The Tutor was in a sad quandary. Paid as he was by results fees, he could not afford to receive pupils who would disgrace him in the Schools. Yet it had always been his creed that a College must adapt itself to existing circumstances, and be instinct with the Zeit Geist.
For a long time he remained wrapt in meditation.
* * * * *
Two hours elapsed, and the Tutor was again confronted with the twin aspirants to academic honours. He regarded them with the mien of one visibly relieved from a load of care. “These papers, gentlemen,” he said, pointing to certain documents which lay upon the tutorial table, “relate to a project of which you have doubtless heard—I refer to the extension of our Public Schools into the remoter regions of the British Empire. They are reprinted from Mr. Sargant’s admirable letter to the Times, and the leading article on the subject. You are acquainted with them—No? Then pray take the papers: you will find them most instructive and agreeable reading during the voyage.”
“The—the voyage?” exclaimed the Rhodes Scholar.
“Certainly,” said the Tutor, “during the voyage. During the long afternoons when you are steaming over the oily calm of the Bay of Biscay, or being propelled (by friendly natives) down the rushing waters of the—ah—Congo. What I am proposing is that you two gentlemen should become members of our Branch Establishment in Timbuctoo. You must have heard of it! When schemes so beneficial to the Empire are mooted, was it likely that the Colleges of our great Imperial Universities would not take the lead in the van of progress? And when Eton, Harrow, and Giggleswick have founded institutions, similar to themselves in every respect except that of mere locality, in Asia, Africa, and Australasia, was the College of St. Boniface to be a laggard? Assuredly not. Gentlemen, I commend you to our Alma Mater beyond the seas.”
“But, Professor,” the Rhodes Scholar objected, “I was sent here across the salt water dish to join the College of St. Boniface. They were kind of sot upon that in Thessalonica. I guess they will be disappointed, some, if I ain’t made a professing member of St. Boniface.”
“But you will be, my dear sir—you will be!”
cried the Tutor, with vehemence, “a member of St. Boniface-in-Timbuctoo: Sancti Bonifacii Collegii apud Timbuctooenses alumnus: it is precisely the same thing. You have doubtless read, in the course of your historical investigations, how Eton is really an offshoot of Winchester: is Eton not a public school? Of course it is. Similarly, in the Middle Ages a portion of the University broke off and migrated to Stamford. Was it Oxford any the less because it happened to be at Stamford? Not the least. The two institutions—St. Boniface in Oxford and St. Boniface in Timbuctoo—are precisely identical. When you gentlemen in future years are competing for—and I trust, I am sure, obtaining—positions of distinction and emolument in the great world, you will be entitled to describe yourselves as Boniface Men. You can drop the ‘Apud Timbuctooenses’ if you like: the omission will not be considered fraudulent. But I see no reason why you should drop it. Personally, I should glory in it. Had I won a scholarship for Moral Character, I would go to Timbuctoo to-morrow! There, it seems to me, is your special sphere. In Oxford, Moral Character is so frequent as to be a drug, a positive drug: but in Timbuctoo the possession is precious in proportion to its rarity.”
“But have they got the Tone and the Tradition there, sir?” asked the holder of a ‘Daily Thunderer’ Scholarship. “That would be, for me, very important. My family were especially anxious—”