It is over twenty years since "Peter Binney" was first published in England, and I should be unwilling to offer it to my American readers at this time of day without some plea for leniency towards a young man's book, which contains perhaps more than the average number of crudities to be found in such beginnings. A few of the crudities I have been able to soften, but if you begin tampering with early work in the light of maturer knowledge, you are very apt to rub off the bloom that attaches to it just because it is early work, written with spirit and freshness, though with little skill. So I have left "Peter Binney" much as it was, with most of its imperfections on its head, and I trust some compensating merits.
One merit I know it to possess. It presents a picture of the lighter side of undergraduate life as it was in Oxford and Cambridge, and as it still exists, in spite of superficial changes; and that is something that can only be done by a young man, whose memories are still fresh, and to whom that life is still important enough to make it the basis of a story.
New York, July, 1921
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I [Mr. Binney Makes Up His Mind]
II [Mr. Binney Interviews One Tutor, and Engages Another]
III [Lucius Wins a Year's Respite]
IV [No Help To Be Gained from Mrs. Higginbotham]
V [Mr. Binney Arrives in Cambridge]
VI [Lord Blathgowrie Has Something to Say]
VII [Mr. Binney Speaks at the Union And Makes a Distinguished Acquaintance]
VIII [The Newnham Girl]
IX [Mr. Binney Gives a Dinner and Receives a Rebuff]
X ["The New Court Chronicle"]
XI ["Put Him in the Fountain"]
XII [Lucius Makes One Discovery and Mrs. Toller Another]
XIII [Mr. Binney Gets into Trouble]
XIV [Nemesis]
XV [Lucius Finds a Backwater]
XVI [Third Trinity Makes a Bump]
XVII [Mr. Binney Drinks the Health of a "Blue"]
CHAPTER I
MR. BINNEY MAKES UP HIS MIND
"I'll do it to-day," said Peter Binney.
He had been sitting deep in thought ever since he had climbed on to the omnibus outside his place of business in the Whitechapel Road. As the vehicle pursued its ponderous way through the crowded streets of the City, stopping now and again to add to its load of homeward-bound business men, Mr. Binney sat in his seat, silent and preoccupied, his eyes on the ground and a thoughtful frown on his face. As it left the Post Office, full inside and out, and bowled smartly along the broad asphalted road towards the Viaduct, his face cleared, the light of determination shone in his eye, and looking up, he said aloud:—