A Man's Man. Ian Hay
jacket and apron, bearing upon his head a tray containing a salmon mayonnaise, cutlets in aspic, and a special Cambridge dainty known as "Grassy Corner Pudding"—a fearsome compound of whipped cream and pistachio nuts.
5. A Buttery boy, walking close behind, with a basket containing bottles. Evidently some young gentleman is about to entertain angels—unawares so far as his bill-paying papa is concerned.
6. Four young men converging to a group in the centre of the court. Of these, two are attired in the undergraduate mode of the moment—tweed jackets with leather buttons, waistcoats of the Urim and Thummim variety, grey flannel trousers well turned up, clamorous silk socks, and heavy Highland shooting brogues. The third wears what the College Regulations describe rather ingenuously as "Athletic Dress." Pheidippides himself would have found it difficult to perform feats of prowess in a costume composed of split pumps, white duck trousers, and a blazer admirably qualified to serve as a model of the Solar Spectrum.
It may be mentioned in passing that, to the College Regulations, "Athletic Dress" is not in itself a costume in which it is possible to perform athletic feats, but one whose colour-scheme clashes with the sub-fusc standard which obtains in all college courts until one P.M.; such, in fact, as would tend to distract the eye and sap the diligence of those who traverse the courts on their way to lectures. In consequence, he who would be matutinally athletic must either keep his warpaint somewhere out of college, or drape himself like a stage conspirator as he flits from his rooms to the river or Fenner's.
The fourth gentleman of the party was dressed, if not gorgeously, sufficiently respectably to warrant the assumption that he was not a member of the University.
All four were smoking.
The Dean, glancing in the direction of the gateway, and observing with sardonic satisfaction that the watchful Cerberus there was taking a note of the delinquency, returned to his work. Regardless of the prospective loss of half-a-crown apiece, the undergraduates exchanged cheerful greetings.
"Hallo, Dishy-Washy!"
"Hallo, Gussie!"
"Hallo, Towzer!"
There ensued an awkward pause, while Messrs. Gussie and Towzer, nervously conscious of the presence of a stranger to whom they were about to be presented, looked intently at their boots and waited for the introduction to take place.
The gentleman previously addressed as Dishy-Washy, a diminutive youth with wizened features—his name was Dishart-Watson—cleared his throat.
"Introduce my brother," he said huskily. "Mr. Poltimore—Mr. Angus!"
The gentlemen indicated shook hands with the visitor, and Mr. Angus, after a mental effort, inquired:—
"Come to see us go Head?"
He giggled deprecatingly, to show that he did not really mean this.
"Hope so," said Dishy-Washy's brother politely. "I hear you've got a pretty hot crew," he added.
"First chop," said Mr. Poltimore. "You just arrived?"
"Yes; down from town this morning."
"Oh! live there?"
"Er—yes."
"Oxford man," interpolated Dishy-Washy swiftly. "Sent down," he added in extenuation.
The other two nodded sympathetically, and the conversation proceeded more briskly.
"Are you going to catch those chaps to-night, Dishy?" inquired Mr. Angus earnestly.
"Don't know," replied Dishy-Washy, who as coxswain of the St. Benedict's boat enjoyed a position of authority and esteem in inverse ratio to his inches. "Duncombe's a good enough little oar, but you can't expect a man who weighs nine stone ten to stroke the boat and pull it along too. Of course, if we had anything we could call a Six! As for old Puffin—"
"Fourteen stone of tripe!" interpolated Mr. Angus, the gentleman in Athletic Dress. "Lord help the boat!" he added bitterly.
It may be mentioned in passing that Mr. Angus's athletic achievements were rather overstated by his costume. His blazer was that of a college club of twelve members, admission to which was strictly limited to gentlemen who could absorb a gallon of beer at a draught, and whose first rule stated that any member who committed the bêtise of taking a degree, however humble, should pay to the club a fine of five pounds.
"Still," said Towzer hopefully, "there's always Marrable."
Everybody—even the gentleman who had been sent down from Oxford—cheered up at this reflection.
"By gum!" said the coxswain with sudden enthusiasm, "he's a wonder! You should have seen him in the boat yesterday. He was rowing a blade that simply lifted the whole of bow side along by itself; and besides that he was coaching Stroke all the time—telling him when to swing out and when to quicken, and bucking him up generally; and on the top of all that he found time every now and then to turn round and curse old Six. I tell you, he's a wonder. Did you hear about him last night?"
"I did hear some yarn," said Angus. "Went and smashed up The Owls, didn't he?"
"Smashed up?" Dishy's saturnine features expanded into a smile that was almost benevolent. "My lad, have you seen Muggeridge's alabaster brow this morning?"
Mr. Muggeridge was the president of "The Owls" Wine Club.
"No."
"Well, last night I was going round about half-past ten to see that all the crew were in their beds. When I came to H, New Court, I found a devil of a row going on in Muggeridge's rooms—directly under Duncombe's, you know."
"Yes. Go on," said all, much interested.
"There was a meeting of The Owls on," continued Dishy, "and they'd had the nerve to hold it on a staircase where there were actually two men of the crew—Duncombe and Eversley—trying to get to sleep."
"What did you do?" inquired Poltimore.
"Went in and reminded them. I thought they might have forgotten."
"What did they say?"
"They told me to go to—"
"Good Lord!" said the audience, genuinely horrified at the employment of such language by a non-athletic to an athletic man.
The Owls were a collection of rather dissipated young nobodies, while Dishy wore a Leander tie, which in a rowing college entitles a man to something like reverence.
"I soon found it was a put-up job," continued the coxswain. "They had some grudge against Duncombe, and wanted to score him off. I could hear him hammering on his bedroom floor above to make them dry up."
"What did you do then?"
"I explained to them exactly what I thought of them," replied the coxswain simply.
"What did you say, exactly?"
Dishy told them. They smacked their lips appreciatively, and the next question followed pat.
"And what did they do?"
"Well, they were a bit far gone—"
"Drunken sweeps!" remarked the virtuous Gussie, who belonged to a rival institution.
"Yes. They were a bit far gone," repeated the coxswain, with the air of one endeavouring to explain an otherwise unaccountable circumstance, "and they—well, they hove me out, in fact. There were nine of them," he added, in the manner of one who is not quite sure if his excuse will be accepted.
"And then?"
"Then I went straight off to old Hughie's rooms"—there was a respectful intaking of breath by the company: most of the College were wont to refer to the gentleman in question as Marrable—"and knocked him up. He had just gone to bed."
"What did he do?" came the question, in lively anticipation of the recital to come.