Sinister Street Volume Ii Part 34

The attainment of discretion was celebrated in what might almost have been hailed as a debauch of youthfulness. Forty Good Eggs drank forty-eight bottles of Perrier Jouet '93. They drank indeed the last four dozen gages of that superb summer stored in the J.C.R., the last four dozen lachrymatories of the 1893 sun, nor could it be said that vintage of Champagne had funeral games unworthy of its foam and fire.

Forty Good Eggs went swinging out of the Clarendon about half-past nine o'clock, making almost more noise than even the Corn had ever heard.

Forty Good Eggs went swinging along toward Carfax, swinging and singing, temporarily deified by the last four dozen of Perrier Jouet '93. Riotous feats were performed all down the High. Two trams were unhorsed. Hansoms were raced. Bells were rung. Forty Good Eggs, gloriously, ravishingly drunk, surged into the lodge. There was just time to see old Venner. In the quiet office was pandemonium. Good Eggs were dancing hornpipes; Good Eggs were steadying themselves with cognac; Good Eggs were gently herded out of the little office as ten o'clock chimed. "Bonner! Bonner!"

the forty Good Eggs shouted, and off they went not to St. Cuthbert's, but actually to the great lawn in front of New Quad. Third-year men when they did come into college roaring drunk took no half-measures of celebration. Excited freshmen and second-year men came swarming out of Cloisters, out of Parsons' Quad, out of Cuther's to support these wild seniors. What a bonfire it was! Thirty-one chairs, three tables, two doors, twelve lavatory seats, every bundle of f.a.ggots in college and George Appleby's bed. Somebody had brought Roman candles. O exquisite blue and emerald stars! Somebody else had brought Chinese crackers as big as red chimneys. O sublime din! Lonsdale was on the roof of Cloisters trying to kill a gargoyle with hurtling syphons. Michael was tossing up all by himself to decide whether he should tell the Senior Tutor or the Warden what he really thought of him. A fat welterweight, a straggler from New College, had been shorn of his coat-tails, and was plunging about like an overgrown Eton boy. With crimson faces and ruffled hair and scorched shirt-fronts the guests of the Twenty-firster acclaimed to-night as the finest tribute ever paid to years of discretion.

Next morning the three hosts paid ten guineas each to the Dean.

"I thought you people were supposed to have come of age," he said sardonically.

So incomparably slight was the hang-over from Perrier Jouet '93 that Grainger, Lonsdale, and Michael smiled very cheerfully, produced their check books, and would, if Mr. Ambrose had not been so discouraging, have been really chatty.

After Collections of Lent term, that opportunity accepted by the college authorities to be offensive in bulk, Michael felt his historical studies were scarcely betraying such an impulse toward research as might have been expected of him at this stage. Mr. Harbottle, the History tutor, an abrupt and pleasant man with the appearance of a cat and the manners of a dog, yapped vituperations from where he sat with all the other dons in judgment along the High Table in Hall.

The Warden turned on his...o...b..t and shone full-faced upon Michael.

"A little more work, Mr. Fane, will encourage us all. Your Collection papers have evidently planted a doubt in Mr. Harbottle's mind."

"He never does a stroke of honest work, Warden," yapped the History tutor. "If he stays up ten years he'll never get a Fourth."

"In spite of Mr. Harbottle's discouraging prophecy, we must continue to hope, Mr. Fane, that you will obtain at least a Second next term."

"Next term!" Michael gasped. "But I was expecting to take Schools next year."

"I'm afraid," said the Warden, "that according to Mr. Ambrose the fabric of the college will scarcely survive another year of your residence. I believe I echo your views, Mr. Ambrose?"

The Dean blinked his gray eye and finally said that possibly Mr. Fane would change next term, adding that a more immediately serious matter was a deficit of no less than seven chapels. Michael pointed out that he designed in his fourth year to go as it were into industrious solitude far away from St. Mary's.

"Are you suggesting Iffley?" inquired the Warden.

"Oh, no, not so far as that; but right away," said Michael. "Somewhere near Keble. Miles away."

"But we have to consider next term," the Warden urged. "Next term, I take it, you will still be occupied with the fashionable distractions of High Street?"

"I'll make an offer," barked Mr. Harbottle. "If he likes to do another Collection paper at the beginning of next term, and does it satisfactorily, I will withdraw my opposition, and as far as I'm concerned he can take his Schools next year."

"What luck?" asked everybody in the lodge when Michael had emerged from the ordeal.

"I had rather a hot time," said Michael. "Still Harbottle behaved like a gentleman on the whole."

Maurice arrived in the lodge soon after Michael, and conveyed the impression that he had left the tutorial forces of the college reeling under the effect of his witty cannonade. Then Michael went off to interview the Dean in order to adjust the difficulty which had been created by the arrears of his early rising. With much generosity he admitted the whole seven abstentions, and was willing not merely to stay up a week to correct the deficit, but suggested that he should spend all the Easter vacation working in Oxford.

So it fell out that Michael managed to secure his fourth year, and in the tranquillity of that Easter vacation it seemed to him that he began to love Oxford for the first time with a truly intense pa.s.sion and that a little learning was the least tribute he could offer in esteem. It was strange how suddenly history became charged with magic. Perhaps the Academic Muse sometimes offered this inspiration, if one spent hours alone with her. Michael was sad when the summer term arrived in its course. So many Good Eggs would be going down for ever after this term, and upon Two Hundred and Two High brooded the shadow of dissolution.

Alan again hovered on the edge of the Varsity Eleven, but a freshman who bowled rather better the same sort of ball came up, and it seemed improbable he would get his Blue. However, the disappointment was evidently not so hard for Alan to bear nowadays. He was indeed becoming gravely interested in philosophy, and Michael was forced to admit that he seemed to be acquiring most unexpectedly a real intellectual grasp of life. So much the better for their companionship next year in those rooms in St. Giles' which Michael had already chosen.

The summer term was going by fast. It was becoming an experience almost too fugitive to be borne, this last summer term at Two Hundred and Two.

Michael, Grainger, and Lonsdale had scarcely known how to endure some offensive second-year men from Oriel being shown their room for next year. They resented the thought of these Oriel men leaning out of the window and throwing cushions at their friends and turning to the left to keep a chapel at Oriel, instead of scudding down to St. Mary's on the right. Wedderburn was always the one who voiced sentimentally the unexpressed regrets of the other three. He it was who spoke of the grime and labor of the paternal office, of Life with a capital letter as large as any lady novelist's, and of how one would remember these evenings and the leaning-out over a cushioned window-sill and the poring upon this majestic street.

"We don't realize our good luck until it's too late really," said Wedderburn seriously. "We've wasted our time, and now we've got to go."

"Well, dash it all, Wedders," said Lonsdale, "don't talk as if we were going to bolt for a train before hall. We aren't going down for three weeks yet, and jolly old Michael and jolly old Tommy aren't going down for another year."

"Lucky devils!" sighed Wedderburn. "By gad, if I only had my time at the Varsity all over again."

But just when Wedderburn had by his solemnity almost managed really to impress the company with a sense of fleeting time, and when even upon Lonsdale was descending the melancholy of the deep-dyed afternoon, across the road they could see sauntering three men whom they all knew well.

"Tally-ho-ho-ho-whooop!" shouted Lonsdale.

The three men saluted thus came upstairs to the big room of Two Hundred and Two, and a bout of amiable ragging and rotting pa.s.sed away the hour before dinner and restored to the big room itself the wonted air of imperishable good-fellowship.

"Lucky you lads turned up," said Lonsdale. "Old Wedders has been moping in his window-seat like a half-plucked pigeon. We're dining in hall to-night, are you?"

The newcomers were dining in hall, and so in a wide line of brilliant ties and ribbons the seven of them strolled down to college.

There were very few people in hall that night, and Venner's was pleasantly empty. Venner himself was full of anecdotes, and as they sat on the table in the middle of the room, drinking their coffee, it seemed impossible enough to imagine that they would not be forever here drinking their coffee on a fine June evening.

"Going down soon, Venner," said Wedderburn, who was determined to make somebody sad.

"What a pity you're not taking a fourth year!" said Venner. "You ought to have read an Honor School. I always advise the men to read for honors. The dons like it, you know."

"Got to go and earn my living, Venner," said Wedderburn.

"That's right," said Venner cheerfully. "Then you'll be married all the sooner, or perhaps you're not a marrying man."

"Haven't found the right girl yet, Venner," said Wedderburn.

"Oh, there's plenty of time," chuckled Venner. "You don't want to be thinking about girls up here. Some of our men go getting engaged before they've gone down, and it always messes them up in the Schools."

Maurice Avery came in while Venner was speaking. He seemed restless and worried, and as Venner went on his restlessness increased.

"But very few of our men have got into trouble here with girls. We had one man once who married a widow. He was dreadfully chaffed about it, and couldn't stand it any longer. The men never let him alone."

"Married a widow, while he was still up?" people asked incredulously.

"Why, yes," said Venner. "And actually brought her down for Eights and introduced her to the Warden on the barge. She was a most severe-looking woman, and old enough to be his mother. There was some trouble once at 202 High--that's where you are, isn't it?" He turned to Lonsdale. "But there won't be any more trouble because Macpherson vowed he wouldn't have a servant-girl in the house again."

"I suppose that's why we have that perspiring boy," grumbled Wedderburn.

"But what happened, Venner?"

"Well, the usual thing, of course. There were five of our men living there that year, and she picked out the quietest one of the lot and said it was him. He had to pay fifty pounds, and when he'd paid it all, the other four came up to him one by one and offered to pay half."

Everybody laughed, and Maurice suddenly announced that he was in a devil of a fix with a girl.

"A girl at a village near here," he explained. "There's no question of her having a baby or anything like that, you know; but her brother followed me home one night, and yesterday her father turned up. I got Castleton to talk to him. But it was d.a.m.ned awkward. He and old Castleton were arguing like h.e.l.l in our digs."

Maurice stopped and, lighting a cigarette, looked round him as if expectant of the laughter which had hailed Venner's story. n.o.body seemed to have any comment to make, and Michael felt himself blushing violently for his friend.

"Bit chilly in here to-night, Venner," said Lonsdale.

"You are a confounded lot of prigs!" said Maurice angrily, and he walked out of Venner's just as Castleton came in.