Larkyns whispered to our hero), who were relieved in colour by
their crimson or scarlet hoods; and then, "upstairs," in the north and the
great west galleries, the black mass of undergraduates; while a few ladies'
bonnets and heads of male visitors peeped from the pews in the aisles, or
looked out from the curtains of the organ-gallery, where, "by the kind
permission of Dr. Elvey," they were accommodated with seats, and watched
with wonder, while

"The wild wizard's fingers,
With magical skill,
Made music that lingers
In memory still."

Then there was the bidding-prayer, in which Mr. Verdant Green was
somewhat astonished to hear the long list of founders and benefactors,
"such as were, Philip Pluckton, Bishop of Iffley; King Edward the Seventh;
Stephen de Henley, Earl of Bagley, and Maud his wife; Nuneham Courtney,
knight," with a long et-cetera; though, as the preacher happened to be a
Brazenface man, our hero found that he was "most chiefly bound to praise
Clement Abingdon, Bishop of Jericho, and founder of the college of
Brazenface; Richard Glover, Duke of Woodstock; Giles Peckwater, Abbot
of Beney; and Binsey Green, Doctor of Music; - benefactors of the same."

Then there was the sermon itself; the abstrusely learned and classical
character of which, at first, also astonished him, after having been so long
used to the plain and highly practical advice which the rector, Mr. Larkyns,
knew how to convey so well and so simply to his rustic hearers. But as soon
as he had reflected on the very different characters of the two
congregations, Mr. Verdant Green at once recognized the appropriateness of
each class of sermons to its peculiar hearers; yet he could not altogether
drive away the thought, how the generality of those who had on previous
Sundays been his fellow-worshippers would open their blue Saxon eyes,
and ransack their rustic brains, as to "what could ha' come to rector," if he
were to indulge in Greek and Latin quotations, - somewhat after the
following style. "And though this interpretation may in these days be
disputed, yet we shall find that it was once very generally received. For the
learned St. Chrysostom is very clear on this point, where he says, 'Arma
virumque cano, rusticus expectat, sub tegmine fagi'; of which the words of
Irenaeus are a confirmation - {otototoio, papaperax, poluphloisboio
thalassaes}." Our hero, indeed, could not but help wondering what the fairer
portion of the congregation made of these parts of the sermons, to whom,
probably, the sentences just quoted would have sounded as full of meaning
as those they really heard.

"Hallo, Gig-lamps!" said the cheery voice of little Mr. Bouncer, as he
looked one morning into Verdant's rooms, followed by his two bull-terriers;
"why don't you sport something in the dog line? Something in the
bloodhound or tarrier way. Ain't you fond o' dogs?"

"Oh, very!" replied our hero. "I once had a very nice one, - a King Charles."

"Oh!" observed Mr. Bouncer, "one of them beggars that you have to feed
with spring chickens, and get up with curling tongs. Ah! they're all very
well in their way, and do for women and carriage-exercise; but give me this
sort of thing!" and Mr. Bouncer patted one of his villainous looking pets,
who wagged his corkscrew tail in reply. "Now, these are beauties, and no
mistake! What you call useful and ornamental; ain't you, Buzzy? The
beggars are brothers; so I call them Huz and Buz:- Huz his first-born, you
know, and Buz his brother."

"I should like a dog," said Verdant; "but where could I keep one?"

"Oh, anywhere!" replied Mr. Bouncer confidently. "I keep these beggars in
the little shop for coal, just outside the door. It ain't the law, I know; but
what's the odds as long as they're happy? They think it no end of a lark. I
once had a Newfunland, and tried him there; but the obstinate brute
considered it too small for him, and barked himself in such an unnatural
manner, that at last he'd got no wool on the top of his head, - just the place
where the wool ought to grow, you know; so I swopped the beggar to a
Skimmery [13] man for a regular slap-up set of pets of the ballet, framed
and glazed, petticoats and all, mind you. But about your dog, Gig-lamps: -
that cupboard there would be just the ticket; you could put him under the
wine-bottles, and then there'd be wine above and whine below. Videsne
puer? D'ye twig, young 'un? But if you're squeamish about that, there are
heaps of places in the town where you could keep a beast."

---
[13] Oxford slang for "St. Mary's Hall."
-=-

So, when our hero had been persuaded that the possession of an animal of
the terrier species was absolutely necessary to a University man's existence,
he had not to look about long without having the void filled up. Money will
in most places procure any thing, from a grant of arms to a pair of wooden
legs; so it is not surprising if, in Oxford, such an every-day commodity as a
dog can be obtained through the medium of "filthy lucre;" for there was a
well-known dog-fancier and proprietor, whose surname was that of the rich
substantive just mentioned, to which had been prefixed the "filthy"
adjective, probably for the sake of euphony. As usual, Filthy Lucre was
clumping with his lame leg up and down the pavement just in front of the
Brazenface gate, accompanied by his last "new and extensive assortment"
of terriers of every variety, which he now pulled up for the inspection of
Mr. Verdant Green.

"Is it a long-aird dawg, or a smooth 'un, as you'd most fancy?" inquired Mr.
Lucre. "Har, sir!" he continued, in a flattering tone, as he saw our hero's eye
dwelling on a Skye terrier; "I see you're a gent as does know a good style of
dawg, when you see 'un! It ain't often as you see a Skye sich as that, sir!

Look at his colour, sir, and the way he looks out of his 'air! He answers to
the name of Mop, sir, in consekvence of the length of his 'air; and he's cheap
as dirt, sir, at four-ten! It's a throwin' of him away at the price; and I
shouldn't do it, but I've got more dawgs than I've room for; so I'm obligated
to make a sacrifice. Four-ten, sir! 'Ad the distemper, and everythink, and a
reg'lar good 'un for the varmin."

His merits also being testified to by Mr. Larkyns and Mr. Bouncer (who was
considered a high authority in canine matters), and Verdant also liking the
quaint appearance of the dog, Mop eventually became his property, for
"four-ten" minus five shillings, but plus a pint of buttery beer, which Mr.
Lucre always pronounced to be customary "in all dealins whatsumever
atween gentlemen." Verdant was highly gratified at possessing a real
University dog, and he patted Mop, and said, "Poo dog! poo Mop! poo
fellow then!" and thought what a pet his sisters would make of him when he
took him back home with him for the holi - the Vacation!

Mop was for following Mr. Lucre, who had clumped away up the street; and
his new master had some difficulty in keeping him at his heels. By Mr.
Bouncer's advice, he at once took him over the river to the field opposite the
Christ Church meadows, in order to test his rat-killing powers. How this
could be done out in the open country, our hero was at a loss to know; but
he discreetly held his tongue, for he was gradually becoming aware that a
freshman in Oxford must live to learn, and that, as with most men,
experientia docet.

They had just been punted over the river, and Mop had been restored to
terra firma, when Mr. Bouncer's remark of "There's the cove that'll do the
trick for you!" directed Verdant's attention to an individual, who, from his
general appearance, might have been first cousin to "Filthy Lucre," only
that his live stock was of a different description. Slung from his shoulders
was a large but shallow wire cage, in which were about a dozen doomed
rats, whose futile endeavours to make their escape by running up the sides
of their prison were regarded with the most intense earnestness by a group

of terriers, who gave way to various phases of excitement. In his hand he
carried a small circular cage, containing two or three rats for immediate use.
On the receipt of sixpence, one of these was liberated; and a few yards start
being (sportsmanlike) allowed, the speculator's terrier was then let loose,
joined gratuitously, after a short interval, by a perfect pack in full cry, with a
human chorus of "Hoo rat! Too loo! loo dog!" The rat turned, twisted,
doubled, became confused, was overtaken, and, with one grip and a shake,
was dead; while the excited pack returned to watch and jump at the wire
cages until another doomed prisoner was tossed forth to them. Gentlemen
on their way for a walk were thus enabled to wile away a few minutes at the
noble sport, and indulge themselves and their dogs with a little healthy
excitement; while the boating costume of other gentlemen shewed that they
had for a while left aquatic pursuits, and had strolled up from the river to
indulge in "the sports of the fancy."

Although his new master invested several sixpences on Mop's behalf, yet
that ungrateful animal, being of a passive temperament of mind as regarded
rats, and a slow movement of body, in consequence of his long hair
impeding his progress, rather disgraced himself by allowing the sport to be
taken from his very teeth. But he still further disgraced himself, when he
had been taken back to Brazenface, by howling all through the night in the
cupboard where he had been placed, thereby setting on Mr. Bouncer's two
bull-terriers, Huz and Buz, to echo the sounds with redoubled fury from
their coal-hole quarters; thus causing loss of sleep and a great outlay of
Saxon expletives to all the dwellers on the staircase. It was in vain that our
hero got out of bed and opened the cupboard-door, and said, "Poo Mop!
good dog, then!" it was in vain that Mr. Bouncer shied boots at the coal-
hole, and threatened Huz and Buz with loss of life; it was in vain that the
tenant of the attic, Mr. Sloe, who was a reading-man, and sat up half the
night, working for his degree, - it was in vain that he opened his door, and
mildly declared (over the banisters), that it was impossible to get up
Aristotle while such a noise was being made; it was in vain that Mr. Four-
in-hand Fosbrooke, whose rooms were on the other side of Verdant's, came
and administered to Mop severe punishment with a tandem-whip (it was a
favourite boast with Mr. Fosbrooke, that he could flick a fly from his
leader's ear); it was in vain to coax Mop with chicken-bones: he would
neither be bribed nor frightened, and after a deceitful lull of a few minutes,

just when every one was getting to sleep again, his melancholy howl would
be raised with renewed vigour, and Huz and Buz would join for sympathy.

"I tell you what, Gig-lamps," said Mr. Bouncer the next morning; "this
game'll never do. Bark's a very good thing to take in its proper way, when
you're in want of it, and get it with port wine; but when you get it by itself
and in too large doses, it ain't pleasant, you know. Huz and Buz are quiet
enough, as long as they're let alone; and I should advise you to keep Mop
down at Spavin's stables, or somewhere. But first, just let me give the brute
the hiding he deserves."

Poor Mop underwent his punishment like a martyr; and in the course of the
day an arrangement was made with Mr. Spavin for Mop's board and lodging
at his stables. But when Verdant called there the next day, for the purpose of
taking him for a walk, there was no Mop to be found; taking advantage of
the carelessness of one of Mr. Spavin's men, he had bolted through the open
door, and made his escape. Mr. Bouncer, at a subsequent period, declared
that he met Mop in the company of a well-known Regent-street fancier; but,
however that may be, Mop was lost to Mr. Verdant Green.

Back to Contents

CHAPTER X.

MR. VERDANT GREEN REFORMS HIS TAILORS' BILLS AND
RUNS UP OTHERS. HE ALSO APPEARS IN A RAPID ACT OF
HORSEMANSHIP, AND FINDS ISIS COOL IN SUMMER.

THE state of Mr. Verdant Green's outward man had long offended Mr.
Charles Larkyns' more civilized taste; and he one day took occasion
delicately to hint to his friend, that it would conduce more to his appearance
as an Oxford undergraduate, if he forswore the primitive garments that his
country-tailor had condemned him to wear, and adapted the "build" of his
dress to the peculiar requirements of university fashion.

Acting upon this friendly hint, our freshman at once betook himself to the
shop where he had bought his cap and gown, and found its proprietor
making use of the invisible soap and washing his hands in the imperceptible
water, as though he had not left that act of imaginary cleanliness since
Verdant and his father had last seen him.

"Oh, certainly, sir; an abundant variety," was his reply to Verdant's question,
if he could show him any patterns that were fashionable in Oxford. "The
greatest stock hout of London, I should say, sir, decidedly. This is a nice
unpretending gentlemanly thing, sir, that we make up a good deal!" and he
spread a shaggy substance before the freshman's eyes.

"What do you make it up for?" inquired our hero, who thought it more
nearly resembled the hide of his lamented Mop than any other substance.

"Oh, morning garments, sir! Reading and walking-coats, for erudition and
the promenade, sir! Looks well with vest of the same material, sprinkled
down with coral currant buttons! We've some sweet things in vests, sir; and
some neat, quiet trouserings, that I'm sure would give satisfaction." And the
tailor and robe-maker, between washings with the invisible soap, so visibly
"soaped" our hero in what is understood to be the shop-sense of the word,
and so surrounded him with a perfect irradiation of aggressive patterns of
oriental gorgeousness, that Mr. Verdant Green became bewildered, and
finally made choice of one of the unpretending gentlemanly Mop-like coats,
and "vest and trouserings," of a neat, quiet, plaid-pattern, in red and green,
which, he was informed, were all the rage.

When these had been sent home to him, together with a neck-tie of Oxford-
blue from Randall's, and an immaculate guinea Lincoln-and-Bennett, our
hero was delighted with the general effect of the costume; and after calling
in at the tailor's to express his approbation, he at once sallied forth to "do
the High," and display his new purchases. A drawn silk bonnet of pale
lavender, from which floated some bewitching ringlets, quickly attracted
our hero's attention; and the sight of an arch, French-looking face, which (to
his short-sighted imagination) smiled upon him as the young lady rustled
by, immediately plunged him into the depths of first-love. Without the
slightest encouragement being given him, he stalked this little deer to her
lair, and, after some difficulty, discovered the enchantress to be
Mademoiselle Mouslin de Laine, one of the presiding goddesses of a fancy
hosiery warehouse. There, for the next fortnight, - until which immense
period his ardent passion had not subsided, - our hero was daily to be seen

purchasing articles for which he had no earthly use, but fully recompensed
for his outlay by the artless (ill-natured people said, artful) smiles, and
engaging, piquant conversation of mademoiselle. Our hero, when reminded
of this at a subsequent period, protested that he had thus acted merely to
improve his French, and only conversed with mademoiselle for educational
purposes. But we have our doubts. Credat Judaeus!

About this time also our hero laid the nest-eggs for a very promising brood
of bills, by acquiring an expensive habit of strolling in to shops, and
purchasing "an extensive assortment of articles of every description," for no
other consideration than that he should not be called upon to pay for them
until he had taken his degree. He also decorated the walls of his rooms with
choice specimens of engravings: for the turning over of portfolios at
Ryman's, and Wyatt's, usually leads to the eventual turning over of a
considerable amount of cash; and our hero had not yet become acquainted
with the cheaper circulating-system of pictures, which gives you a fresh set
every term, and passes on your old ones to some other subscriber. But, in
the meantime, it is very delightful, when you admire any thing, to be able to
say, "Send that to my room!" and to be obsequiously obeyed, "no questions

asked," and no payment demanded; and as for the future, why - as Mr.
Larkyns observed, as they strolled down the High - "I suppose the bills will
come in some day or other, but the governor will see to them; and though he
may grumble and pull a long face, yet he'll only be too glad you've got your
degree, and, in the fulness of his heart, he will open his cheque-book. I
daresay old Horace gives very good advice when he says, 'carpe diem'; but
when he adds, 'quam minimum credula postero,' [14] about 'not giving the
least credit to the succeeding day,' it is clear that he never looked forward to
the Oxford tradesmen and the credit-system. Do you ever read Wordsworth,
Verdant?" continued Mr. Larkyns, as they stopped at the corner of Oriel
Street, to look in at a spacious range of shop-windows, that were crowded
with a costly and glittering profusion of papier mache articles, statuettes,
bronzes, glass, and every kind of "fancy goods" that could be classed as
"art-workmanship."

---
[14] Car. i. od. xi.
-=-

"Why, I've not read much of Wordsworth myself," replied our hero; "but
I've heard my sister Mary read a great deal of his poetry."

"Shews her taste," said Charles Larkyns. "Well, this shop - you see the
name - is Spiers'; and Wordsworth, in his sonnet to Oxford, has
immortalized him. Don't you remember the lines?-

'O ye Spiers of Oxford! your presence overpowers
The soberness of reason!' [15]

---
[15] We suspect that Mr. Larkyns is again intentionally deceiving his
freshman friend; for on looking into our Wordsworth (Misc. Son. iii. 2) we
find that the poet does not refer to the establishment of Messrs. Spiers and
Son, and that the lines, truly quoted, are,

"O ye spires of Oxford! domes and towers!
Gardens and groves! Your presence," &c.

We blush for Mr. Larkyns!
-=-

It was very queer that Wordsworth should ascribe to Messrs. Spiers all the
intoxication of the place; but then he was a Cambridge man, and prejudiced.
Nice shop, though, isn't it? Particularly useful, and no less ornamental. It's
one of the greatest lounges of the place. Let us go in and have a look at
what Mrs. Caudle calls the articles of bigotry and virtue."

Mr. Verdant Green was soon deeply engaged in an inspection of those
papier-mache "remembrances of Oxford" for which the Messrs. Spiers are
so justly famed; but after turning over tables, trays, screens, desks, albums,
portfolios, and other things, - all of which displayed views of Oxford from
every variety of aspect, and were executed with such truth and perception of
the higher qualities of art, that they formed in themselves quite a small but
gratuitous Academy exhibition, - our hero became so confused among the
bewildering allurements around him, as to feel quite an embarras de
richesses, and to be in a state of mind in which he was nearly giving Mr.
Spiers the most extensive (and expensive) order which probably that

gentleman had ever received from an undergraduate. Fortunately for his
purse, his attention was somewhat distracted by perceiving that Mr.
Slowcoach was at his elbow, looking over ink-stands and reading-lamps,
and also by Charles Larkyns calling upon him to decide whether he should
have the cigar-case he had purchased emblazoned with the heraldic device
of the Larkyns, or illuminated with the Euripidean motto,-

{To bakchikon doraema labe, se gar philo.}

When this point had been decided, Mr. Larkyns proposed to Verdant that he
should astonish and delight his governor by having the Green arms
emblazoned on a fire-screen, and taking it home with him as a gift. "Or
else," he said, "order one with the garden-view of Brazenface, and then
they'll have more satisfaction in looking at that than at one of those
offensive cockatoos, in an arabesque landscape, under a bronze sky, which
usually sprawls over every thing that is papier mache. But you won't see
that sort of thing here; so you can't well go wrong, whatever you buy."
Finally, Mr. Verdant Green (N.B. Mr. Green, senior, would have eventually
to pay the bill) ordered a fire-screen to be prepared with the family-arms, as
a present for his father; a ditto, with the view of his college, for his mother;
a writing-case, with the High Street view, for his aunt; a netting-box, card-
case, and a model of the Martyrs' Memorial, for his three sisters; and having
thus bountifully remembered his family-circle, he treated himself with a
modest paper-knife, and was treated in return by Mr. Spiers with a perfect
bijou of art, in the shape of "a memorial for visitors to Oxford," in which
the chief glories of that city were set forth in gold and colours, in the most
attractive form, and which our hero immediately posted off to the Manor
Green.

"And now, Verdant," said Mr. Larkyns, "you may just as well get a hack,
and come for a ride with me. You've kept up your riding, of course."

"Oh, yes - a little!" faltered our hero.

Now, the reader may perhaps remember, that in an early part of our
veracious chronicle we hinted that Mr. Verdant Green's equestrian
performances were but of a humble character. They were, in fact, limited to
an occasional ride with his sisters when they required a cavalier; but on

these occasions, the old cob, which Verdant called his own, was warranted
not to kick, or plunge, or start, or do anything derogatory to its age and
infirmities. So that Charles Larkyns' proposition caused him some little
nervous agitation; nevertheless, as he was ashamed to confess his fears, he,
in a moment of weakness, consented to accompany his friend.

"We'll go to Symonds'," said Mr. Larkyns; "I keep my hack there; and you
can depend upon having a good one."

So they made their way to Holywell Street, and turned under a gateway, and
up a paved yard, to the stables. The upper part of the yard was littered down
with straw, and covered in by a light, open roof; and in the stables there was
accommodation for a hundred horses. At the back of the stables, and
separated from the Wadham Gardens by a narrow lane, was a paddock; and
here they found Mr. Fosbrooke, and one or two of his friends, inspecting the
leaping abilities of a fine hunter, which one of the stable-boys was taking
backwards and forwards over the hurdles and fences erected for that
purpose.

The horses were soon ready, and Verdant summoned up enough courage to
say, with the Count in Mazeppa, "Bring forth the steed!" And when the
steed was brought, in all the exuberance of (literally) animal spirits, he felt
that he was about to be another Mazeppa, and perform feats on the back of
a wild horse; and he could not help saying to the ostler, "He looks rather -
vicious, I'm afraid!"

"Wicious, sir," replied the groom; "bless you, sir! she's as sweet-tempered
as any young ooman you ever paid your intentions to. The mare's as quiet a
mare as was ever crossed; this 'ere's ony her play at comin' fresh out of the
stable!"

Verdant, however, had a presentiment that the play would soon become
earnest; but he seated himself in the saddle (after a short delirious dance on
one toe), and in a state of extreme agitation, not to say perspiration,
proceeded at a walk, by Mr. Larkyns' side, up Holywell Street. Here the
mare, who doubtless soon understood what sort of rider she had got on her
back, began to be more demonstrative of the "fresh"ness of her animal
spirits. Broad Street was scarcely broad enough to contain the series of

tableaux vivants and heraldic attitudes that she assumed. "Don't pull the
curb-rein so!" shouted Charles Larkyns; but Verdant was in far too dreadful
a state of mind to understand what he said, or even to know which was the
curb-rein; and after convulsively clutching at the mane and the pommel, in
his endeavours to keep his seat, he first "lost his head," and then his seat,
and ignominiously gliding over the mare's tail, found that his lodging was
on the cold ground. Relieved of her burden, the mare quietly trotted back to
her stables; while Verdant, finding himself unhurt, got up, replaced his hat
and spectacles, and registered a mental vow never to mount an Oxford hack
again.

"Never mind, old fellow!" said Charles Larkyns, consolingly; "these little
accidents will occur, you know, even with the best regulated riders!

There were not more than a dozen ladies saw you, though you certainly
made very creditable exertions to ride over one or two of them. Well! if you
say you won't go back to Symonds', and get another hack, I must go on
solus; but I shall see you at the Bump-supper to-night! I got old Blades to

ask you to it. I'm going now in search of an appetite, and I should advise
you to take a turn round the Parks and do the same. Au reservoir!"

So our hero, after he had compensated the livery-stable keeper, followed his
friend's advice, and strolled round the neatly-kept potato-gardens
denominated "the Parks," looking in vain for the deer that have never been
there, and finding them represented only by nursery-maids and - others.

Mr. Blades, familiarly known as "old Blades" and "Billy," was a gentleman
who was fashioned somewhat after the model of the torso of Hercules; and,
as Stroke of the Brazenface boat, was held in high estimation, not only by
the men of his own college, but also by the boating men of the University at
large. His University existence seemed to be engaged in one long struggle,
the end and aim of which was to place the Brazenface boat in that envied
position known in aquatic anatomy as "the head of the river;" and in this
struggle all Mr. Blades' energies of mind and body, - though particularly of
body, - were engaged. Not a freshman was allowed to enter Brazenface, but
immediately Mr. Blades' eye was upon him; and if the expansion of the
upper part of his coat and waistcoat denoted that his muscular development
of chest and arms was of a kind that might be serviceable to the great object
aforesaid - the placing of the Brazenface boat at the head of the river, - then
Mr. Blades came and made flattering proposals to the new-comer to assist
in the great work. But he was also indefatigable, as secretary to his college
club, in seeking out all freshmen, even if their thews and sinews were not
muscular models, and inducing them to aid the glorious cause by becoming
members of the club.

A Bump-supper - that is, O ye uninitiated! a supper to commemorate the
fact of the boat of one college having, in the annual races, bumped, or
touched the boat of another college immediately in its front, thereby gaining
a place towards the head of the river, - a Bump-supper was a famous
opportunity for discovering both the rowing and paying capabilities of
freshmen, who, in the enthusiasm of the moment, would put down their two
or three guineas, and at once propose their names to be enrolled as members
at the next meeting of the club.

And thus it was with Mr. Verdant Green, who, before the evening was over,
found that he had not only given in his name ("proposed by Charles
Larkyns, Esq., seconded by Henry Bouncer, Esq."), but that a desire was
burning within his breast to distinguish himself in aquatic pursuits. Scarcely
any thing else was talked of during the whole evening but the prospective
chances of Brazenface bumping Balliol and Brasenose, and thereby getting
to the head of the river. It was also mysteriously whispered, that Worcester
and Christ Church were doing well, and might prove formidable; and that
Exeter, Lincoln, and Wadham were very shady, and not doing the things
that were expected of them. Great excitement too was caused by the
announcement, that the Balliol stroke had knocked up, or knocked down, or
done some thing which Mr. Verdant Green concluded he ought not to have

done; and that the Brasenose bow had been seen with a cigar in his mouth,
and also eating pastry in Hall, - things shocking in themselves, and quite
contrary to all training principles. Then there were anticipations of Henley;
and criticisms on the new eight out-rigger that Searle was laying down for
the University crew; and comparisons between somebody's stroke and
somebody else's spurt; and a good deal of reference to Clasper and
Coombes, and Newall and Pococke, who might have been heathen deities
for all that our hero knew, and from the manner in which they were
mentioned.

The aquatic desires that were now burning in Mr. Verdant Green's breast
could only be put out by the water; so to the river he next day went, and, by
Charles Larkyns' advice, made his first essay in a "tub" from Hall's. Being a
complete novice with the oars, our hero had no sooner pulled off his coat
and given a pull, than he succeeded in catching a tremendous "crab," the
effect of which was to throw him backwards, and almost to upset the boat.
Fortunately, however, "tubs" recover their equilibrium almost as easily as
tombolas, and "the Sylph" did not belie its character; so the freshman again
assumed a proper position, and was shoved off with a boat-hook. At first he
made some hopeless splashes in the stream, the only effect of which was to
make the boat turn with a circular movement towards Folly Bridge; but
Charles Larkyns at once came to the rescue with the simple but energetic

compendium of boating instruction, "Put your oar in deep, and bring it out
with a jerk!"

Bearing this in mind, our hero's efforts met with well-merited success; and
he soon passed that mansion which, instead of cellars, appears to have an
ingenious system of small rivers to thoroughly irrigate its foundations. One
by one, too, he passed those house-boats which are more like the Noah's
arks of toy-shops than anything else, and sometimes contain quite as
original a mixture of animal specimens.

Warming with his exertions, Mr. Verdant Green passed the University barge
in great style, just as the eight was preparing to start; and though he was not
able to "feather his oars with skill and dexterity," like the jolly young
waterman in the song, yet his sleight-of-hand performances with them
proved not only a source of great satisfaction to the crews on the river, but
also to the promenaders on the shore.

He had left the Christ Church meadows far behind, and was beginning to
feel slightly exhausted by his unwonted exertions, when he reached that
bewildering part of the river termed "the Gut." So confusing were the
intestine commotions of this gut, that, after passing a chequered existence
as an aquatic shuttlecock, and being assailed with a slang-dictionary-full of
opprobrious epithets, Mr. Verdant Green caught another tremendous crab,
and before he could recover himself, the "tub" received a shock, and, with a
loud cry of "Boat ahead!" ringing in his ears, the University Eight passed
over the place where he and "the Sylph" had so lately disported themselves.

With the wind nearly knocked out of his body by the blade of the bow-oar
striking him on the chest as he rose to the surface, our unfortunate hero was
immediately dragged from the water, in a condition like that of the child in
The Stranger (the only joke, by the way, in that most dreary play) "not dead,
but very wet!" and forthwith placed in safety in his deliverer's boat.

"Hallo, Gig-lamps! who the doose had thought of seeing you here,
devouring Isis in this expensive way!" said a voice very coolly. And our
hero found that he had been rescued by little Mr. Bouncer, who had been
tacking up the river in company with Huz and Buz and his meerschaum.
"You have been and gone and done it now, young man!" continued the
vivacious little gentleman, as he surveyed our hero's draggled and forlorn
condition. "If you'd only a comb and a glass in your hand, you'd look
distressingly like a cross-breed with a mermaid! You ain't subject to the
whatdyecallems - the rheumatics, are you? Because, if so, I could put you
on shore at a tidy little shop where you can get a glass of brandy-and-water,
and have your clothes dried; and then mamma won't scold."

"Indeed," chattered our hero, "I shall be very glad indeed; for I feel - rather
cold. But what am I to do with my boat?"

"Oh, the Lively Polly, or whatever her name is, will find her way back safe
enough. There are plenty of boatmen on the river who'll see to her and take
her back to her owner; and if you got her from Hall's, I daresay she'll dream
that she's dreamt in marble halls, like you did, Gig-lamps, that night at
Smalls', when you got wet in rather a more lively style than you've done to-
day. Now I'll tack you up to that little shop I told you of."

So there our hero was put on shore, and Mr. Bouncer made fast his boat and
accompanied him; and did not leave him until he had seen him between the
blankets, drinking a glass of hot brandy-and-water, the while his clothes
were smoking before the fire.

This little adventure (for a time at least) checked Mr. Verdant Green's
aspirations to distinguish himself on the river; and he therefore renounced
the sweets of the Isis, and contented himself by practising with a punt on
the Cherwell. There, after repeatedly overbalancing himself in the most
suicidal manner, he at length peacefully settled down into the lounging
blissfulness of a "Cherwell water-lily;" and on the hot days, among those
gentlemen who had moored their punts underneath the overhanging boughs
of the willows and limes, and beneath their cool shade were lying, in dolce
far niente fashion, with their legs up and a weed in their mouth, reading the
last new novel, or some less immaculate work, - among these gentlemen
might haply have been discerned the form and spectacles of Mr. Verdant
Green.

Back to Contents

CHAPTER XI.

MR. VERDANT GREEN'S SPORTS AND PASTIMES.

ARCHERY was all the fashion at Brazenface. They had as fine a lawn for it
as the Trinity men had; and all day long there was somebody to be seen
making holes in the targets, and endeavouring to realize the pose of the
Apollo Belvidere; - rather a difficult thing to do, when you come to wear
plaid trousers and shaggy coats. As Mr. Verdant Green felt desirous not only
to uphold all the institutions of the University, but also to make himself
acquainted with the sports and pastimes of the place, he forthwith joined the
Archery and Cricket Clubs. He at once inspected the manufactures of Muir
and Buchanan; and after selecting from their stores a fancy-wood bow, with
arrows, belt, quiver, guard, tips, tassels, and grease-pot, he felt himself to be
duly prepared to represent the Toxophilite character. But the sustaining it
was a more difficult thing than he had conceived; for although he thought
that it would be next to impossible to miss a shot when the target was so
large, and the arrow went so easily from the bow, yet our hero soon
discovered that even in the first steps of archery there was something to be
learnt, and that the mere stringing of his bow was a performance attended
with considerable difficulty.

It was always slipping from his instep, or twisting the wrong way, or
threatening to snap in sunder, or refusing to allow his fingers to slip the
knot, or doing something that was dreadfully uncomfortable, and productive
of perspiration; and two or three times he was reduced to the abject
necessity of asking his friends to string his bow for him.

But when he had mastered this slight difficulty, he found that the arrows (to
use Mr. Bouncer's phrase) "wobbled," and had a predilection for going
anywhere but into the target, notwithstanding its size; and unfortunately one
went into the body of the Honourable Mr. Stormer's favourite Skye terrier,
though, thanks to its shaggy coat and the bluntness of the arrow, it did not
do a great amount of mischief; nevertheless, the vials of Mr. Stormer's
wrath were outpoured upon Mr. Verdant Green's head; and such epea
pteroenta followed the winged arrow, that our hero became alarmed, and for
the time forswore archery practice.

As he had fully equipped himself for archery, so also Mr. Verdant Green,
(on the authority of Mr. Bouncer) got himself up for cricket regardless of
expense; and he made his first appearance in the field in a straw hat with
blue ribbon, and "flannels," and spiked shoes of perfect propriety.

As Mr. Bouncer had told him that, in cricket, attitude was every thing,
Verdant, as soon as he went in for his innings, took up what he considered
to be a very good position at the wicket. Little Mr. Bouncer, who was
bowling, delivered the ball with a swiftness that seemed rather astonishing
in such a small gentleman. The first ball was "wide;" nevertheless, Verdant
(after it had passed) struck at it, raising his bat high in the air, and bringing
it straight down to the ground as though it were an executioner's axe. The
second ball was nearer to the mark; but it came in with such swiftness, that,
as Mr. Verdant Green was quite new to round bowling, it was rather too
quick for him, and hit him severely on the -, well, never mind, - on the
trousers.

"Hallo, Gig-lamps!" shouted the delighted Mr. Bouncer, "nothing like
backing up; but it's no use assuming a stern appearance; you'll get your
hand in soon, old feller!"

But Verdant found that before he could get his hand in, the ball was got into
his wicket; and that while he was preparing for the strike, the ball shot by;
and, as Mr. Stumps, the wicket-keeper, kindly informed him, "there was a
row in his timber-yard." Thus Verdant's score was always on the lucus a non
lucendo principle of derivation, for not even to a quarter of a score did it
ever reach; and he felt that he should never rival a Mynn or be a Parr with
any one of the "All England" players.

Besides these out-of-door sports, our hero also devoted a good deal of his
time to acquiring in-door games, being quickly initiated into the mysteries
of billiards, and plunging headlong into pool. It was in the billiard-room
that Verdant first formed his acquaintance with Mr. Fluke of Christ Church,
well known to be the best player in the University, and who, if report spoke
truly, always made his five hundred a year by his skill in the game. Mr.

Fluke kindly put our hero "into the way to become a player ;" and Verdant
soon found the apprenticeship was attended with rather heavy fees.

At the wine-parties also that he attended he became rather a greater adept at
cards than he had formerly been. "Van John" was the favourite game; and
he was not long in discovering that [s]taking shillings and half-crowns,
instead of counters and "fish," and going odds on the colours, and losing
five pounds before he was aware of it, was a very different thing to playing
vingt-et-un at home with his sisters for "love" - (though perhaps cards
afford the only way in which young ladies at twenty-one will play for love).

In returning to Brazenface late from these parties, our hero was sometimes
frightfully alarmed by suddenly finding himself face to face with a dreadful
apparition, to which, by constant familiarity, he gradually became
accustomed, and learned to look upon as the proctor with his marshal and
bulldogs.

At first, too, he was on such occasions greatly alarmed at finding the gates
of Brazenface closed, obliging him thereby to "knock-in;" and not only did
he apologize to the porter for troubling him to open the wicket, but he also
volunteered elaborate explanations of the reasons that had kept him out
after time, - explanations that were not received in the spirit with which
they were tendered. When our freshman became aware of the mysteries of a
gate-bill, he felt more at his ease.

Mr. Verdant Green learned many things during his freshman's term, and,
among others, he discovered that the quiet retirement of college-rooms, of
which he had heard so much, was in many cases an unsubstantial idea,
founded on imagination, and built up by fancy.

One day that he had been writing a letter in Mr. Smalls' rooms, which were
on the ground-floor, Verdant congratulated himself that his own rooms were
on the third floor, and were thus removed from the possibility of his friends,
when he had sported his oak, being able to get through his window to
"chaff" him; but he soon discovered that rooms upstairs had also
objectionable points in their private character, and were not altogether such
eligible apartments as he had at first anticipated. First, there was the getting
up and down the dislocated staircase, a feat which at night was sometimes
attended with difficulty.

Then, when he had accomplished this feat, there was no way of escaping
from the noise of his neighbours. Mr. Sloe, the reading-man in the garret
above, was one of those abominable nuisances, a peripatetic student, who
"got up"

every subject by pacing up and down his limited apartment, and, like the
sentry, "walked his dreary round" at unseasonable hours of the night, at
which time could be plainly heard the wretched chuckle, and crackings of
knuckles (Mr. Sloe's way of expressing intense delight), with which he
welcomed some miserable joke of Aristophanes, painfully elaborated by the
help of Liddell-and-Scott; or the disgustingly sonorous way in which he
declaimed his Greek choruses. This was bad enough at night; but in the day-
time there was a still greater nuisance. The rooms immediately beneath
Verdant's were possessed by a gentleman whose musical powers were of an
unusually limited description, but who, unfortunately for his neighbours,
possessed the idea that the cornet-a-piston was a beautiful instrument for
pic-nics, races, boating-parties, and other long-vacation amusements, and
sedulously practised "In my cottage near a wood," "Away with
melancholy," and other airs of a lively character, in a doleful and distracted
way, that would have fully justified his immediate homicide, or, at any rate,
the confiscation of his offending instrument.

Then, on the one side of Verdant's room, was Mr. Bouncer, sounding his
octaves, and "going the complete unicorn;" and his bull-terriers, Huz and

Buz, all and each of whom were of a restless and loud temperament; while,
on the other side, were Mr. Four-in-hand Fosbrooke's rooms, in which
fencing, boxing, single-stick, and other violent sports, were gone through,
with a great expenditure of "Sa-ha! sa-ha!" and stampings. Verdant was
sometimes induced to go in, and never could sufficiently admire the way in
which men could be rapped with single-sticks without crying out or
flinching; for it made him almost sore even to look at them. Mr. Blades, the
stroke, was a frequent visitor there, and developed his muscles in the most
satisfactory manner.

After many refusals, our hero was at length persuaded to put on the gloves,
and have a friendly bout with Mr. Blades. The result was as might have
been anticipated; and Mr. Smalls doubtless gave a very correct resume of
the proceeding (for, as we have before said, he was thoroughly conversant
with the sporting slang of Tintinnabulum's Life), when he told Verdant, that
his claret had been repeatedly tapped, his bread-basket walked into, his day-
lights darkened, his ivories rattled, his nozzle barked, his whisker-bed
napped heavily, his kissing-trap countered, his ribs roasted, his nut spanked,
and his whole person put in chancery, stung, bruised, fibbed, propped,
fiddled, slogged, and otherwise ill-treated. So it is hardly to be wondered at
if Mr. Verdant Green from thenceforth gave up boxing, as a senseless and
ungentlemanly amusement.

But while these pleasures(?) of the body were being attended to, the
recreation of the mind was not forgotten. Mr. Larkyns had proposed
Verdant's name at the Union; and, to that gentleman's great satisfaction, he
was not black-balled. He daily, therefore, frequented the reading-room, and
made a point of looking through all the magazines and newspapers; while
he felt quite a pride in sitting in luxurious state upstairs, writing his letters
to the home department on the very best note-paper, and sealing them
extensively with "the Oxford Union" seal; though he could not at first be
persuaded that trusting his letters to a wire closet was at all a safe system of
postage.

He also attended the Debates, which were then held in the long room
behind Wyatt's; and he was particularly charmed with the manner in which
vital questions, that (as he learned from the newspapers) had proved
stumbling-blocks to the greatest statesmen of the land, were rapidly solved
by the embryo statesmen of the Oxford Union. It was quite a sight, in that
long picture-room, to see the rows of light iron seats densely crowded with
young men - some of whom would perhaps rise to be Cannings, or Peels, or
Gladstones - and to hear how one beardless gentleman would call another
beardless gentleman his "honourable friend," and appeal "to the sense of the
House," and address himself to "Mr. Speaker;" and how they would all
juggle the same tricks of rhetoric as their fathers were doing in certain other
debates in a certain other House. And it was curious, too, to mark the points
of resemblance between the two Houses; and how the smaller one had, on
its smaller scale, its Hume, and its Lord John, and its "Dizzy;" and how they
went through the same traditional forms, and preserved the same time-
honoured ideas, and debated in the fullest houses, with the greatest spirit
and the greatest length, on such points as, "What course is it advisable for
this country to take in regard to the government of its Indian possessions,
and the imprisonment of Mr. Jones by the Rajah of Humbugpoopoonah?"

Indeed, Mr. Verdant Green was so excited by this interesting debate, that on
the third night of its adjournment he rose to address the House; but being
"no orator as Brutus is," his few broken words were received with laughter,
and the honourable gentleman was coughed down.

Our hero had, as an Oxford freshman, to go through that cheerful form
called "sitting in the schools," - a form which consisted in the following
ceremony. Through a door in the right-hand corner of the Schools
Quadrangle, - (Oh, that door! does it not bring a pang into your heart only
to think of it? to remember the day when you went in there as pale as the
little pair of bands in which you were dressed for your sacrifice; and came
out all in a glow and a chill when your examination was over; and posted
your bosom-friend there to receive from Purdue the little slip of paper, and
bring you the thrilling intelligence that you had passed; or to come empty-
handed, and say that you had been plucked!

Oh that door! well might be inscribed there the line which, on Dante's
authority, is assigned to the door of another place, -

"ALL HOPE ABANDON, YE WHO ENTER HERE!")

- entering through this door in company with several other unfortunates, our
hero passed between two galleries through a passage, by which, if the place

had been a circus, the horses would have entered, and found himself in a
tolerably large room lighted on either side by windows, and panelled half-
way up the walls. Down the centre of this room ran a large green-baize-
covered table, on the one side of which were some eight or ten miserable
beings who were then undergoing examination, and were supplied with
pens, ink, blotting-pad, and large sheets of thin "scribble-paper," on which
they were struggling to impress their ideas; or else had a book set before
them, out of which they were construing, or being racked with questions
that touched now on one subject and now on another, like a bee among
flowers. The large table was liberally supplied with all the apparatus and
instruments of torture; and on the other side of it sat the three examiners, as
dreadful and formidable as the terrible three of Venice.

At the upper end of the room was a chair of state for the Vice-Chancellor,
whenever he deigned to personally superintend the torture; to the right and
left of which accommodation was provided for other victims.

On the right hand of the room was a small open gallery of two seats (like
those seen in infant schools); and here, from 10 in the morning till 4 in the
afternoon, with only the interval of a quarter of an hour for luncheon, Mr.
Verdant Green was compelled to sit and watch the proceedings, his
perseverance being attested to by a certificate which he received as a
reward for his meritorious conduct. If this "sitting in the schools" [16] was
established as an in terrorem form for the spectators, it undoubtedly
generally had the desired effect; and what with the misery of sitting through
a whole day on a hard bench with nothing to do, and the agony of seeing
your fellow-creatures plucked, and having visions of the same prospective
fate for yourself, the day on which the sitting takes place was usually
regarded as one of those which, "if 'twere done, 'twere well it should be
done quickly."

---
[16] This form has been abolished (1853) under the new regulations.
-=-

As an appropriate sequel to this proceeding, Mr. Verdant Green attended the
interesting ceremony of conferring degrees; where he discovered that the
apparently insane promenade of the proctor gave rise to the name bestowed
on (what Mr. Larkyns called) the equally insane custom of "plucking." [17]
There too our hero saw the Vice-Chancellor in all his glory; and so
agreeable were the proceedings, that altogether he had a great deal of Bliss.
[18]

---
[17] When the degrees are conferred, the name of each person is read out
before he is presented to the Vice-Chancellor. The proctor then walks once
up and down the room, so that any person who objects to the degree being
granted may signify the same by pulling or "plucking" the proctor's robes.
This has been occasionally done by tradesmen in order to obtain payment of
their "little bills;" but such a proceeding is very rare, and the proctor's
promenade is usually undisturbed.
[18] The Rev. Philip Bliss, D.C.L., after holding the onerous post of
Registrar of the University for many years, and discharging its duties in a
way that called forth the unanimous thanks of the University, resigned

office in 1853.
-=-

Back to Contents

CHAPTER XII.

MR. VERDANT GREEN TERMINATES HIS EXISTENCE AS AN
OXFORD FRESHMAN.

"BEFORE I go home," said Mr. Verdant Green, as he expelled a volume of
smoke from his lips, - for he had overcome his first weakness, and now
"took his weed" regularly, - "before I go home, I must see what I owe in the
place; for my father said he did not like for me to run in debt, but wished
me to settle my bills terminally."

"What, you're afraid of having what we call bill-ious fever, I suppose, eh?"
laughed Charles Larkyns. "All exploded ideas, my dear fellow. They do
very well in their way, but they don't answer; don't pay, in fact; and the
shopkeepers don't like it either. By the way, I can shew you a great
curiosity; - the autograph of an Oxford tradesman, very rare! I think of

presenting it to the Ashmolean." And Mr. Larkyns opened his writing-desk,
and took therefrom an Oxford pastrycook's bill, on which appeared the
magic word, "Received."

"Now, there is one thing," continued Mr. Larkyns, "which you really must
do before you go down, and that is to see Blenheim. And the best thing that
you can do is to join Fosbrooke and Bouncer and me, in a trap to
Woodstock to-morrow. We'll go in good time, and make a day of it."

Verdant readily agreed to make one of the party; and the next morning, after
a breakfast in Charles Larkyns' rooms, they made their way to a side street
leading out of Beaumont Street, where the dog-cart was in waiting. As it
was drawn by two horses, placed in tandem fashion, Mr. Fosbrooke had an
opportunity of displaying his Jehu powers; which he did to great advantage,
not allowing his leader to run his nose into the cart, and being enabled to
turn sharp corners without chipping the bricks, or running the wheel up the
bank.

They reached Woodstock after a very pleasant ride, and clattered up its one
long street to the principal hotel; but Mr. Fosbrooke whipped into the yard

to the left so rapidly, that our hero, who was not much used to the back seat
of a dog-cart, flew off by some means at a tangent to the right, and was
consequently degraded in the eyes of the inhabitants.

After ordering for dinner every thing that the house was enabled to supply,
they made their way in the first place (as it could only be seen between 11
and 1) to Blenheim; the princely splendours of which were not only costly
in themselves, but, as our hero soon found, costly also to the sight-seer. The
doors in the suite of apartments were all opposite to each other, so that, as a
crimson cord was passed from one to the other, the spectator was kept
entirely to the one side of the room, and merely a glance could be obtained
of the Raffaelle, the glorious Rubens's, [19] the Vandycks, and the almost
equally fine Sir Joshuas. But even the glance they had was but a passing
one, as the servant trotted them through the rooms with the rapidity of
locomotion and explanation of a Westminster Abbey verger; and he made a
fierce attack on Verdant, who had lagged behind, and was short-sightedly
peering at the celebrated "Charles the First" of Vandyck, as though he had
lingered in order to surreptitiously appropriate some of the tables, couches,
and other trifling articles that ornamented the rooms. In this way they went
at railroad pace through the suite of rooms and the library, - where the chief
thing pointed out appeared to be a grease-mark on the floor made by
somebody at somebody else's wedding-breakfast, - and to the chapel, where
they admired the ingenuity of the sparrows and other birds that built about
Rysbrach's monumental mountain of marble to the memory of the Duke and
Duchess of Marlborough; - and then to the so-called "Titian room" (shade
of mighty Titian, forgive the insult!) where they saw the Loves of the Gods
represented in the most unloveable manner,[20] and where a flunkey
lounged lazily at the door, and, in spite of Mr. Bouncer's expostulatory
"chaff," demanded half-a-crown for the sight.

---
[19] Dr Waagen says that the Rubens collection at Blenheim is only
surpassed by the royal galleries of Munich, Vienna, Madrid, and Paris.
[20] The ladies alone would repel one by their gaunt ugliness, their flesh
being apparently composed of the article on which the pictures are painted,
leather. The only picture not by "Titian" in this room is a Rubens, - "the
Rape of Proserpine" - to see which is well worth the half-crown charged for

the sight of the others.
-=-

Indeed, the sight-seeing at Blenheim seemed to be a system of half-crowns.
The first servant would take them a little way, and then say, "I don't go any
further, sir; half-a-crown!" and hand them over to servant number two, who,
after a short interval, would pass them on (half-a-crown!) to the servant
who shewed the chapel (half-a-crown!), who would forward them on to the
"Titian" Gallery (half-a-crown!), who would hand them over to the flower-
garden (half-a-crown!), who would entrust them to the rose-garden (half-a-
crown!), who would give them up to another, who shewed parts of the Park,
and the rest of it. Somewhat in this manner an Oxford party sees Blenheim
(the present of the nation); and Mr. Verdant Green found it the most
expensive show-place he had ever seen.

Some of the Park, however, was free (though they were two or three times
ordered to "get off the grass"); and they rambled about among the noble
trees, and admired the fine views of the Hall, and smoked their weeds, and
became very pathetic at Rosamond's Spring. They then came back into
Woodstock, which they found to be like all Oxford towns, only rather duller
perhaps, the principal signs of life being some fowls lazily pecking about in
the grass-grown street, and two cats sporting without fear of interruption
from a dog, who was too much overcome by the ennui of the place to
interfere with them.

Mr. Bouncer then led the way to an inn, where the bar was presided over by
a young lady, "on whom," he said, "he was desperately sweet," and with
whom he conversed in the most affable and brotherly manner, and for
whom also he had brought, as an appropriate present, a Book of Comic
Songs; "for," said the little gentleman, "hang it! she's a girl of what you call
mind, you know! and she's heard of the opera, and begun the piano, -
though she don't get much time, you see, for it in the bar, - and she sings
regular slap-up, and no mistake!"

So they left this young lady drawing bitter beer for Mr. Bouncer, and
otherwise attending to her adorer's wants, and endeavoured to have a game
of billiards on a wooden table that had no cushions, with curious cues that
had no leathers. Slightly failing in this difficult game, they strolled about till
dinner-time, when Mr. Verdant Green became mysteriously lost for some
time, and was eventually found by Charles Larkyns and Mr. Fosbrooke in a
glover's shop, where he was sitting on a high stool, and basking in the
sunshiny smiles of two "neat little glovers." Our hero at first feigned to be
simply making purchases of Woodstock gloves and purses, as souvenirs of
his visit, and presents for his sisters; but in the course of the evening, being

greatly "chaffed" on the subject, he began to exercise his imagination, and
talk of the "great fun" he had had; - though what particular fun there may be
in smiling amiably across a counter at a feminine shopkeeper who is selling
you gloves, it is hard to say: perhaps Dr. Sterne could help us to an answer.

They spent altogether a very lively day; and after a rather protracted sitting
over their wine, they returned to Oxford with great hilarity, Mr. Bouncer's
post-horn coming out with great effect in the stillness of the moonlight
night. Unfortunately their mirth was somewhat checked when they had got
as far as Peyman's Gate; for the proctor, with mistaken kindness, had taken
the trouble to meet them there, lest they should escape him by entering
Oxford by any devious way; and the marshal and the bull-dogs were at the
leader's head just as Mr. Fosbrooke was triumphantly guiding them through
the turnpike. Verdant gave up his name and that of his college with a thrill
of terror, and nearly fell off the drag from fright, when he was told to call
upon the proctor the next morning.

"Keep your pecker up, old feller!" said Mr. Bouncer, in an encouraging
tone, as they drove into Oxford, "and don't be down in the mouth about a
dirty trick like this. He won't hurt you much, Gig-lamps! Gate and chapel
you; or give you some old Greek party to write out; or send you down to
your mammy for a twelve-month; or some little trifle of that sort. I only
wish the beggar would come up our staircase! if Huz, and Buz his brother,
didn't do their duty by him, it would be doosid odd. Now, don't you go and
get bad dreams, Gig-lamps! because it don't pay; and you'll soon get used to
these sort of things; and what's the odds, as long as you're happy? I like to
take things coolly, I do."

To judge from Mr. Bouncer's serenity, and the far-from-nervous manner in
which he "sounded his octaves," he at least appeared to be thoroughly used
to "that sort of thing," and doubtless slept as tranquilly as though nothing
wrong had occurred. But it was far different with our hero, who passed a
sleepless night of terror as to his probable fate on the morrow.

And when the morrow came, and he found himself in the dreaded presence
of the constituted authority, armed with all the power of the law, he was so
overcome, that he fell on his knees and made an abject spectacle of himself,
imploring that he might not be expelled, and bring down his father's grey

hairs in the usually quoted manner. To his immense relief, however, he was
treated in a more lenient way; and as the term had nearly expired, his
punishment could not be of long duration; and as for the impositions, why,
as Mr. Bouncer said, "Ain't there coves to barberise 'em [21] for you, Gig-
lamps?"

---
[21] Impositions are often performed by deputy.
-=-

Thus our freshman gained experience daily; so that by the end of the term,
he found that short as the time had been, it had been long enough for him to
learn what Oxford life was like, and that there was in it a great deal to be
copied, as well as some things to be shunned. The freshness he had so freely
shown on entering Oxford had gradually yielded as the term went on; and,
when he had run halloing the Brazenface boat all the way up from Iffley,
and had seen Mr. Blades realize his most sanguine dreams as to "the head of
the river;" and when, from the gallery of the theatre, he had taken part in the
licensed saturnalia of the Commemoration, and had cheered for the ladies in
pink and blue, and even given "one more" for the very proctor who had so

lately interfered with his liberties; and when he had gone to a farewell pass-
party (which Charles Larkyns did not give), and had assisted in the other
festivities that usually mark the end of the academical year, - Mr. Verdant
Green found himself to be possessed of a considerable acquisition of
knowledge of a most miscellaneous character; and on the authority, and in
the figurative eastern language of Mr. Bouncer, "he was sharpened up no
end, by being well rubbed against university bricks. So, good by, old
feller!" said the little gentleman, with a kind remembrance of imaginary
individuals, "and give my love to Sairey and the little uns." And Mr.
Bouncer "went the complete unicorn," for the last time in that term, by
extemporising a farewell solo to Verdant, which was of such an agonizing
character of execution, that Huz, and Buz his brother, lifted up their noses
and howled.

"Which they're the very moral of Christyuns, sir!" observed Mrs. Tester,
who was dabbing her curtseys in thankfulness for the large amount with
which our hero had "tipped" her. "And has ears for moosic, sir. With
grateful thanks to you, sir, for the same. And it's obleeged I feel in my art.
Which it reelly were like what my own son would do, sir. As was found in
drink for his rewing. And were took to the West Injies for a sojer. Which he
were - ugh! oh, oh!

Which you be'old me a hafflicted martyr to these spazzums, sir. And how I
am to get through them doorin' the veecation. Without a havin' 'em eased by
a-goin' to your cupboard, sir. For just three spots o' brandy on a lump o'
sugar, sir. Is a summut as I'm afeered to think on. Oh! ugh!" Upon which
Mrs. Tester's grief and spasms so completely overcame her, that our hero
presented her with an extra half-sovereign, wherewith to purchase the
medicine that was so peculiarly adapted to her complaint. Mr. Robert
Filcher was also "tipped" in the same liberal manner; and our hero
completed his first term's residence in Brazenface by establishing himself as
a decided favourite.

Among those who seemed disposed to join in this opinion was the Jehu of
the Warwickshire coach, who expressed his conviction to our delighted
hero, that "he wos a young gent as had much himproved hisself since he
tooled him up to the 'Varsity with his guvnor." To fully deserve which high
opinion, Mr. Verdant Green tipped for the box-seat, smoked more than was
good for him, and besides finding the coachman in weeds, drank with him
at every "change" on the road.

The carriage met him at the appointed place, and his luggage (no longer
encased in canvas, after the manner of females) was soon transferred to it;
and away went our hero to the Manor Green, where he was received with
the greatest demonstrations of delight. Restored to the bosom of his family,
our hero was converted into a kind of domestic idol; while it was proposed
by Miss Mary Green, seconded by Miss Fanny, and carried by unanimous
acclamation, that Mr. Verdant Green's University career had greatly
enhanced his attractions.

The opinion of the drawing-room was echoed from the servants'-hall, the
ladies' maid in particular being heard freely to declare, that "Oxford College
had made quite a man of Master Verdant!"

As the little circumstance on which she probably grounded her encomium
had fallen under the notice of Miss Virginia Verdant, it may have accounted
for that most correct-minded lady being more reserved in expressing her
opinion of her nephew's improvement than were the rest of the family; but
she nevertheless thought a great deal on the subject.

"Well, Verdant!" said Mr. Green, after hearing divers anecdotes of his son's
college-life, carefully prepared for home-consumption; "now tell us what
you've learnt in Oxford."

"Why," replied our hero, as he reflected on his freshman's career, "I have
learnt to think for myself, and not to believe every thing that I hear; and I
think I could fight my way in the world; and I can chaff a cad -"

"Chaff a cad! oh!" groaned Miss Virginia to herself, thinking it was
something extremely dreadful.

"And I have learnt to row - at least, not quite; but I can smoke a weed - a
cigar, you know. I've learnt that."

"Oh, Verdant, you naughty boy!" said Mrs. Green, with maternal fondness.
"I was sadly afraid that Charles Larkyns would teach you all his wicked
school habits!"

"Why, mama," said Mary, who was sitting on a footstool at her brother's
knee, and spoke up in defence of his college friend; "why, mama, all
gentlemen smoke; and of course Mr. Charles Larkyns and Verdant must do
as others do. But I dare say, Verdant, he taught you more useful things than
that, did he not?"

"Oh, yes," replied Verdant; "he taught me to grill a devil."

"Grill a devil!" groaned Miss Virginia. "Infatuated young man!"

"And to make shandy-gaff and sherry-cobbler, and brew bishop and egg-
flip: oh, it's capital! I'll teach you how to make it; and we'll have some to-
night!"

And thus the young gentleman astonished his family with the extent of his
learning, and proved how a youth of ordinary natural attainments may
acquire other knowledge in his University career than what simply pertains
to classical literature.

And so much experience had our hero gained 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 patronizing air to the freshmen who then
entered, and even sought to impose upon their credulity in ways which his
own personal experience suggested.

It was clear that Mr. Verdant Green had made his farewell bow as an Oxford
Freshman.

(End of Part I)

Back to Contents

Forward to Part II

Forward to Part III

==========

(Part II of III)

Back to Part I

Forward to Part III

THE FURTHER ADVENTURES

OF

MR. VERDANT GREEN,

AN OXFORD UNDERGRADUATE,

BEING A CONTINUATION OF "THE
ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN, AN
OXFORD FRESHMAN."

BY CUTHBERT BEDE, B.A.

WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS,
DESIGNED AND DRAWN ON THE WOOD BY THE AUTHOR.

"A COLLEGE JOKE TO CURE THE DUMPS."
SWIFT.

H. INGRAM & CO.
MILFORD HOUSE, MILFORD LANE, STRAND, LONDON;
AND BY ALL BOOKSELLERS

1854.

LONDON:
BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS

CONTENTS
CHAPTER

Mr. Verdant Green recommences his existence as an Oxford
I
Undergraduate
II Mr. Verdant Green does as he has been done by
Mr. Verdant Green endeavours to keep his Spirits up by
III
pouring Spirits down
Mr. Verdant Green discovers the difference between Town and
IV
Gown
Mr. Verdant Green is favoured with Mr Bouncer's Opinions
V regarding an Under-graduate's Epistolary Communications to
his Maternal Relative
VI Mr. Verdant Green feathers his oars with skill and dexterity
VII Mr. Verdant Green partakes of a Dove-tart and a Spread-eagle
Mr. Verdant Green spends a Merry Christmas and a Happy
VIII
New Year
IX Mr. Verdant Green makes his first appearance on any Boards
X Mr. Verdant Green enjoys a real Cigar
XI Mr. Verdant Green gets through his Smalls
XII Mr. Verdant Green And his Friends enjoy the Commemoration

THE FURTHER ADVENTURES
OF
MR. VERDANT GREEN.
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
patronizing 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;" [22]

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."

---
[22] Horace, Ep. Lib. I. ii, 69.
-=-

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, schoolboy 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 piece de resistance.

Back to Contents

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 Shakespeare. 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.

"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 MANNER 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 {gas} in Sophocles, that gas
must have been used by the Athenians; also state, if the expression {oi
barbaroi} 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 4/19 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 denouement.

"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 viva 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.

"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?"

Back to Contents

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.
[23]

---
[23] 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 Grostete, 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. This was at length put an end to by
Convocation in the year 1825.
-=-

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 [24] 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!

---
[24] Corrupted by Oxford pronunciation (which makes Magdalen Maudlin)
into St. Old's.
-=-

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 "dessert 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 emeute 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 bed-room 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' 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."

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," [25] 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.

---
[25] "A Bachelor of Arts", Act I.
-=-

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 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."

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 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 Smalls' 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 sintiment,
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 personae."

"True," replied Mr. Foote, "he's cast for the hero; though he will create a
new role 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[sic], 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 Shakespeare says."

"Pardon me! Not Shakespeare, 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 melee, 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!"

Back to Contents

CHAPTER IV.

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

IT was ten minutes past nine, and Tom, [26] with a 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 Gown had already begun.

---
[26] 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.
-=-

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.

"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.

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 grace 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."

"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; [27] "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.

---
[27] 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.
-=-

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.

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 Ring, "There's a squelcher in the breadbasket, 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 Bulldogs, [28] 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.

---
[28] 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.
-=-

"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 sympathizing 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.

When Mr. Tozer's nose had ceased to bleed, the signal was given for the
gates to be thrown open; and out rushed Proctor, Marshal, 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.[29]

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?"

---
[29] 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).
-=-

"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 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 don'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 inquiry 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
palaestrite 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 caestus;' [30]

---
[30] AEn., Book v., 378.
-=-

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.

Back to Contents

CHAPTER V.

MR. VERDANT GREEN IS FAVOURED WITH MR. BOUNCER'S
OPINIONS REGARDING AN UNDERGRADUATE'S EPISTOLARY
COMMUNICATIONS TO HIS MATERNAL RELATIVE.

"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.

"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 ofEuclid, instead of working me any glorified slippers or
woolleries, I'd scorn the haction. 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 Oude'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."

"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', isn't 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."

"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
Tollitt 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!"

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 easygoing 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-
qua-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.

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.

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, [31] 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.

---
[31] Now used for the Museum of the Oxford Architectural Society.
-=-

"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."

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 couldn't 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.

Back to Contents

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.

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
chillness 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.

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.

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 qua
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
Caesar, 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.

"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 ears 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 rullocks," 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 needed 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! [32] 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.

---
[32] - "Si collibuisset, ab ovo "Usque ad mala citaret, Io Bacche!" - Hor.
Sat. Lib. I, 3.
-=-

The wind's in our back, and we shall get on jolly."

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."

In the first week in December he had an opportunity of pulling over a fresh
piece of water. One of those inundations occurred to which Oxford is so
liable, and the meadow-land to the south and west of the city was covered
by the flood. Boats plied to and from the railway station in place of
omnibuses; the Great Western was not to be seen for water; and, at the
Abingdon-road bridge, at Cold-harbour, the rails were washed away, and
the trains brought to a stand-still. The Isis was amplified to the width of the
Christ Church meadows; the Broad Walk had a peep of itself upside down
in the glassy mirror; the windings of the Cherwell could only be traced by
the trees on its banks. There was

"Water, water everywhere,"

and a disagreeable quantity of it too, as those Christ Church men whose
ground-floor rooms were towards the meadows soon discovered.

Mr. Bouncer is supposed to have brought out one of his "fine, old, crusted
jokes," when he asserted in reference to the inundation, that "Nature had
assumed a lake complexion." Posts and rails, and hay, and a miscellaneous
collection of articles, were swept along by the current, together with the
bodies of hapless sheep and pigs. But, in spite of these incumbrances, boats
of all descriptions were to be seen sailing, pulling, skiffing, and punting,
over the flooded meadows. Numerous were the disasters, and many were
the boats that were upset.

Indeed, the adventures of Mr. Verdant Green would probably have here
terminated in a misadventure, had he not (thanks to Charles Larkyns)
mastered the art of swimming; for he was in Mr. Bouncer's sailing-boat,
which was sailing very merrily over the flood, when its merriness was
suddenly checked by its grounding on the stump of a lopped pollard willow,
and forthwith capsizing. Our hero, who had been sitting in the bows, was at
once swept over by the sail, and, for a moment, was in great peril; but,
disengaging himself from the cordage, he struck out, and swam to a willow
whose friendly boughs and top had just formed an asylum for Mr. Bouncer,
who in great anxiety was coaxing Huz and Buz to swim to the same ark of
safety.

Mr. Verdant Green and Mr. Bouncer were speedily rescued from their
position, and were not a little thankful for their escape.

Back to Contents

CHAPTER VII.

MR. VERDANT GREEN PARTAKES OF A DOVE-TART AND A
SPREAD-EAGLE.

"HULLO, Giglamps, you lazy beggar!" said the cheery voice of little Mr.
Bouncer, as he walked into our hero's bedroom one morning towards the
end of term, and found Mr. Verdant Green in bed, though sufficiently

awakened by the sounding of Mr. Bouncer's octaves for the purposes of
conversation; "this'll never do, you know, Giglamps! Cutting chapel to do
the downy! Why, what do you mean, sir? Didn't you ever learn in the
nursery what happened to old Daddy Longlegs when he wouldn't say his
prayers?"

"Robert did call me," said our hero, rubbing his eyes; "but I felt tired, so I
told him to put in an aeger."

"Upon my word, young un," observed Mr. Bouncer, "you're a coming it,
you are! and only in your second term, too. What makes you wear a
nightcap, Giglamps? Is it to make your hair curl, or to keep your venerable
head warm? Nightcaps ain't healthy; they are only fit for long-tailed
babbies, and old birds that are as bald as coots; or else for gents that grease
their wool with 'thine incomparable oil, Macassar,' as the noble poet justly
remarks."

"It ain't always pleasant," continued the little gentleman, who was perched
up on the side of the bed, and seemed in a communicative disposition, "it
ain't always pleasant to turn out for morning chapel, is it, Giglamps? But it's
just like the eels with their skinning: it goes against the grain at first, but
you soon get used to it. When I first came up, I was a frightful lazy beggar,
and I got such a heap of impositions for not keeping my morning chapels,
that I was obliged to have three fellers constantly at work writing 'em out
for me. This was rather expensive, you see; and then the dons threatened to
take away my term altogether, and bring me to grief, if I didn't be more
regular. So I was obliged to make a virtuous resolution, and I told Robert
that he was to insist on my getting up in a morning, and I should tip him at
the end of term if he succeeded. So at first he used to come and hammer at
the door; but that was no go.

So then he used to come in and shake me, and try to pull the clothes off;
but, you see, I always used to prepare for him, by taking a good supply of
boots and things to bed with me; so I was able to take shies at the beggar till
he vanished, and left me to snooze peaceably.

You see, it ain't every feller as likes to have a Wellington boot at his head;
but that rascal of a Robert is used to those trifles, and I was obliged to try

another dodge. This you know was only of a morning when I was in bed.
When I had had my breakfast, and got my imposition, and become virtuous
again, I used to slang him awful for having let me cut chapel; and then I
told him that he must always stand at the door until he heard me out of bed.
But, when the morning came, it seemed running such a risk, you see, to
one's lungs and all those sort of things to turn out of the warm bed into the
cold chapel, that I would answer Robert when he hammered at the door;
but, instead of getting up, I would knock my boots against the floor, as
though I was out of bed, don't you see, and was padding about. But that
wretch of a Robert was too old a bird to be caught with this dodge; so he
used to sing out, 'You must show a leg, sir!' and, as he kept on hammering
at the door till I did - for, you see, Giglamps, he was looking out for the tip
at the end of term, so it made him persevere - and as his beastly hammering
used, of course, to put a stopper on my going to sleep again, I used to rush
out in a frightful state of wax, and show a leg. And then, being well up, you
see, it was no use doing the downy again, so it was just as well to make
one's twilight and go to chapel. Don't gape, Giglamps; it's beastly rude, and
I havn't done yet. I'm going to tell you another dodge - one of old Smalls'.
He invested money in an alarum, with a string from it tied on to the bed-
clothes, so as to pull them off at whatever time you chose to set it. But I
never saw the fun of being left high and dry on your bed: it would be a
shock to the system which I couldn't stand. But even this dreadful expedient
would be better than posting an aeger; which, you know, you didn't ought to
was, Giglamps. Well, turn out, old feller! I've told Robert to take your
commons [33] into my room. Smalls and Charley are coming, and I've got a
dove-tart and a spread-eagle."

---
[33] The rations of bread, butter, and milk, supplied from the buttery. The
breakfast-giver tells his scout the names of those in-college men who are
coming to breakfast with him. The scout then collects their commons,
which thus forms the substratum of the entertainment. The other things are
of course supplied by the giver of the breakfast, and are sent in by the
confectioner. As to the knives and forks and crockery, the scout produces
them from his common stock.
-=-

"Whatever are they?" asked Mr. Verdant Green.

"Not know what they are!" cried Mr. Bouncer; "why a dove-tart is what
mortals call a pigeon-pie. I ain't much in Tennyson's line, but it strikes me
that dove-tarts are more poetical than the other thing; spread-eagle is a
barn-door fowl smashed out flat, and made jolly with mushroom sauce, and
no end of good things. I don't know how they squash it, but I should say
that they sit upon it; I daresay, if we were to inquire, we should find that
they kept a fat feller on purpose. But you just come, and try how it eats."
And, as Mr. Verdant Green's bedroom barely afforded standing room, even
for one, Mr. Bouncer walked into the sitting-room, while his friend arose
from his couch like a youthful Adonis, and proceeded to bathe his ambrosial
person, by taking certain sanatory measures in splashing about in a species
of tub - a performance which Mr. Bouncer was wont to term "doing
tumbies."

"What'll you take for your letters, Giglamps?" called out the little
gentleman from the other room; "the Post's in, and here are three for you.
Two are from women, - young 'uns I should say, from the regular ups and
downs, and right angles: they look like billyduxes. Give you a bob for them,
at a venture! they may be funny. The other is suspiciously like a tick, and
ought to be looked shy on. I should advise you not to open it, but to pitch it

in the fire: it may save a fit of the blues. If you want any help over shaving,
just say so, Giglamps, will you, before I go; and then I'll hold your nose for
you, or do anything else that's civil and accommodating. And, when you've
done your tumbies, come in to the dove-tart and the spread-eagle." And off
went Mr. Bouncer, making terrible noises with his post-horn, in his
strenuous but futile endeavours to discover the octaves.

Our hero soon concluded his "tumbies" and his dressing (not including the
shaving), and made his way to Mr. Bouncer's rooms, where he did full
justice to the dove-tart, and admired the spread-eagle so much, that he
thought of bribing the confectioner for the recipe to take home as a
Christmas-box for his mother.

"Well, Giglamps," said Mr. Bouncer, when breakfast was over, "to spare the
blushes on your venerable cheeks, I won't even so much as refer to the
billyduxes; but, I'll only ask, what was the damage of the tick?"

"Oh! it was not a bill," replied Mr. Verdant Green; "it was a letter about a
dog from the man of whom I bought Mop last term."

"What! Filthy Lucre?" cried Mr. Bouncer; "well, I thought, somehow, I
knew the fist! he writes just as if he'd learnt from imitating his dogs' hind-
legs. Let's have a sight of it if it ain't private and confidential!"

"Oh dear no! on the contrary, I was going to show it to you, and ask your
advice on the contents." And Verdant handed to Mr. Bouncer a letter, which
had been elaborately sealed with the aid of a key, and was directed high up
in the left-hand corner to

"Virdon grene esqre braisenface collidge Oxford."

"You look beastly lazy, Charley!" said Mr. Bouncer to Mr. Charles Larkyns;
"so, while I fill my pipe, just spit out the letter, pro bono." And Charles
Larkyns, lying in Mr. Bouncer's easiest lounging chair, read as follows:-

"Onnerd sir i tak the libbaty of a Dressin of you in respex of A dog
which i wor sorry For to ear of your Loss in mop which i had The
pleshur of Sellin of 2 you onnerd sir A going astray And not a turnin
hup Bein of A unsurtin Tempor and guv to A folarin of strandgers
which wor maybe as ow You wor a lusein on him onnerd Sir bein
Overdogd at this ere present i can let you have A rale good teryer at A
barrging which wold giv sattefacshun onnered Sir it wor 12 munth ago
i Sold to Bounser esqre a red smooth air terier Dog anserin 2 nam of
Tug as wor rite down goodun and No mistake onnerd Sir the purpurt
Of this ere is too say as ow i have a Hone brother to Tug black tann
and ful ears and If you wold like him i shold bee prowd too wate on
you onnerd Sir he wor by robbingsons Twister out of mister jones of
abingdons Fan of witch brede Bounser esqre nose on the merritts
onnerd Sir he is very Smal and smooth air and most xlent aither for
wood Or warter a liter before Tug onnerd Sir is nam is Vermin and he
hant got his nam by no mistake as No Vermin not even poll katts can
live long before him onnerd Sir I considders as vermin is very sootble
compannion for a Gent indors or hout and bein lively wold give
amoosement i shall fele it A plesure a waitin on you onnerd Sir opin
you will pardin the libbaty of a Dressin of you but my head wor ful of
vermin and i wishd to tel you

"onnerd Sir yures 2 komand j. Looker."

"The nasty beggar!" said Mr. Bouncer, in reference to the last paragraph.
"Well, Giglamps! Filthy Lucre doesn't tell fibs when he says that Tug came
of a good breed: but he was so doosed pugnacious, that he was always
having set-to's with Huz and Buz, in the coal-shop just outside the door
here; and so, as I'd nowhere else to stow them, I was obliged to give Tug
away. Dr. What's-his-name says, 'Let dogs delight to bark and bite, for 'tis
their nature to.' But then, you see, it's only a delight when they bite
somebody else's dog; and if Dr. What's-his-name had had a kennel of his
own, he would'nt have took it so coolly; and, whether it was their nature so
to do or not, he wouldn't have let the little beggars, that he fork'd out
thirteen bob a-year for to the government, amuse themselves by biting each
other, or tearing out each other's eyes; he'd have turn'd them over, don't you
see, to his neighbours' dogs, and have let them do the biting department on

them. And, altogether, Giglamps, I'd advise you to let Filthy Lucre's Vermin
alone, and have nothing to do with the breed."

So Mr. Verdant Green took his friend's advice, and then took himself off to
learn boxing at the hands, and gloves, of the Putney Pet; for our hero, at the
suggestion of Mr. Charles Larkyns, had thought it advisable to receive a
few lessons in the fistic art, in order that he might be the better able to
defend himself, should he be engaged in a second Town and Gown. He
found the Pet in attendance upon Mr. Foote; and, by their mutual aid,
speedily mastered the elements of the Art of Self-defence.

Mr. Foote's rooms at St. John's were in the further corner to the right-hand
side of the Quad, and had windows looking into the gardens. When Charles
had held his Court at St. John's, and when the loyal College had melted
down its plate to coin into money for the King's necessities, the Royal
visitor had occupied these very rooms. But it was not on this account alone
that they were the show rooms of the College, and that tutors sent their
compliments to Mr. Foote, with the request that he would allow a party of

friends to see his rooms. It was chiefly on account of the lavish manner in
which Mr. Foote had furnished his rooms, with what he theatrically called
"properties," that made them so sought out: and country lionisers of Oxford,
who took their impressions of an Oxford student's room from those of Mr.
Foote, must have entertained very highly coloured ideas of the internal
aspect of the sober-looking old Colleges.

The sitting-room was large and lofty, and was panelled with oak
throughout. At the further end was an elaborately carved book-case of
walnut wood, filled with books gorgeously bound in every tint of morocco
and vellum, with their backs richly tooled in gold. It was currently reported
in the College that "Footelights" had given an order for a certain number of
feet of books, - not being at all proud as to their contents, - and had laid
down the sum of a thousand pounds (or thereabouts) for their binding. This
might have been scandal; but the fact of his father being a Colossus of (the
iron) Roads, and indulging his son and heir in every expense, gave some
colour to the rumour.

The panels were covered with the choicest engravings (all proofs-before-
letters), and with water-colour drawings by Cattermole, Cox, Fripp, Hunt,
and Frederick Tayler - their wide, white margins being sunk in light gilt
frames. Above these gleamed groups of armour, standing out effectively
(and theatrically), against the dark oak panels, and full of "reflected lights,"
that would have gladdened the heart of Maclise. There were couches of
velvet, and lounging chairs of every variety and shape. There was a
Broadwood's grand pianoforte, on which Mr. Foote, although uninstructed,
could play skilfully. There were round tables and square tables, and writing
tables; and there were side tables with statuettes, and Swiss carvings, and
old china, and gold apostle-spoons, and lava ware, and Etruscan vases, and
a swarm of Spiers's elegant knick-knackeries. There were reading-stands of
all sorts; Briarean-armed brazen ones that fastened on to the chair you sat
in, - sloping ones to rest on the table before you, elaborately carved in open
work, and an upright one of severe Gothic, like a lectern, where you were to
stand and read without contracting your chest. Then there were all kinds of
stands to hold books: sliding ones, expanding ones, portable ones, heavy
fixture ones, plain mahogany ones, and oak ones made glorious by Margetts
with the arms of Oxford and St. John's, carved and emblazoned on the ends.

Mr. Foote's rooms were altogether a very gorgeous instance of a Collegian's
apartment; and Mr. Foote himself was a very striking example of the
theatrical undergraduate. Possessing great powers of mimicry and facial
expression, he was able to imitate any peculiarities which were to be
observed either in Dons or Undergraduates, in Presidents or Scouts. He
could sit down at his piano, and give you - after the manner of Theodore
Hook, or John Parry - a burlesque opera; singing high up in his head for the
prima donna, and going down to his boots for the basso profondo of the
great Lablache. He could also draw corks, saw wood, do a bee in a
handkerchief,

and make monkeys, cats, dogs, a farm-yard, or a full band, with equal
facility. He would also give you Mr. Keeley, in "Betsy Baker;" Mr. Paul
Bedford, as "I believe you my bo-o-oy"; Mr. Buckstone, as Cousin Joe, and
"Box and Cox;" or Mr. Wright, as Paul Pry, or Mr. Felix Fluffy. Besides the
comedians, Mr. Footelights would also give you the leading tragedians, and
would favour you (through his nose) with the popular burlesque imitation of
Mr. Charles Kean, as Hablet. He would fling himself down on the carpet,
and grovel there as Hamlet does in the play-scene, and would exclaim, with
frantic vehemence, "He poisods hib i' the garded, for his estate. His dabe's
Godzago: the story is extadt, ad writted id very choice Italiad. You shall see
adod, how the burderer gets the love of Godzago's wife." Moreover, as his
room possessed the singularity of a trap-door leading down into a wine-
cellar, Mr. "Footelights" was thus enabled to leap down into the aperture,

and carry on the personation of Hamlet in Ophelia's grave. As the theatrical
trait in his character was productive of much amusement, and as he was
also considered to be one of those hilarious fragments of masonry,
popularly known as "jolly bricks," Mr. Foote's society was greatly
cultivated; and Mr. Verdant Green struck up a warm friendship with him.

But the Michaelmas term was drawing to its close. Buttery and kitchen
books were adding up their sums total; bursars were preparing for battels;
[34] witless men were cramming for Collections; [35] scouts and
bedmakers were looking for tips; and tradesmen were hopelessly expecting
their little accounts. And, in a few days, Mr. Verdant Green might have been
seen at the railway station, in company with Mr. Charles Larkyns and Mr.
Bouncer, setting out for the Manor Green, via London - this being, as is
well known, the most direct route from Oxford to Warwickshire.

---
[34] Battels are the accounts of the expenses of each student. It is stated in
Todd's Johnson that this singular word is derived from the Saxon verb,
meaning "to count or reckon." But it is stated in the Gentleman's Magazine
for 1792, that the word may probably be derived from the Low-German
word bettahlen, "to pay," whence may come our English word, tale or
score.
[35] College Terminal Examinations.
-=-

Mr. Bouncer, who when travelling was never easy in his mind unless Huz
and Buz were with him in the same carriage, had placed these two
interesting specimens of the canine species in a small light box, partially
ventilated by means of holes drilled through the top. But Huz and Buz, not
much admiring this contracted mode of conveyance, and probably suffering
from incipient asphyxia, in spite of the admonitory kicks against their box,
gave way to dismal howls, at the very moment when the guard came to look
at the tickets.

"Can't allow dogs in here, sir! they must go in the locker," said the guard.

"Dogs?" cried Mr. Bouncer, in apparent astonishment: "they're rabbits!"

"Rabbits!" ejaculated the guard, in his turn. "Oh, come, sir! what makes
rabbits bark?"

"What makes 'em bark? Why, because they've got the pip, poor beggars!"
replied Mr. Bouncer, promptly. At which the guard graciously laughed, and
retired; probably thinking that he should, in the end, be a gainer if he
allowed Huz and Buz to journey in the same first-class carriage with their
master.

Back to Contents

CHAPTER VIII.

MR. VERDANT GREEN SPENDS A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A
HAPPY NEW YEAR.

CHRISTMAS had come; the season of kindness, and hospitality; the season
when the streams of benevolence flow full in their channels; the season
when the Honourable Miss Hyems indulges herself with ice, while the
vulgar Jack Frost regales himself with cold-without. Christmas had come,
and had brought with it an old fashioned winter; and, as Mr. Verdant Green
stands with his hands in his pockets, and gazes from the drawing-room of
his paternal mansion, he looks forth upon a white world.

The snow is everywhere. The shrubs are weighed down by masses of it; the
terrace is knee-deep in it; the plaster Apollo, in the long-walk, is more than
knee-deep in it, and is furnished with a surplice and wig, like a half-blown
Bishop. The distant country looks the very ghost of a landscape: the white-
walled cottages seem part and parcel of the snow-drifts around them, - drifts
that take every variety of form, and are swept by the wind into faery
wreaths, and fantastic caves. The old mill-wheel is locked fast, and gemmed
with giant icicles; its slippery stairs are more slippery than ever. Golden
gorse and purple heather are now all of a colour; orchards put forth
blossoms of real snow; the gently swelling hills look bright and dazzling in

the wintry sun; the grey church tower has grown from grey to white;
nothing looks black, except the swarms of rooks that dot the snowy fields,
or make their caws (long as any Chancery-suit) to be heard from among the
dark branches of the stately elms that form the avenue to the Manor-Green.

It is a rare busy time for the intelligent Mr. Mole the gardener! he is always
sweeping at that avenue, and, do what he will, he cannot keep it clear from
snow. As Mr. Verdant Green looks forth upon the white world, his gaze is
more particularly directed to this avenue, as though the form of the
intelligent Mr. Mole was an object of interest. From time to time Mr.
Verdant Green consults his watch in a nervous manner, and is utterly
indifferent to the appeals of the robin-redbreast who is hopping about
outside, in expectation of the dinner which has been daily given to him.

Just when the robin, emboldened by hunger, has begun to tap fiercely with
his bill against the window-pane, as a gentle hint that the smallest donations
of crumbs of comfort will be thankfully received, - Mr. Verdant Green,
utterly oblivious of robins in general, and of the sharp pecks of this one in
particular, takes no notice of the little redbreast waiter with the bill, but,
slightly colouring up, fixes his gaze upon the lodge-gate through which a

group of ladies and gentlemen are passing. Stepping back for a moment,
and stealing a glance at himself in the mirror, Mr. Verdant Green hurriedly
arranges and disarranges his hair - pulls about his collar - ties and unties his
neck-handkerchief - buttons and then unbuttons his coat - takes another
look from the window - sees the intelligent Mr. Mole. (besom in hand)
salaaming the party, and then makes a rush for the vestibule, to be at the
door to receive them.

Let us take a look at them as they come up the avenue. Place aux dames, is
the proper sort of thing; but as there is no rule without its exception, and no
adage without its counter-proverb, we will give the gentlemen the priority
of description.

Hale and hearty, the picture of amiability and gentlemanly feeling, comes
the Rector, Mr. Larkyns, sturdily crunching the frozen snow, which has
defied all the besom powers of the intelligent Mr. Mole. Here, too, is Mr.
Charles Larkyns, and, moreover, his friend Henry Bouncer, Esq., who has
come to christmas at the Rectory. Following in their wake is a fourth
gentleman attired in the costume peculiar to clergymen, dissenting
ministers, linen-drapers' assistants, and tavern waiters. He happens to
belong to the first-named section, and is no less a person than the Rev.
Josiah Meek, B.A., (St. Christopher's Coll., Oxon.) - who, for the last three
months, has officiated as Mr. Larkyns's curate. He appears to be of a peace-
loving, lamb-like disposition; and, though sportive as a lamb when occasion
requires, is yet of timid ways and manners. He is timid, too, in voice, -
speaking in a feeble treble; he is timid, too, in his address, - more
particularly as regards females; and he has mild-looking whiskers, that are
far too timid to assume any decided or obtrusive colour, and have fallen
back on a generalized whitey-brown tint. But, though timid enough in
society, he was bold and energetic in the discharge of his pastoral duties,
and had already won the esteem of every one in the parish. So, Verdant had
been told, when, on his return from college, he had asked his sisters how
they liked the new curate. They had not only heard of his good deeds, but
they had witnessed many of them in their visits to the schools and among
the poor. Mary and Fanny were loud in his praise; and if Helen said but
little, it was perhaps because she thought the more; for Helen was now of
the susceptible age of "sweet seventeen," an age that not only feels warmly

but thinks deeply; and, who shall say what feelings and thoughts may lie
beneath the pure waters of that sea of maidenhood whose surface is so still
and calm? Love alone can tell: - Love, the bold diver, who can cleave that
still surface, and bring up into the light of heaven the rich treasures that are
of Heaven's own creation.

With the four gentlemen come two ladies - young ladies, moreover, who, as
penny-a-liners say, are "possessed of considerable personal attractions."
These are the Misses Honeywood, the blooming daughters of the rector's
only sister; and they have come from the far land of the North, and are
looking as fresh and sweet as their own heathery hills. The roses of health
that bloom upon their cheeks have been brought into full blow by the keen,
sharp breeze; the shepherd's-plaid shawls drawn tightly around them give
the outline of figures that gently swell into the luxuriant line of beauty and
grace. Altogether, they are damsels who are pleasant to the eye, and very
fair to look upon.

Since they had last visited their uncle four years had passed, and, in that
time, they had shot up to womanhood, although they were not yet out of
their teens. Their father was a landed proprietor living in north
Northumberland; and, like other landed proprietors who live under the
shade of the Cheviots, was rich in his flocks, and his herds, and his men-
servants and his maid-servants, and his he-asses and his she-asses, and was
quite a modern patriarch. During the past summer, the rector had taken a
trip to Northumberland, in order to see his sister, and refresh himself with a
clergyman's fortnight at Honeywood Hall, and he would not leave his sister
and her husband until he had extracted from them a promise that they would
bring down their two eldest daughters and christmas in Warwickshire. This
was accordingly agreed to, and, more than that, acted upon; and little Mr.
Bouncer and his sister Fanny were asked to meet them; but, to relieve the
rector of a superfluity of lady guests, Miss Bouncer's quarters had been
removed to the Manor Green.

It was quite an event in the history of our hero and his sisters. Four years
ago, they, and Kitty and Patty Honeywood, were mere chits, for whom dolls
had not altogether lost their interest, and who considered it as promotion
when they sat in the drawing-room on company evenings, instead of being
shown up at dessert. Four years at this period of life makes a vast change in
young ladies, and the Green and Honeywood girls had so altered since last
they met, that they had almost needed a fresh introduction to each other. But
a day's intimacy made them bosom friends; and the Manor Green soon saw
such revels as it had not seen for many a long year.

Every night there were (in the language of the play-bills of provincial
theatres) "singing and dancing, with a variety of other entertainments;" the
"other entertainments" occasionally consisting (as is scandalously affirmed)
of a very favourite class of entertainment - popular at all times, but running
mad riot at the Christmas season - wherein two performers of either sex

take their places beneath a white-berried bough, and go through a species of
dance, or pas de fascination, accompanied by mysterious rites and
solemnities that have been scrupulously observed, and handed down to us,
from the earliest age.

Mr. Verdant Green, during the short - alas! too short - Christmas week, had
performed more polkas than he had ever danced in his life; and, under the
charming tuition of Miss Patty Honeywood, was fast becoming a proficient
in the valse a deux temps. As yet, the whirl of the dance brought on a
corresponding rotatory motion of the brain, that made everything swim
before his spectacles in a way which will be easily understood by all bad
travellers who have crossed from Dover to Calais with a chopping sea and a
gale of wind. But Miss Patty Honeywood was both good-natured and
persevering: and she allowed our hero to dance on her feet without a

murmur, and watchfully guided him when his giddy vision would have led
them into contact with foreign bodies.

It is an old saying, that Gratitude begets Love. Mr. Verdant Green had
already reached the first part of this dangerous creation, for he felt grateful
to the pretty Patty for the good-humoured trouble she bestowed on the
awkwardness, which he now, for the first time, began painfully to perceive.
But, what his gratitude might end in, he had perhaps never taken the trouble
to inquire. It was enough to Mr. Verdant Green that he enjoyed the present;
and, as to the future, he fully followed out the Horatian precept-

Quid sit futurum cras, fuge quarere;
*** nec dulces amores
Sperne, puer, neque tu choreas.

It was perhaps ungrateful in our hero to prefer Miss Patty Honeywood to
Miss Fanny Bouncer, especially when the latter was staying in the house,
and had been so warmly recommended to his notice by her vivacious
brother. Especially, too, as there was nothing to be objected to in Miss
Bouncer, saving the fact that some might have affirmed she was a trifle too
much inclined to embonpoint, and was indeed a bouncer in person as well

as in name. Especially, too, as Miss Fanny Bouncer was both good-
humoured and clever, and, besides being mistress of the usual young-lady
accomplishments, was a clever proficient in the fascinating art of
photography, and had brought her camera and chemicals, and had not only
calotyped Mr. Verdant Green, but had made no end of duplicates of him, in
a manner that was suggestive of the deepest admiration and affection. But
these sort of likings are not made to rule, and Mr. Verdant Green could see
Miss Fanny Bouncer approach without betraying any of those symptoms of
excitement, under the influence of which we had the privilege to see him, as
he gazed from the window of his paternal mansion, and then, on beholding
the approaching form of Miss Patty Honeywood, rush wildly to the
vestibule.

The party had no occasion to ring, for the hall door was already opened for
them, and Mr. Verdant Green was soon exchanging a delightful pressure of
the hand with the blooming Patty.

"We were such a formidable party," said that young lady, as she laughed
merrily, and thereby disclosed to the enraptured gazer a remarkably even set
of white teeth ("All her own, too!" as little Mr. Bouncer afterwards
remarked to the enraptured gazer); "we were such a formidable party," said
Miss Patty, "that papa and mamma declared they would stay behind at the
Rectory, and would not join in such a visitation."

Mr. Verdant Green replies, "Oh dear! I am very sorry," and looks
remarkably delighted - though it certainly may not be at the absence of the
respected couple; and he then proclaims that everything is ready, and that
Miss Bouncer and his sisters had found out some capital words.

"What a mysterious communication, Verdant!" remarks the rector, as they
pass into the house. But the rector is only to be let so far into the secret as to
be informed that, at the evening party which is to be held at the Manor
Green that night, a charade or two will be acted, in order to diversify the
amusements. The Misses Honeywood are great adepts in this sort of
pastime; so, also, are Miss Bouncer and her brother. For although the latter
does not shine as a mimic, yet, as he is never deserted by his accustomed
coolness, he has plenty of the nonchalance and readiness which is a
requisite for charade acting. The Miss Honeywoods and Mr. Bouncer have

therefore suggested to Mr. Verdant Green and his sisters, that to get up a
little amateur performance would be "great fun;" and the suggestion has met
with a warm approval.

The drawing-room at the Manor Green opened by large folding-doors to the
library; so (as Mr. Bouncer observed to our hero), "there you've got your
stage and your drop-scene as right as a trivet; and, if you stick a lot of
candles and lights on each side of the doors in the library, there you'll have
a regular flare-up that'll show off your venerable giglamps no end."

So charades were determined on; and, when words had been hunted up, a
council of war was called. But, as the ladies and gentlemen hold their
council with closed doors, we cannot intrude upon them. We must therefore
wait till the evening, when the result of their deliberations will be publicly
manifested.

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CHAPTER IX.

MR. VERDANT GREEN MAKES HIS FIRST APPEARANCE ON
ANY BOARDS.

IT is the last night of December. The old year, worn out and spent with age,
lies a dying[sic], wrapped in sheets of snow.

A stern stillness reigns around. The steps of men are muffled; no echoing
footfalls disturb the solemn nature of the time. The little runnels weep icy
tears. The dark pines hang out their funereal plumes, and nod with their
weight of snow. The elms have thrown off their green robes of joy, and,
standing up in gaunt nakedness, wildly toss to heaven their imploring arms.
The old year lies a dying.

Silently through the snow steal certain carriages to the portals of the Manor
Green: and, with a ringing of bells and a banging of steps, the occupants
disappear in a stream of light that issues from the hall door. Mr. Green's
small sanctum to the right of the hall has been converted into a cloak-room,
and is fitted up with a ladies'-maid and a looking-glass, in a manner not to
be remembered by the oldest inhabitant.

There the finishing stroke of ravishment is given to the toilette disarranged
by a long drive through the impeding snow. There Miss Parkington (whose
papa has lately revived his old school friendship with Mr. Green) discovers,
to her unspeakable disgust, that the ten mile drive through the cold has
invested her cheek with purple tints, and given to her retrousse (ill-natured
people call it "pug") nose a hue that mocks

The turkey's crested fringe.

There, too, Miss Waters (whose paternities had hitherto only been on
morning-call terms with the Manor Green people, but had brushed up their
acquaintance now that there was a son of marriageable years and heir to an
independent fortune) discovers to her dismay that the joltings received

during a six-mile drive through snowed-up lanes, have somewhat
deteriorated the very full-dress aspect of her attire, and considerably
flattened its former balloon-like dimensions. And there, too, Miss Brindle
(whose family have been hunted up for the occasion) makes the alarming
discovery that, in the lurch which their hack-fly had made at the cross
roads, her brother Alfred's patent boots had not only dragged off some yards
(more or less) of her flounces, but had also - to use her own mystical
language - "torn her skirt at the gathers!"

All, however, is put right as far as possible. A warm at the sanctum's fire
diminishes the purple in Miss Parkington's cheeks; and the maid, by some
hocus-pocus peculiar to her craft, again inflates Miss Waters into a balloon,
and stitches up Miss Brindle's flounces and "gathers." The ladies join their
respective gentlemen, who have been cooling their toes and uttering warm
anathemas in the hall; and the party sail, arm-in-arm, into the drawing-
room, and forthwith fall to lively remarks on that neutral ground of
conversation, the weather.

Mr. Verdant Green is there, dressed with elaborate magnificence; but he
continues in a state of listless apathy, and is indifferent to the "lively" rattle
of the balloon-like Miss Waters, until John the footman (who is suffering
from influenza) rouses him into animation by the magic talisman "Bister,
Bissis, an' the Biss "Oneywoods;" when he beams through his spectacles in
the most benign and satisfied manner.

The Misses Honeywood are as blooming as usual: the cold air, instead of
spoiling their good looks, has but improved their healthy style of beauty;
and they smile, laugh, and talk in a perfectly easy, unaffected, and natural
manner. Mr. Verdant Green at once makes his way to Miss Patty
Honeywood's side, and, gracefully standing beside her, coffee-cup in hand,
plunges headlong into the depths of a tangled conversation.

Meanwhile, the drawing-room of the Manor Green becomes filled in a way
that has not been seen for many a long year; and the intelligent Mr. Mole,
the gardener (who has been impressed as an odd man for the occasion, and
is served up in a pseudo-livery to make him more presentable), sees more
"genteel" people than have, for a long time, been visible to his naked eye.
The intelligent Mr. Mole, when he has afterwards been restored to the
bosom of Mrs. Mole and his family, confides to his equally intelligent
helpmate that, in his opinion, "Master has guv the party to get husbands for
the young ladies" - an opinion which, though perhaps not founded on fact
so far as it related to the party which was the subject of Mr. Mole's remark,
would doubtless be applicable to many similar parties given under
somewhat similar circumstances.

It is not improbable that the intelligent Mr. Mole may have based his
opinion on a circumstance - which, to a gentleman of his sagacity, must
have carried great weight - namely, that whenever in the course of the
evening the hall was made the promenade for the loungers and dancers, he
perceived, firstly, that Miss Green was invariably accompanied by Mr.
Charles Larkyns; secondly, that the Rev. Josiah Meek kept Miss Helen
dallying about the wine and lemonade tray much longer than was necessary
for the mere consumption of the cooling liquids; and thirdly, that Miss
Fanny, who was a pert, talkative Miss of sixteen, was continually to be
found there with either Mr. Henry Bouncer or Mr. Alfred Brindle dancing
attendance upon her. But, be this as it may, the intelligent Mr. Mole was
impressed with the conviction that Mr. Green had called his young friends
together as to a matrimonial auction, and that his daughters were to be put
up without reserve, and knocked down to the highest bidder.

All the party have arrived. The weather has been talked over for the last
time (for the present); a harp, violin, and a cornet-a-piston from the county
town, influenced by the spirit of gin-and-water, are heard discoursing most
eloquent music in the dining-room, which has been cleared out for the
dance. Miss Patty Honeywood, accepting the offer of Mr. Verdant Green's
arm, swims joyously out of the room; other ladies and gentlemen pair, and
follow: the ball is opened.

A polka follows the quadrille; and, while the dancers rest awhile from their
exertions, or crowd around the piano in the drawing-room to hear the
balloon-like Miss Waters play a firework piece of music, in which
execution takes the place of melody, and chromatic scales are discharged
from her fingers like showers of rockets, Mr. Verdant Green mysteriously
weeds out certain members of the party, and vanishes with them up-stairs.

When Miss Waters has discharged all her fireworks, and has descended
from the throne of her music-stool, a set of Lancers is formed; and, while
the usual mistakes are being made in the figures, the dancers find a fruitful
subject of conversation in surmises that a charade is going to be acted. The
surmise proves to be correct; for when the set has been brought to an end
with that peculiar in-and-out tum-tum-tiddle-iddle-tum-tum-tum movement
which characterizes the last figure of Les Lanciers, the trippers on the light
fantastic toe are requested to assemble in the drawing-room, where the
chairs and couches have been pulled up to face the folding doors that lead
into the library. Mr. Verdant Green appears; and, after announcing that the
word to be acted will be one of three syllables, and that each syllable will
be represented by itself, and that then the complete word will be given,
throws open the folding doors for

SCENE I. Syllable 1. - Enter the Miss Honeywoods, dressed in fashionable
bonnets and shawls. They are shown in by a footman (Mr. Bouncer) attired
in a peculiarly ingenious and effective livery, made by pulling up the
trousers to the knee, and wearing the dress-coat inside out, so as to display
the crimson silk linings of the sleeves: the effect of Mr. Bouncer's
appearance is considerably heightened by a judicious outlay of flour
sprinkled over his hair. Mr. Bouncer (as footman) gives the ladies chairs,
and inquires, "What name shall I be pleased to say, mem?" Miss Patty
answers in a languid and fashionable voice, "The Ladies Louisa and
Arabella Mountfidget." Mr. Bouncer evaporates with a low bow, leaving the
ladies to play with their parasols, and converse. Lady Arabella (Miss Patty)
then expresses a devout wish that Lady Trotter (wife of Sir Lambkin
Trotter, Bart.), in whose house they are supposed to be, will not keep them
waiting as long as she detained her aunt, Lady Bellwether, when the poor
old lady fell asleep from sheer fatigue, and was found snoring on the sofa.
Lady Louisa then falls to an inspection of the card-tray, and reads the paste-
boards of some high-sounding titles not to be found in Debrett, and
expresses wonder as to where Lady Trotter can have picked up the Duchess

of Ditchwater's card, as she (Lady Louisa) is morally convinced that her
Grace can never have condescended to have even sent in her card by a
footman. Becoming impatient at the non-appearance of Lady Trotter, Miss
Patty Honeywood then rings the bell, and, with much asperity of manner,
inquires of Mr. Bouncer (as footman) if Lady Trotter is informed that the
Ladies Louisa and Arabella Mountfidget are waiting to see her? Mr.
Bouncer replies, with a footman's bow, and a footman's hexasperation of his
h's, "Me lady is haweer hof your ladyships' visit; but me lady is at present
hunable to happear: me lady, 'owever, has give me a message, which she
hasks me to deliver to your ladyships." Then why don't you deliver it at
once," says Miss Patty, "and not waste the valuable time of the Ladies
Louisa and Arabella Mountfidget? What is the message?" "Me lady," replies
Mr. Bouncer, "requests me to present her compliments to your ladyships,
and begs me to hinform you that me lady is a cleaning of herself!" Amid
great laughter from the audience, the Ladies Mountfidget toss their heads
and flutter grandly out of the room, followed by the floured footman; while
Mr. Verdant Green, unseen by those in front, pushes-to the folding doors, to
show that the first syllable is performed.

Praises of the acting, and guesses at the word, agreeably fill up the time till
the next scene. The Rev.d Josiah Meek, who is not much used to charades,
confides to Miss Helen Green that he surmises the word to be, either
"visitor" or "impudence;" but, as the only ground to this surmise rests on
these two words being words of three syllables, Miss Helen gently repels
the idea, and sagely observes, "we shall see more in the next scene."

SCENE II. Syllable 2. - The folding-doors open, and discover Mr. Verdant
Green, as a sick gentleman, lying on a sofa, in a dressing-gown, with
pillows under his head, and Miss Patty Honeywood in attendance upon him.
A table, covered with glasses and medicine bottles, is drawn up to the
sufferer's couch in an inviting manner. Miss Patty informs the sufferer that
the time is come for him to take his draught. The sufferer groans in a dismal
manner, and says, "Oh! is it, my dear?" She replies, "Yes! you must take it
now;" and sternly pours some sherry wine out of the medicine bottle into a
cup. The sufferer makes piteous faces, and exclaims, "It is so nasty, I can't
take it, my love!" (It is to be observed that Mr. Verdant Green, skilfully
taking advantage of the circumstance that Miss Patty Honeywood is

supposed to represent the wife of the sufferer, plentifully besprinkles his
conversation with endearing epithets.) When, after much persuasion and
groaning, the sufferer has been induced to take his medicine, his spouse
announces the arrival of the doctor; when, enter Mr. Bouncer, still floured
as to his head, but wearing spectacles, a long black coat, and a shirt-frill,
and having his dress otherwise altered so as to represent a medical man of
the old school. The doctor asks what sort of a night his patient has had,
inspects his

tongue with professional gravity, feels his pulse, looks at his watch, and
mysteriously shakes his head. He then commences thrusting and poking Mr.
Verdant Green in various parts of his body, - after the manner of doctors
with their victims, and farmers with their beasts, - inquiring between each
poke, "Does that hurt you?" and being answered by a convulsive "Oh!" and
a groan of agony. The doctor then prescribes a draught to be taken every
half-hour, with the pills and blister at bed-time; and, after covering his two
fellow-actors with confusion, by observing that he leaves his patient in
admirable hands, and, that in an affection of the heart, the application of lip-

salve and warm treatment will give a decided tone to the system, and
produce soothing and grateful emotions - takes his leave; and the folding-
doors are closed on the blushes of Miss Patty Honeywood, and Mr. Verdant
Green.

More applause: more agreeable conversation: more ingenious speculations.
The Revd. Josiah Meek is now of opinion that the word is either "medicine"
or "suffering." Miss Helen still sagely observes, "we shall see more in the
next scene."

SCENE III. Syllable 3. - Mr. Verdant Green discovered sitting at a table
furnished with pens and ink, books, and rolls of paper. Mr. Verdant Green
wears on his head a Chelsea pensioner's cocked-hat (the "property" of the
Family, - as Mr. Footelights would have said), folded into a shovel shape;
and is supposed to accurately represent the outside of a London publisher.
To him enter Mr. Bouncer - the flour off his head - coat buttoned tightly to
the throat, no visible linen, and wearing in his face and appearance
generally, "the garb of humility." Says the publisher "Now, sir, please to
state your business, and be quick about it: I am much engaged in looking
over for the press a work of a distinguished author, which I am just about to
publish." Meekly replies the other, as he holds under his arm an immense
paper packet: "It is about a work of my own, sir, that I have now ventured to
intrude upon you. I have here, sir, a small manuscript," (producing his roll
of a book), "which I am ambitious to see given to the world through the
medium of your printing establishment." To him, the Publisher - "Already
am I inundated with manuscripts on all possible subjects, and cannot
undertake to look at any more for some time to come. What is the nature of
your manuscript?" Meekly replies the other - "The theme of my work, sir, is
a History of England before the Flood. The subject is both new and
interesting. It is to be presumed that our beloved country existed before the
Flood: if so, it must have had a history. I have therefore endeavoured to fill
up what is lacking in the annals of our land, by a record of its antediluvian
state, adapted to the meanest comprehension, and founded on the most
baseless facts. I am desirous, sir, to see myself in print. I should like my
work, sir, to appear in large letters; in very large letters, sir. Indeed, sir, it
would give me joy, if you would condescend to print it altogether in capital
letters: my magnum opus might then be called with truth, a capital work."

To him, the Publisher - "Much certainly depends on the character of the
printing." Meekly the author - "Indeed, sir, it does. A great book, sir, should
be printed in great letters. If you will permit me, I will show you the size of
the letters in which I should wish my book to be printed." Mr. Bouncer then
points out in some books on the table, the printing he most admires; and,
beseeching the Publisher to read over his manuscript, and think favourably
of his History of England before the Flood, makes his bow to Mr. Verdant
Green and the Chelsea pensioner's cocked hat.

More applause, and speculations. The Revd. Josiah Meek confident that he
has discovered the word. It must be either "publisher" or "authorship." Miss
Helen still sage.

SCENE IV. The Word. - Miss Bouncer discovered with her camera,
arranging her photographic chemicals. She soliloquizes: "There! now, all is
ready for my sitter." She calls the footman (Mr. Verdant Green), and says,
"John, you may show the Lady Fitz-Canute upstairs." The footman shows
in Miss Honeywood, dressed in an antiquated bonnet and mantle, waving a
huge fan. John gives her a chair, into which she drops, exclaiming, "What
an insufferable toil it is to ascend to these elevated Photographic rooms;"
and makes good use of her fan. Miss Bouncer then fixes the focus of her
camera, and begs the Lady Fitz-Canute to sit perfectly still, and to call up
an agreeable smile to her face. Miss Honeywood thereupon disposes her
face in ludicrous "wreathed smiles;" and Miss Bouncer's head disappears
under the velvet hood of the camera. "I am afraid," at length says Miss
Bouncer, "I am afraid that I shall not be able to succeed in taking a likeness
of your ladyship this morning." "And why, pray?" asks her ladyship with
haughty surprise. "Because it is a gloomy day," replies the Photographer,
"and much depends upon the rays of light." "Then procure the rays of
light!" "That is more than I can do." "Indeed! I suppose if the Lady Fitz-
Canute wishes for the rays of light, and condescends to pay for the rays of
light, she can obtain the rays of light." Miss Bouncer considers this too
exigeant, and puts her sitter off by promising to complete a most fascinating
portrait of her on some more favourable day. Lady Fitz-Canute appears to
be somewhat mollified at this, and is graciously pleased to observe, "Then I
will undergo the fatigue of ascending to these elevated Photographic-rooms
at some future period. But, mind, when I next come, that you procure the

rays of light!" So she is shown out by Mr. Verdant Green, and the folding-
doors are closed amid applause, and the audience distract themselves with
guesses as to the word.

"Photograph" is a general favourite, but is found not to agree with the three
first scenes, although much ingenuity is expended in endeavouring to make
them fit the word. The Curate makes a headlong rush at the word
"Daguerreotype," and is confident that he has solved the problem, until he is
informed that it is a word of more than three syllables. Charles Larkyns has
already whispered the word to Mary Green; but they keep their discovery to
themselves. At length, the Revd. Josiah Meek, in a moment of inspiration,
hits upon the word, and proclaims it to be CALOTYPE ("Call - oh! - type;")
upon which Mr. Alfred Brindle declares to Miss Fanny Green that he had
fancied it must be that, all along, and, in fact, was just on the point of
saying it: and the actors, coming in in a body, receive the violet-crowns and
laurel-wreaths of praise as the meed of their exertions. Perhaps, the Miss
Honeywoods and Mr. Bouncer receive larger crowns than the others, but
Mr. Verdant Green gets his due share, and is fully satisfied with his first
appearance on "the boards."

Dancing then succeeds, varied by songs from the young ladies, and
discharges of chromatic fireworks from the fingers of Miss Waters, for
whom Charles Larkyns does the polite, in turning over the leaves of her
music. Then some carol-singers come to the Hall-door, and the bells of the
church proclaim, in joyful peals, the birth of the New Year; - a new year of
hopes, and joys, and cares, and griefs, and unions, and partings; - a new
year of which, who then present shall see the end? who shall be there to
welcome in its successor? who shall be absent, laid in the secret places of
the earth? Ah, who? For, even in the midst of revelry and youth, the joy-
peals of those old church bells can strike the key-note of a wail of grief.

Another charade follows, in which new actors join. Then comes a merry
supper, in which Mr. Alfred Brindle, in order to give himself courage to
appear in the next charade, takes more champagne than is good for him; in
which, too (probably, from similar champagney reasons), Miss Parkington's
unfortunately self-willed nose again assumes a more roseate hue than is
becoming to a maiden; in which, too, Mr. Verdant Green being called upon

to return thanks for "the ladies" - (toast, proposed in eloquent terms by H.
Bouncer, Esq., and drunk "with the usual honours,") - is so alarmed at
finding himself upon his legs, that his ideas altogether vanish, and in great
confusion of utterance, he observes, - "I-I-ladies and gentleman-feel-I-I-a-
feel-assure you-grattered and flattified-I mean, flattered and gratified-being
called on-return thanks-I-I-a-the ladies-give a larm to chife - I mean, charm
to life - (applause)-and-a-a-grace by their table this presence, -I mean-a-a-
(applause),-and joytened our eye-I mean, heighted our joy, to-night-
(applause),-in their name-thanks-honour." Mr. Verdant Green takes
advantage of the applause which follows these incoherent remarks, and sits
down, covered with confusion, but thankful that the struggle is over.

More dancing follows. Our hero performs prodigies in the valse a deux
temps, and twirls about until he has not a leg left to stand upon. The harp,
the violin, and the cornet-a-piston, from the county town, play mechanically
in their sleep, and can only be roused by repeated applications of gin-and-
water. Carriages are ordered round: wraps are in requisition: the mysterious
rites under the white-berried bush are stealthily repeated for the last time:
the guests depart, as it were, in a heap; the Rectory party being the last to
leave. The intelligent Mr. Mole, who has fuddled himself by an injudicious
mixture of the half-glasses of wine left on the supper-table, is exasperated
with the butler for not allowing him to assist in putting away the silver; and
declares that he (the butler) is "a hold himage," for which, he (the intelligent
Mr. M.), "don't care a button!" and, as the epithet "image" appears to
wondrously offend the butler, Mr. Mole is removed from further
consequences by his intelligent wife, who is waiting to conduct her lord and
master home.

At length, the last light is out in the Manor Green. Mr. Verdant Green is
lying uncomfortably upon his back, and is waltzing through Dreamland
with the blooming Patty Honeywood.

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CHAPTER X.

MR. VERDANT GREEN ENJOYS A REAL CIGAR.

THE Christmas vacation passed rapidly away; the Honeywood family
returned to the far north; and, once more, Mr. Verdant Green found himself
within the walls of Brazenface. He and Mr. Bouncer had together gone up
to Oxford, leaving Charles Larkyns behind to keep a grace-term.

Charles Larkyns had determined to take a good degree. For some time past,
he had been reading steadily; and, though only a few hours in each day may
be given to books - yet, when that is done, with regularity and painstaking,
a real and sensible progress is made. He knew that he had good abilities,
and he had determined not to let them remain idle any longer, but to make
that use of them for which they were given to him. His examination would
come on during the next term; and he hoped to turn the interval to good
account, and be able in the end to take a respectable degree. He was
destined for the Bar; and, as he had no wish to be a briefless Barrister, he
knew that college honours would be of great advantage to him in his after
career. He, at once, therefore, set bodily to work to read up his subjects;
while his father assisted him in his labours, and Mary Green smiled a kind
approval.

Meanwhile, his friends, Mr. Verdant Green and Mr. Henry Bouncer, were
enjoying Oxford life, and disporting themselves among the crowd of skaters
in the Christ Church meadows. And a very different scene did the meadows
present to the time when they had last skimmed over its surface. Then, the
green fields were covered with Sailing-boats, out-riggers, and punts, and
Mr. Verdant Green had nearly come to an untimely end in the waters. But
now the scene was changed! Jack Frost had stepped in, and had seized the
flood in his frozen fingers, and had bound it up in an icy breast-plate.

And a capital place did the meadows make for any Undergraduate who was
either a professed skater, or whose skating education (as in the case of our
hero) had been altogether neglected. For the water was only of a moderate
depth; so that, in the event of the ice giving way, there was nothing to fear
beyond a slight and partial ducking. This was especially fortunate for Mr.

Verdant Green, who, after having experienced total submersion and a
narrow escape from drowning on that very spot, would never have been
induced to again commit himself to the surface of the deep, had he not been
fully convinced that the deep had now subsided into a shallow. With his
breast fortified by this resolution, he therefore fell a victim to the syren
tongue of Mr. Bouncer, when that gentleman observed to him with sincere
feeling, "Giglamps, old fellow! it would be a beastly shame, when there's
such jolly ice, if you did not learn to skate; especially, as I can show you the
trick."

For, Mr. Bouncer was not only skilful with his hands and arms, but could
also perform feats with his feet. He could not only dance quadrilles in dress
boots in a ball-room, but he could also go through the figures on the ice in a
pair of skates. He could do the outside edge at a more acute angle than the
generality of people; he could cut figures of eight that were worthy of
Cocker himself, he could display spread-eagles that would have astonished
the Fellows of the Zoological Society. He could skim over the thinnest ice
in the most don't-care way; and, when at full speed, would stoop to pick up
a stone. He would take a hop-skip-and-a-jump; and would vault over
walking-sticks, as easily as if he were on dry land, - an accomplishment
which he had learnt of the Count Doembrownski, a Russian gentleman,
who, in his own country, lived chiefly on skates, and, in this country, on
pigeons, and whose short residence in Oxford was suddenly brought to a
full stop by the arbitrary power of the Vice-Chancellor. So, Mr. Verdant
Green was persuaded to purchase, and put on a pair of skates, and to make
his first appearance as a skater in the Christ Church meadows, under the
auspices of Mr. Bouncer.

The sensation of first finding yourself in a pair of skates is peculiar. It is not
unlike the sensation which must have been felt by the young bear, when he
was dropped from his mamma's mouth, and, for the first time, told to walk.
The poor little bear felt, that it was all very well to say "walk,"- but how
was he to do it? Was he to walk with his right fore-leg only? or, with his left
fore-leg? or, with both his fore-legs? or, was he to walk with his right hind-
leg? or, with his left hind-leg? or, with both his hind-legs? or, was he to
make a combination of hind and fore-legs, and walk with all four at once?

or, what was he to do? So he tried each of these ways; and they all failed.
Poor little bear!

Mr. Verdant Green felt very much in the little bear's condition. He was
undecided whether to skate with his right leg, or with his left leg, or with
both his legs. He tried his right leg, and immediately it glided off at right
angles with his body, while his left leg performed a similar and spontaneous
movement in the contrary direction. Having captured his left leg, he put it
cautiously forwards, and immediately it twisted under him, while his right
leg amused itself by describing an altogether unnecessary circle. Obtaining
a brief mastery over both legs, he put them forwards at the same moment,
and they fled from beneath him, and he was flung - bump!- on his back.
Poor little bear!

But, if it is hard to make a start in a pair of skates

when you are in a perpendicular position, how much is the difficulty
increased when your position has become a horizontal one! You raise
yourself on your knees, - you assist yourself with your hands, - and, no
sooner have you got one leg right, than away slides the other, and down you
go. It is like the movement in that scene with the pair of short stilts, in

which the French clowns are so amusing, and it is almost as difficult to
perform. Mr. Verdant Green soon found that though he might be ambitious
to excel in the polite accomplishment of skating, yet that his ambition was
destined to meet with many a fall. But he persevered, and perseverance will
achieve wonders, especially when aided by the tuition of such an
indefatigable gentleman as Mr. Bouncer.

"You get on stunningly, Giglamps," said the little gentleman, "and hav'nt
been on your beam ends more than once a minute. But I should advise you,
old fellow, to get your sit-upons seated with wash-leather, - just like the
eleventh hussars do with their cherry-coloured pants. It'll come cheaper in
the end, and may be productive of comfort. And now, after all these exciting
ups and downs, let us go and have a quiet hand at billiards." So the two
friends strolled up the High, where they saw two Queensmen "confessing
their shame," as Mr. Bouncer phrased it, by standing under the gateway of
their college; and went on to Bickerton's, where they found all the tables
occupied, and Jonathan playing a match with Mr. Fluke of Christ Church.
So, after watching the celebrated marker long enough to inspire them with a
desire to accomplish similar feats of dexterity, they continued their walk to
Broad Street, and, turning up a yard opposite to the Clarendon, found that
Betteris had an upstair room at liberty. Here they accomplished several
pleasing mathematical problems with the balls, and contributed their
modicum towards the smoking of the ceiling of the room.

Since Mr. Verdant Green had acquired the art of getting through a cigar
without making himself ill, he had looked upon himself as a genuine
smoker; and had, from time to time, bragged of his powers as regarded the
fumigation of "the herb Nicotiana, commonly called tobacco," (as the
Oxford statute tersely says).

This was an amiable weakness on his part that had not escaped the
observant eye of Mr. Bouncer, who had frequently taken occasion, in the
presence of his friends, to defer to Mr. Verdant Green's judgment in the
matter of cigars. The train of adulation being thus laid, an opportunity was
only needed to fire it. It soon came.

"Once upon a time," as the story-books say, it chanced that Mr. Bouncer
was consuming his minutes and cigars at his tobacconist's, when his eye
lighted for the thousandth time on the roll of cabbage-leaves, brown paper,
and refuse tobacco, which being done up into the form of a monster cigar (a
foot long, and of proportionate thickness), was hung in the shop window,
and did duty as a truthful token of the commodity vended within. Mr.
Bouncer had looked at this implement nine hundred and ninety-nine times,
without its suggesting anything else to his mind, than its being of the same
class of art as the monster mis-representations outside wild-beast shows;
but he now gazed upon it with new sensations. In short, Mr. Bouncer took
such a fancy to the thing, that he purchased it, and took it off to his rooms, -
though he did not mention this fact to his friend, Mr. Verdant Green, when
he saw him soon afterwards, and spoke to him of his excellent judgment in
tobacco.

"A taste for smoke comes natural, Giglamps!" said Mr. Bouncer. "It's what
you call a nascitur non fit; and, if you haven't the gift, why you can't
purchase it. Now, you're a judge of smoke; it's a gift with you, don't you
see; and you could no more help knowing a good weed from a bad one,
than you could help waggling your tail if you were a baa-lamb."

Mr. Verdant Green bowed, and blushed, in acknowledgment of this
delightful flattery.

"Now, there's old Footelights, you know; he's got an uncle, who's a
governor, or some great swell, out in Barbadoes. Well, every now and then
the old trump sends Footelights no end of a box of weeds; not common
ones, you understand, but regular tip-toppers; but they're quite thrown away
on poor Footelights, who'd think as much of cabbage-leaves as he would of
real Havannahs, so he's always obliged to ask somebody else's opinion
about them. Well, he's got a sample of a weed of a most terrific kind: -
Magnifico Pomposo is the name; - no end uncommon, and at least a foot
long. We don't meet with 'em in England because they're too expensive to
import. Well, it would'nt do to throw away such a weed as this on any one;
so, Footelights wants to have the opinion of a man who's really a judge of
what a good weed is. I refused, because my taste has been rather out of
order lately; and Billy Blades is in training for Henley, so he's obliged to

decline; so I told him of you, Giglamps, and said, that if there was a man in
Brazenface that could tell him what his Magnifico Pomposo was worth, that
man was Verdant Green. Don't blush, old feller! you can't help having a fine
judgment, you know; so don't be ashamed of it. Now, you must wine with
me this evening; Footelights and some more men are coming; and we're all
anxious to hear your opinion about these new weeds, because, if it's
favourable we can club together, and import a box." Mr. Bouncer's victim,
being perfectly unconscious of the trap laid for him, promised to come to
the wine, and give his opinion on this weed of fabled size and merit.

When the evening and company had come, he was rather staggered at
beholding the dimensions of the pseudo-cigar; but, rashly judging that to
express surprise would be to betray ignorance, Mr. Verdant Green inspected
the formidable monster with the air of a connoisseur, and smelt, pinched,
and rolled his tongue round it, after the manner of the best critics. If this
was a diverting spectacle to the assembled guests of Mr. Bouncer, how must
the humour of the scene have been increased, when our hero, with great
difficulty, lighted the cigar, and, with still greater difficulty, held it in his
mouth, and endeavoured to smoke it! As Mr. Foote afterwards observed, "it
was a situation for a screaming farce."

"It doesn't draw well!" faltered the victim, as the bundle of rubbish went out
for the fourth time.

"Why, that's always the case with the Barbadoes baccy!" said Mr. Bouncer;
"it takes a long pull, and a strong pull, and a pull all together to get it to
make a start; but when once it does go, it goes beautiful - like a house a-
fire. But you can't expect it to be like a common threepenny weed. Here! let
me light him for you, Giglamps; I'll give the beggar a dig in his ribs, as a
gentle persuader." Mr. Bouncer thereupon poked his pen-knife through the
rubbish, and after a time induced it to "draw"; and Mr. Verdant Green pulled
at it furiously, and made his eyes water with the unusual cloud of smoke
that he raised.

"And now, what d'ye think of it, my beauty?" inquired Mr. Bouncer. "It's
something out of the common, ain't it?"

"It has a beautiful ash!" observed Mr. Smalls.

"And diffuses an aroma that makes me long to defy the trainer, and smoke
one like it!" said Mr. Blades.

"So pray give me your reading - at least, your opinion, - on my Magnifico
Pomposo!" asked Mr. Foote.

"Well, answered Mr. Verdant Green, slowly - turning very pale as he spoke,
- "at first, I thought it was be-yew-tiful; but, altogether, I think-that-the
Barbadoes tobacco-doesn't quite-agree with-my stom-" the speaker abruptly
concluded, by dropping the cigar, putting his handkerchief to his mouth,
and rushing into Mr. Bouncer's bed-room. The Magnifico Pomposo had
been too much for him, and had produced sensations accurately interpreted
by Mr. Bouncer, who forthwith represented in expressive pantomime, the
actions of a distressed voyager, when he feebly murmurs "Steward!"

To atone for the "chaffing" which he had been the means of inflicting on his
friend, the little gentleman, a few days afterwards, proposed to take our
hero to the Chipping Norton Steeple-chase, - Mr. Smalls and Mr. Fosbrooke
making up the quartet for a tandem. It was on their return from the races,
that, after having stopped at The Bear at Woodstock, "to wash out the
horses' mouths," and having done this so effectually that the horses had
appeared to have no mouths left, and had refused to answer the reins, and
had smashed the cart against a house, which had seemed to have danced
into the middle of the road for their diversion, - and, after having put back
to The Bear, and prevailed upon that animal to lend them a nondescript
vehicle of the "pre-adamite buggy" species, described by Sidney Smith, -
that, much time having been consumed by the progress of this chapter of
accidents, they did not reach Peyman's Gate until a late hour; and Mr.
Verdant Green found that he was once more in difficulties. For they had no
sooner got through the gate, than the wild octaves from Mr. Bouncer's post-
horn were suddenly brought to a full stop, and Mr. Fosbrooke, who was the
"waggoner," was brought to Woh! and was compelled to pull up in
obedience to the command of the proctor, who, as on a previous occasion,
suddenly appeared from behind the toll-house, in company with his marshal
and bull-dogs.

The Sentence pronounced on our hero the next day, was, "Sir! - You will
translate all your lectures; have your name crossed on the buttery and
kitchen books; and be confined to chapel, hall, and college."

This sentence was chiefly annoying, inasmuch as it somewhat interfered
with the duties and pleasures attendant upon his boating practice. For,
wonderful to relate, Mr. Verdant Green had so much improved in the
science, that he was now "Number 3" of his college "Torpid," and was in
hard training. The Torpid races commenced on March 10th, and were
continued on the following days. Our hero sent his father a copy of
Tintinnabulum's Life, which - after informing the Manor Green family that
"the boats took up positions in the following order: "Brazenose, Exeter I,
Wadham, Balliol, St. John's, Pembroke, University, Oriel, Brazenface,
Christ Church I, Worcester, Jesus, Queen's, Christ Church 2, Exeter 2" -
proceeded to enter into particulars of each day's sport, of which it is only
necessary to record such as gave interest to our hero's family.

"First day*** Brazenface refused to acknowledge the bump by Christ
Church (I) before they came to the Cherwell. There is very little doubt but
that they were bumped at the Gut and the Willows...

"Second day*** Brazenface rowed pluckily away from Worcester...

"Third day*** A splendid race between Brazenface and Worcester; and, at
the flag, the latter were within a foot; they did not, however, succeed in
bumping. The cheering from the Brazenface barge was vociferous...

"Fourth day*** Worcester was more fortunate, and succeeded in making
the bump at the Cherwell, in consequence of No. 3 of the Brazenface boat
fainting from fatigue."

Under "No. 3" Mr. Verdant Green had drawn a pencil line, and had written "
V.G." He shortly after related to his family the gloomy particulars of the
bump, when he returned home for the Easter vacation.

Back to Contents

CHAPTER XI.

MR. VERDANT GREEN GETS THROUGH HIS SMALLS.

DESPITE the hindrance which the grande passion is supposed to bring to
the student, Charles Larkyns had made very good use of the opportunities
afforded him by the leisure of his grace-term. Indeed, as he himself
observed,

"Who hath not owned, with rapture-smitten frame,
The power of grace!"

And as he felt that the hours of his grace-term had not been wasted in
idleness, but had been turned to profitable account, it is not at all unlikely
that his pleasures of hope regarding his Degree-examination, and the
position his name would occupy in the Class-list, were of a roseate hue. He,
therefore, when the Easter vacation had come to an end, returned to Oxford
in high spirits, with our hero and his friend Mr. Bouncer, who, after a brief
visit to "the Mum," had passed the remainder of the vacation at the Manor
Green. During these few holiday weeks, Charles Larkyns had acted as
private tutor to his two friends, and had, in the language of Mr. Bouncer,
"put them through their paces uncommon;" for the little gentleman was
going in for his Degree, alias Great-go, alias Greats; and our hero for his
first examination in literis humanioribus, alias Responsions, alias Little-go,
alias Smalls. Thus the friends returned to Oxford mutually benefited; but,
as the time for examination drew nearer and still nearer, the fears of Mr.
Bouncer rose in a gradation of terrors, that threatened to culminate in an
actual panic.

"You see," said the little gentleman, "the Mum's set her heart on my getting
through, and I must read like the doose. And I haven't got the head, you see,
for Latin and Greek; and that beastly Euclid altogether stumps me; and I
feel as though I should come to grief. I'm blowed," the little gentleman
would cry, earnestly and sadly, "I'm blow'd if I don't think they must have
given me too much pap when I was a babby, and softened my brains! or
else, why can't I walk into these classical parties just as easy as you,
Charley, or old Giglamps there? But I can't, you see: my brains are addled.
They say it ain't a bad thing for reading to get your head shaved. It cools
your brains, and gives full play to what you call your intellectual faculties. I

think I shall try the dodge, and get a gent's real head of hair, till after the
exam.; and then, when I've stumped the examiners, I can wear my own
luxuriant locks again."

And, as Mr. Bouncer professed, so did he; and, not many days after,
astonished his friends and the University generally by appearing in a wig of
curly black hair. It was a pleasing sight to see the little gentleman with a
scalp like a billiard ball, a pipe in his mouth, and the wig mounted on a
block, with books spread before him, endeavouring to persuade himself that
he was working up his subjects. It was still more pleasing to view him, in
moments of hilarity, divest himself of his wig, and hurl it at the scout, or
any other offensive object that appeared before him. And it was a sight not
to be forgotten by the beholders, when, after too recklessly partaking of an
indiscriminate mixture of egg-flip, sangaree, and cider-cup, he feebly threw
his wig at the spectacles of Mr. Verdant Green, and, overbalanced by the
exertion, fell back into the coal-scuttle, where he lay, bald-headed and
helpless, laughing and weeping by turns, and caressed by Huz and Buz.

But the shaving of his head was not the only feature (or, rather, loss of
feature) that distinguished Mr. Bouncer's reading for his degree. The
gentleman with the limited knowledge of the cornet-a-piston, who had the
rooms immediately beneath those of our hero and his friend, had made such
slow progress in his musical education, that he had even now scarcely got
into his "Cottage near a Wood." This gentleman was Mr. Bouncer's
Frankenstein. He was always rising up when he was not wanted. When Mr.
Bouncer felt as if he could read, and sat down to his books, wigless and
determined, the doleful legend of the cottage near a wood was forced upon
him in an unpleasingly obtrusive and distracting manner. It was in vain that
Mr. Bouncer sounded his octaves in all their discordant variations; the
gentleman had no ear, and was not to be put out of his cottage on any terms:
Mr. Bouncer's notices of ejectment were always disregarded. He had hoped
that the ears of Mr. Slowcoach (whose rooms were in the angle of the Quad)
would have been pierced by the noise, and that he would have put a stop to
the nuisance; but, either from its being too customary a custom, or that the
ears of Mr. Slowcoach had grown callous, the nuisance was suffered to
continue unreproved.

Mr. Bouncer resolved, therefore, on some desperate method of calling
attention to one nuisance, by creating another of a louder description; and,
as his octaves appeared to fail in this, - notwithstanding the energy and
annoying ability that he threw into them, - he conceived the idea of setting
up a drum! The plan was no sooner thought of than carried out. He met with
an instrument sufficiently large and formidable for his purpose, - hired it,
and had it stealthily conveyed into college (like another Falstaff) in a linen
"buck-basket." He waited his opportunity; and, the next time that the
gentleman in the rooms beneath took his cornet to his cottage near a wood,
Mr. Bouncer, stationed on the landing above, played a thundering
accompaniment on his big drum.

The echoes from the tightened parchment rolled round the Quad, and
brought to the spot a rush of curious and excited undergraduates. Mr.
Bouncer, - after taking off his wig in honour of the air, - then treated them
to the National Anthem, arranged as a drum solo for two sticks, the chorus
being sustained by the voices of those present; when in the midst of the
entertainment, the reproachful features of Mr. Slowcoach appeared upon the
scene. Sternly the tutor demanded the reason of the strange hubbub; and
was answered by Mr. Bouncer, that, as one gentleman was allowed to play
his favourite instrument whenever he chose, for his own but no one else's
gratification, he could not see why he (Mr. Bouncer) might not also,
whenever he pleased, play for his own gratification his favourite instrument
- the big drum. This specious excuse, although logical, was not altogether
satisfactory to Mr. Slowcoach; and, with some asperity, he ordered Mr.
Bouncer never again to indulge in, what he termed (in reference probably to
the little gentleman's bald head), "such an indecent exhibition." But, as he
further ordered that the cornet-a-piston gentleman was to instrumentally
enter into his cottage near a wood, only at stated hours in the afternoon, Mr.
Bouncer had gained his point in putting a stop to the nuisance so far as it
interfered with his reading; and, thenceforth, he might be seen on brief
occasions persuading himself that he was furiously reading and getting up

his subjects by the aid of those royal roads to knowledge, variously known
as cribs, crams, plugs, abstracts, analyses, or epitomes.

But, besides the assistance thus afforded to him out of the schools, Mr.
Bouncer, like many others, idle as well as ignorant, intended to assist
himself when in the schools by any contrivance that his ingenuity could
suggest, or his audacity carry out.

"It's quite fair," was the little gentleman's argument, "to do the examiners in
any way that you can, as long as you only go in for a pass. Of course, if you
were going in for a class, or a scholarship, or anything of that sort, it would
be no end mean and dirty to crib; and the gent that did it ought to be kicked
out of the society of gentlemen. But when you only go in for a pass, and
ain't doing any one any harm by a little bit of cribbing, but choose to run the
risk to save yourself the bother of being ploughed, why then, I think, a
feller's bound to do what he can for himself. And, you see, in my case,
Giglamps, there's the Mum to be considered; she'd cut up doosid, if I didn't
get through; so I must crib a bit, if it's only for her sake."

But although the little gentleman thus made filial tenderness the excuse for
his deceit, and the salve for his conscience, yet he could neither persuade
Mr. Verdant Green to follow his example, nor to be a convert to his
opinions; nor would he be persuaded by our hero to relinquish his designs.

"Why, look here, Giglamps!" Mr. Bouncer would say; "how can I relinquish
them, after having had all this trouble? I'll put you up to a few of my dodges
- free, gratis, for nothing. In the first place, Giglamps, you see here's a small
circular bit of paper, covered with Peloponnesian and Punic wars, and no
end of dates, - written small and short, you see, but quite legible, - with the
chief things done in red ink. Well, this gentleman goes in the front of my
watch, under the glass; and, when I get stumped for a date, out comes the
watch; - I look at the time of day - you understand, and down goes the date.
Here's another dodge!" added the little gentleman - who might well have
been called "the Artful Dodger" - as he produced a shirt from a drawer.
"Look here, at the wristbands! Here are all the Kings of Israel and Judah,
with their dates and prophets, written down in India-ink, so as to wash out
again. You twitch up the cuff of your coat, quite accidentally, and then you
book your king. You see, Giglamps, I don't like to trust, as some fellows do,

to having what you want, written down small and shoved into a quill, and
passed to you by some man sitting in the schools; that's dangerous, don't
you see. And I don't like to hold cards in my hand; I've improved on that,
and invented a first-rate dodge of my own, that I intend to take out a patent
for. Like all truly great inventions, it's no end simple. In the first place, look
straight afore you, my little dear, and you will see this pack of cards, - all
made of a size, nice to hold in the palm of your hand; they're about all sorts
of rum things, - everything that I want. And you see that each beggar's got a
hole drilled in him. And you see, here's a longish string with a little bit of
hooked wire at the end, made so that I can easily hang the card on it. Well, I
pass the string up my coat sleeve, and down under my waistcoat; and here,
you see, I've got the wire end in the palm of my hand. Then, I slip out the
card I want, and hook it on to the wire, so that I can have it just before me
as I write.

Then, if any of the examiners look suspicious, or if one of them comes
round to spy, I just pull the bit of string that hangs under the bottom of my
waistcoat, and away flies the card up my coat sleeve; and when the
examiner comes round, he sees that my hand's never moved, and that there's
nothing in it! So he walks off satisfied; and then I shake the little beggar out
of my sleeve again, and the same game goes on as before. And when the
string's tight, even straightening your body is quite sufficient to hoist the
card into your sleeve, without moving either of your hands. I've got an

Examination-coat made on purpose, with a heap of pockets, in which I can
stow my cards in regular order. These three pockets," said Mr. Bouncer, as
he produced the coat, "are entirely for Euclid. Here's each problem written
right out on a card; they're laid regularly in order, and I turn them over in
my pocket, till I get hold of the one I want, and then I take it out, and work
it. So you see, Giglamps, I'm safe to get through! - it's impossible for them
to plough me, with all these contrivances. That's a consolation for a cove in
distress, ain't it, old feller?"

Both our hero and Charles Larkyns endeavoured to persuade Mr. Bouncer
that his conduct would, at the very least, be foolhardy, and that he had much
better throw his pack of cards into the fire, wash the Kings of Israel and
Judah off his shirt, destroy his strings and hooked wires, and keep his
Examination-coat for a shooting one. But all their arguments were in vain,
and the infatuated little gentleman, like a deaf adder, shut his ears at the
voice of the charmer.

What between the Cowley cricketings, and the Isis boatings, Mr. Verdant
Green only read by spasmodic fits; but, as he was very fairly up in his
subjects - thanks to Charles Larkyns and the Rector - and as the Little-go
was not such a very formidable affair, or demanded a scholar of first-rate
calibre, the only terrors that the examination could bring him were those
which were begotten of nervousness. At length the lists were out; and our
hero read among the names of candidates, that of

"GREEN, Verdant, e Coll. AEn. Fac."

There is a peculiar sensation on first seeing your name in print. Instances
are on record where people have taken a world of trouble merely that they
may have the pleasure of perusing their names "among the fashionables
present" at the Countess of So-and-so's evening-reception; and cases are not
wanting where young ladies and gentlemen have expended no small amount
of pocket-money in purchasing copies of The Times (no reduction, too,
being made on taking a quantity!) in order that their sympathizing friends
might have the pride of seeing their names as coming out at drawing-rooms
and levees. When a young M.P. has stammered out his coup-d'essai in the
House, he views, with mingled emotions, his name given to the world, for
the first time, in capital letters. When young authors and artists first see

their names in print, is it not a pleasure to them? When Ensign Dash sees
himself gazetted, does he not look on his name with a peculiar sensation,
and forthwith send an impression of the paper to Master Jones, who was
flogged with him last week for stealing apples? When Mr. Smith is called to
the Bar, and Mr. Robinson can dub himself M.R.C.S., do they not behold
their names in print with feelings of rapture? And when Miss Brown has
been to her first ball, does she not anxiously await the coming of the next
county newspaper, in order to have the happiness of reading her name
there?

But, different to these are the sensations that attend the seeing your name
first in print in a College examination-list. They are, probably, somewhat
similar to the sensations you would feel on seeing your name in a death-
warrant. Your blood runs hot, then cold, then hot again; your pulse goes at
fever pace; the throbbing arteries of your brow almost jerk your cap off.
You know that the worst is come, - that the law of the Dons, which altereth
not, has fixed your name there, and that there is no escape. The courage of
despair then takes possession of your soul, and nerves you for the worst.
You join the crowd of nervous fellow-sufferers who are thronging round the
buttery-door to examine the list, and you begin with them calmly to parcel
out the names by sixes and eights, and then to arrive at an opinion when
your day of execution will be. If your name comes at the head of the list,
you wish that you were "YOUNG, Carolus, e Coll. Vigorn." that you might
have a reprieve of your sentence. If your name is at the end of the list, you
wish that you were "ADAMS, Edvardus Jacobus, e Coll. Univ." that you
might go in at once, and be put out of your misery. If your name is in the
middle of the list, you wish that it were elsewhere: and then you wish that it
were out of the list altogether.

Through these varying shades of emotion did Mr. Verdant Green pass, until
at length they were all lost in the deeper gloom of actual entrance into the
schools. When once there, his fright soon passed away. Reassured by the
kindly voice of the examiner, telling him to read over his Greek before
construing it, our hero recovered his equanimity, and got through his viva
voce with flying colours; and, on glancing over his paper-work, soon saw
that the questions were within his scope, and that he could answer most of
them. Without hazarding his success by making "bad shots," he contented
himself by answering those questions only on which he felt sure; and, when
his examination was over, he left the schools with a pretty safe conviction
that he was safe, "and was well through his smalls."

He could not but help, however, feeling some anxiety on the subject, until
he was relieved from all further fears, by the arrival of Messrs. Fosbrooke,
Smalls, and Blades, with a slip of paper (not unlike those which Mr. Levi,
the sheriff's officer, makes use of), on which was written and printed as
follows:-

"GREEN, VERDANT, E COLL. AEN. FAC.
Quaestionibus Magistrorum Scholarum in Parviso pro forma respondit.
{GULIELMUS SMITH

Ita testamur {
{ROBERTUS JONES

Junii 7, 18--."

Alas for Mr. Bouncer! Though he had put in practice all the ingenious plans
which were without a doubt to ensure his success; and though he had
worked his cribs with consummate coolness, and had not been discovered;
yet, nevertheless, his friends came to him empty-handed. The infatuated
little gentleman had either trusted too much to his own astuteness, or else he
had over-reached himself, and had used his card-knowledge in wrong
places; or, perhaps, the examiners may have suspected his deeds from the
nature of his papers, and may have refused to pass him. But whatever might
be the cause, the little gentleman had to defer taking his degree for some
months at least. In a word - and a dreadful word it is to all undergraduates -
Mr. Bouncer was PLUCKED! He bore his unexpected reverse of fortune
very philosophically, and professed to regret it only for "the Mum's" sake;
but he seemed to feel that the Dons of his college would look shy upon him,
and he expressed his opinion that it would be better for him to migrate to
the Tavern. [36]

---
[36] A name given to New Inn Hall, not only from its title, "New Inn," but
also because the buttery is open all day, and the members of the Hall can
call for what they please at any hour, the same as in a tavern.
-=-

But, while Mr. Bouncer was thus deservedly punished for his idleness and
duplicity, Charles Larkyns was rewarded for all his toil. He did even better
than he had expected: for, not only did his name appear in the second class,
but the following extra news concerning him was published in the daily
papers, under the very appropriate heading of "University Intelligence."

"OXFORD, June 9. -The Chancellor's prizes have been awarded as
follows:-