CHAPTER VII
MR. BINNEY SPEAKS AT THE UNION AND MAKES A DISTINGUISHED ACQUAINTANCE
Mr. Binney went out of Blathgowrie's lodgings and into the street in a white heat of indignation. His blood boiled within him at the indignity to which he had been subjected. Was it possible that he, Peter Binney, the founder of a great commercial house, the Bloomsbury ratepayer, the almost successful candidate for the London County Council, had been told in so many words by a mere slip of an impudent boy that his society was not wanted by him and his callow friends? What next! he wondered. As if he cared for their contemptible society! Pshaw! It was the other way about. If they had had the slightest idea how his name was respected in the City, they would have sung a very different tune. He wouldn't have their acquaintance now, or join their precious clubs if the committee went down on their bended knees and begged him to do so. He flung into his rooms burning with anger against the whole insolent crew of them, and most of all against his son, Lucius, whom he unjustly accused of being the disloyal cause of his late reverse.
"Ah, Binney, I thocht ye wouldn't be long, and I'd just wait for ye," said a voice with a strong Scotch accent, from the depths of Mr. Binney's armchair.
"Oh, that you, M'Gee!" said Mr. Binney. "I'm pleased to see you. But you'll excuse me for being a little upset. I've just undergone a piece of monstrous impertinence from my Lord Blathgowrie, and I scarcely know how to contain my anger."
"Toch!" exclaimed M'Gee. "What for do ye want to mix yourself up with such trash? I've come to talk to you about the Union. Sit down, man, and listen."
M'Gee, like Mr. Binney, was a freshman, and like Mr. Binney again, had come up to Cambridge many years later than the average young man enters upon his University course. He was the son of a Highland gillie, and had succeeded with incredible difficulty, as far as money was concerned, in gaining a degree at a Scotch University. But that had not sufficed for him. He was ambitious, and extremely tenacious of ideas. He had early made up his mind to bring his brains to the market of Cambridge, and at Cambridge he accordingly found himself at the age of thirty-seven, with a scholarship at St. John's College, and nothing else upon which to support himself except his determination to succeed to the highest honours that Cambridge could afford. He had joined the Union with a shrewd and resolute eye to the President's chair, but the lighter social success which held such a charm from Mr. Binney's point of view he regarded with the most lofty scorn. Self-contained and self-reliant as he was, however, he was not entirely without a human weakness for sympathy and encouragement in his aims, and had fixed upon Mr. Binney, as one who shared with him some of the accidents of his position, with whom to indulge in the occasional luxury of discussing his ambitions.
"I wouldn't give a thought to these young 'bloods,' as they call them," said M'Gee. "They'll be of no use to ye. They make a big splash while they are up here, but when they go down they're no better than dirt." Here M'Gee snapped a bony finger and thumb. "I'm no saying that I'd like to be nothing but a worker in Cambridge," he went on. "You keep to yourself for three years and you come out Senior Wrangler at the end of it, and they put your picture in the papers. And then you go down, and what glory do you get from it? There's aye one way of getting yourself known here, if you're a man of brains, and that's at the Union. Go round the rooms and look at the pictures of the Presidents from the beginning. Why, man, there's not a dozen of them that isn't known to the world at large. That's fame. And it's the sort of fame that's worth having. Colloguing wi' lords an' that is a puir thing to it."
"You're right, M'Gee," cried Mr. Binney, springing up, "You're right. A lord! What's a lord and all his hangers-on? Froth! Dregs! Dirt! as you rightly remark. I won't have my boy associating with such."
"Leave your boy alone," said M'Gee. "He is a boy, and does very well as he is. You and I are men, and we'll make use of this place which most of them don't know the value of. Study the questions of the day, give a lot of preparation to your speeches, and speak every time the house sits. Force 'em to take account of you and you'll come out top."
"I will," said Mr. Binney, now greatly excited. "I can come out top if I want to. I know I can. You and I will be carried down to posterity, M'Gee, as two of the greatest Presidents the Union has ever had. To-day's Monday. To-morrow I speak on the vaccination question. I don't take any interest in it, but I'll get the subject up thoroughly in the meantime, and my speech will surprise them."
And so Mr. Binney changed his social aspirations, and wrote long letters to Mrs. Higginbotham describing the acclamations with which he was received when he rose to speak at the Union, and painting in vivid colours the honours paid to the occupant of the President's chair, that chair which had been filled by so many illustrious men.
He and M'Gee spoke every Tuesday in that term. M'Gee was intolerably dogmatic, metaphysical and long-winded, always heard the secretary's bell ring before he had half finished his argument, and invariably emptied the house of all but the long-suffering officials whenever he rose to his feet. Mr. Binney as surely filled it. He was a wind-bag, but a wind-bag who delighted his audience in the same way as a monkey on an organ is a source of appreciation not so much for its innate humour as for the unstudied expression of its personality. It was quite true that Mr. Binney roused the applause of the assembly. The incipient statesmen lolling on the benches or writing notes on their knees or strolling up to have a word with the President in his seat of state, cheered him on, laughed uproariously at his witticisms as well as at his studied and serious periods, and could never have enough of him. It was a long time since any speaker at the Union had amused his audience so well, and he was in the seventh heaven of delight at his popularity until the elections for the officers at the end of the term, when both he and M'Gee stood for the committee, and appeared at the bottom of the list, M'Gee with thirty votes and Mr. Binney with six. This was a serious blow to him, and he began to realise that he had been looked upon as a buffoon.
But before this other things had happened. Although debarred from the society of those with whom he had at first tried to ally himself, Mr. Binney had contracted many acquaintanceships with men of his own year and others who did not place the value of their friendship very high. The boys fresh from school who had come up at the same time as himself looked upon him as a great joke, ate his breakfasts and luncheons and occasional dinners, and asked him to their own in return. As he showed himself anxious to be considered one of themselves, they obliged him, with perhaps more familiarity and slappings on the back than they usually made use of to one another. But Mr. Binney enjoyed it and felt he was getting on famously. He greatly appreciated the tales of daring which freshmen love to tell one another, about exciting runs from avenging Proctors, and smart, one-sided conversations with Deans, in which the freshman is always represented as using such witty and convincing arguments that the Dean can only sit and listen, and is glad to get rid of him at last at any price if he will only allow the management of the college to remain in its present inefficient hands a little longer. Mr. Binney had not as yet emulated any of these deeds of daring, for he still looked upon the authorities with considerable awe, and was turning his attention for the most part towards getting his work ready for the first part of the Littlego and maintaining his reputation at the Union. But he thought them very fine for all that, and it was not long before he fell.
Among his fellow-freshmen was one, Brandon, a Rugby football-player, who had once or twice played for the University. He was not a Blue yet, but he was the next best thing to it, and Mr. Binney cultivated his society in the intervals of his more serious pursuits. Brandon had a friend called Howden who was a Blue, a great, noisy, good-natured, ignorant ox, who was in constant danger of being sent down for his numerous breaches of discipline.
Howden came into Brandon's rooms one morning to fish for a dinner, his affairs being in a chronic state of financial depression. He used no unnecessary finesse in stating his ends.
"I've taken my name off hall to-night," he said, "and don't know where to feed. Got anything going, Brandy?"
"I'm going to dine with Binney," said Brandon. "You'd better come too."
"What! that stuck-up ass!" said Howden. "Didn't know you knew him. No, thanks. I don't mix with Bloods."
"Oh, I don't mean Lucy Binney," said Brandon, "I don't know him. The bantam's my pal."
"What! that little old man!" exclaimed Howden. "Whatever do you want to go and dine with him for? He'll report you to the dons if you make a row, and I don't care for dining where I can't enjoy myself."
"My dear chap," said Brandon, "you can make as much row as you like. He'll be all the better pleased. He's a tremendous little sportsman. He gives you the best fizz and as much as you want of it."
"The deuce he does! All right, I'll come, Brandy. I don't know him. I suppose that don't matter."
"Not a bit," said Brandon. "I'll make that all right. 19A Jesus Lane, eight o'clock."
"Right you are," said Howden. "Don't forget. I shall turn up."
Mr. Binney was as pleased as Punch when he learnt that he was at last going to be honoured by the company of a Blue, and made an excuse to write a note to Minshull in which he casually mentioned that he was expecting Howden, "who plays back for the 'Varsity," to dinner that night.
Howden came and made himself agreeable to his host. Mr. Binney was delighted to find that such a great man was not inclined to stand on any ceremony. The rest of the party were freshmen, who were also inclined to treat the great Howden with deference, but in the course of the dinner the deference vanished, and the company got hilarious and on perfectly good terms with one another. After dinner they "ragged," and played a little game of "Soccer" with a sofa cushion, in the course of which Mr. Binney got the wind knocked out of his body, and was not sorry when his landlord came up to inform him that the chandelier in the room below had fallen down.
"Let's go round and rag old Tubby Vane," said Howden.
Vane was another football Blue, and lived in college. So the party moved round in a body to the New Court. Vane kept on the third floor, and was out, so his visitors were baffled for the moment.
"There's old Miniken keeps below," said Mr. Binney, who was enjoying himself to the full in this distinguished company. "Let's go and rag him."
Miniken was a Union light, a quiet reading man, when he was not thundering forth Radical views in the debates. Mr. Binney did not know him very well, but wished to display the brilliant Howden to his astonished gaze.
"All right," said Howden. "Never heard of him, but I daresay he keeps very good whisky. Come on."
Miniken's oak was sported.
"He's skulking," said Howden. "Let's kick his oak in."
"Hi! Miniken! Come out of that, you old beggar," yelled Mr. Binney; but all was silence.
Howden took a short run and kicked in a panel. Mr. Binney took a short run at the same panel, and got his foot wedged. When he had been extricated with unnecessary violence by his companions, a combined assault was made upon the oak, which presently gave way. The rooms were empty.
Howden turned up the lights and made a search for something to drink, which was unsuccessful, as Miniken was a teetotaller. Then they "made hay" of his rooms, and, after completely changing their aspect, left, to avoid an interview with a porter who was coming up the staircase to see what the disturbance was about. Mr. Binney never doubted but that Miniken would be quite as amused as themselves when he came back, and not a little flattered at receiving a visit from the august Howden, if he found out who was responsible for the altered appearance of his apartments.
When Miniken did return he was naturally annoyed at the discovery of what had taken place. He obtained from the porter the names of his invaders, and sat down and wrote a letter of complaint to the Senior Dean. Then he put his room to rights and went to bed.
In the meantime Mr. Binney went home, greatly pleased with his evening's entertainment. Before retiring to rest he wrote a full account of it to Mrs. Higginbotham, and expatiated on the popularity that must accrue to him from having made a friend of Howden, who, before parting from him, had assured him that he was one of the best fellows he had ever met, and that he would stick by him and come and dine with him whenever he liked.
The next day Mr. Binney was requested to call on the Junior Dean at a specified hour. He did so with some inward trepidation, and waited in the ante-room where a secretary was at work, who informed him that the Dean was engaged, but would see him in a few minutes. Presently steps were heard on the staircase, and to his surprise Lucius entered the room.
"Halloa! you hauled too?" said the little man with a sheepish grin. "What for?"
"I don't know. Chapels, I suppose," said Lucius, who had heard of his father's escapade, and whose face was covered with a deep blush.
"I hope we shan't get gated," said Mr. Binney. "What are you going to say to the old chap?"
Before Lucius had time to reply the Dean's door opened, and Mr. Binney was summoned into the presence of the "old chap," who had been in frocks when "Binney's Food for Poultry" was first becoming known.
"Sit down, Mr. Binney," said the Dean, who appeared unaccountably nervous. "I see you have not kept the requisite number of chapels since the beginning of term. Is there any reason for that? I see by my list that you have not been once to chapel on a Sunday."
Mr. Binney breathed a sigh of relief and drew himself up.
"I prefer to attend my own place of worship on the Sabbath," he said, twisting his cap by the tassel.
"Ah! you are perhaps a Nonconformist," said the Dean.
"I am," said Mr. Binney; "and I'm not ashamed of it."
"No reason to be, Mr. Binney," said the Dean. "I needn't trouble you any more on that score then," and he made a pencil note on the paper before him. "But there is another matter," he went on, "which, I confess, it surprises me to have to bring before a man of your—er—standing. I understand that you and some others broke in the door of Mr. Miniken's rooms last night, and took most unwarrantable liberties with his furniture. I could hardly believe it, but I am assured that it is so."
"It was a mere freak, sir," said Mr. Binney boldly. "I went round with Howden—the football Blue——"
"You needn't bring in anybody else's name," said the Dean.
"Well, we went round to call on—on another football Blue, but he was out, and as old Miniken, who is a friend of mine, happened to live below him, I said, 'Let's go and rouse him up.' He was sported, so we kicked in his oak for a lark. We didn't mean any harm. Of course, I'm quite willing to pay for repairing the door."
The Dean passed his hand over his mouth.
"That you will have to do, of course, you and the others between you," he said. "But I may as well tell you, Mr. Binney, that we don't recognise such larks here. If you want to behave like a troublesome boy, you had better go somewhere else. You are gated at eight for a fortnight, and don't let me hear of any such piece of folly again, or you won't get off so easily."
Mr. Binney took himself off feeling rather ashamed, but still a little pleased with himself. "Gated at eight for a fortnight," he said, as he joined his son in the ante-room, where Blathgowrie had also made his appearance.
"Serve you right, you little ass," said Blathgowrie as Lucius entered the presence chamber. "Now run along and play."
"You were not with your father, I think, when the door in the New Court was broken in?" said the Dean.
"No, I wasn't," said Lucius shortly, his face a deep red.
The Dean threw a quick glance at him.
"Is your father—?" he began, and then stopped.
"Off his head?" said Lucius. "I don't know. I never thought he was until he came up here. I know I shall be, pretty soon, if this goes on."
"I didn't mean that," said the Dean, "I was going to ask if he intended to stop here until he takes a degree."
"I suppose so, if he isn't sent down first," said Lucius bitterly.
The Dean could not disguise a smile. "Don't get downhearted about it, Binney," he said kindly, "we've all got our little trials to bear. One of mine is having continually to ask undergraduates why they don't come to chapel. I see you haven't kept a single chapel this term. How is that?"
"I was afraid I might meet my father," said Lucius.
The Dean smiled again.
"Your father has conscientious objections to joining in our services," he said, "and I'm afraid I couldn't accept that as an excuse in any case. Have you been anywhere instead?"
"I go to King's sometimes."
"Well, I think you had better come to Trinity sometimes too in the future. Good-night, Binney."
His introduction to Howden was the beginning of Mr. Binney's fall from steadiness. He soon made the acquaintance of other athletes of similar character to Howden, and was very proud of being seen about with them. These accommodating gentlemen had no sort of objection to his being constantly in their company, so long as he fed them generously and put no check on their boisterous behaviour when he was with them. And Mr. Binney was far from wishing to do this. The new cap which he had bought under Lucius's directions was soon exchanged for a very old and battered one. Howden and all his friends were rowdies, and Mr. Binney in his mild way became a rowdy too.
One Tuesday evening towards the end of the term, Lucius found himself in the gallery at the Union listening to a debate on the motion: "That this house views with alarm the growing tyranny of University officials," and sat dejectedly through an uproariously applauded speech from his father, in the course of which Mr. Binney inquired "why a fellow shouldn't smoke in cap and gown if he wanted to," and was twice called to order for alluding to "the progginses."
"Come out of this; it makes me sick," he said to his companion. They went out and strolled slowly down Jesus Lane to Edwards's billiard rooms. Opposite the "Pitt," Mr. Binney passed them with two of his noisy friends, carrying his gown on his arm. He did not notice them, nor a Proctor who was coming along Park Street, and Lucius had the gratification of seeing his father stopped at the corner, and peremptorily ordered to put on his gown by the Proctor. Mr. Binney did as he was told, taking off his gown again when the Proctor had turned his back, and was let into his lodgings feeling himself the very devil of a fellow.
After his first escapade with Howden, Mr. Binney was a little upset by a letter he received from Mrs. Higginbotham in answer to the one in which he had given her an account of the proceedings.
"You must not let yourself be led away by your high spirits," wrote Mrs. Higginbotham, "and pray be careful that these new grand young friends you have made do not lead you astray. I should like you to keep a good character with your masters and bring home a good report at the end of the term. My dear father often used to say that he would rather my brothers won the conduct prize at school than any other, and they always did so, which pleased my father very much until he discovered that they used to buy the prizes themselves out of their very liberal allowance of pocket money and write their master's name in them, which was not right, and earned them a whipping from Mr. Wilkinson who was at that time the head of the Lewisham Academy for Young Gentlemen, where they were educated, as well as another from my father, which they told me was far the worse of the two, as I can quite credit, because my dear father, who made his own way in the world, had been employed in early life in a furniture warehouse, and among his duties was that of beating carpets."
Mr. Binney wrote in answer that little occurrences such as the one in which he had taken part were common in Cambridge and increased the fame of those who inaugurated them, and rebuked Mrs. Higginbotham for talking of his "masters." "The 'Varsity is not a school, my dear Martha," wrote Mr. Binney, "and we are allowed a great deal of freedom to amuse ourselves as we please."
Mr. Binney and Lucius now saw very little of one another, but before Mr. Binney had allied himself with Howden and his crew, Lucius had paid him a visit one afternoon and found a young man with a long, solemn face not unlike Minshull's sitting on Mr. Binney's sofa.
"Ah, Lucius," said Mr. Binney, "I'm glad you have come. This is your mother's cousin, John Jermyn, whose father you may have heard me speak of as a respected clergyman in Norfolk. John tells me he has gained a scholarship at Queens' and I am very glad to hear it—very glad. It is most laudable of him. We must go and call on him when we have time. Let me see, where is Queens'? That little college at the end of the Backs with a wooden bridge, isn't it? Quite so. A very nice little college indeed. I should have liked to have been at Queens' myself if I hadn't been at Trinity. Pity you couldn't come to Trinity, John. However, we can't all be at the best college, can we?"
After a little more patronage from his uncle, John Jermyn took his leave.
"You must look that young fellow up, Lucius," said Mr. Binney, "and he tells me his sister Elizabeth is at Girton. They both came up this term. A clever family. You must go and call on her too—I believe it's allowed—I don't care about going out there myself. Their mother was a great friend of your dear mother's when they were girls together. We never saw much of her after she was married, for her husband held his head high, although I have never heard that he was at Trinity or any good college as a young man. It is our turn to hold our heads high now, but you must certainly call on John and Elizabeth, and show them that we are not too proud to recognise our relations."
Lucius did call on John Jermyn soon afterwards and asked him to lunch. The two young men found they had very little in common and the acquaintanceship dropped.