There was one exception to the general amicability. Piper, who was an evil-tempered fellow, emerged from the tussle in a black rage, and continued in it for much longer than a normally constituted man would have found such a state of mind possible.
The Senior Dean being wise in his generation, and having a fairly shrewd idea as to how the unseemly fracas had arisen, and what was likely to be its result, dealt lightly with the offenders. There were a good many official interviews and a few "gates," and then the matter was allowed to drop. None of the combatants actually told him in so many words what had been the immediate origin of the fray, but Mr. Binney having discovered the day after that Piper was more determined than ever to continue the publication of his paper, had paid an early visit to the Dean and asked him to suppress it officially. He had brought the term's numbers already issued with him, and the Dean gravely perused the "Binney Correspondence" then and there, while the object of it sat uneasily before him watching his face.
"I don't defend this, Mr. Binney," said the Dean, laying down the papers on his table when he had finished them. "A great deal of it is very offensive. But, you know, you've got yourself to thank for most of it.
"I know—I know," said poor little Mr. Binney, whose cock-sureness in his treatment of Deans and Tutors had been considerably reduced of late. "A good deal of it might fairly have been said of me last term. But it isn't true of me now. With the exception of a dinner in my rooms on the second night of the term, after which occurred some insubordination for which I was not responsible, nothing of the sort mentioned here has happened. I have been one of the quietest men in the college. It is my fixed intention to bring an action for libel against this man Piper," he continued, with a slight return to his former manner, "if this goes on, and if you don't see your way of stopping it, sir. It is intolerable."
"You will not find it necessary to do that, Mr. Binney," said the Dean. "I will see that it is stopped. You had better leave these papers with me."
It did not add to Piper's amiability when it came to his turn to be interviewed, to be told by the Dean that he had perused several numbers of the New Court Chronicle, and that it was about time that publication came to an end. He allowed Piper to argue the point, but when he found that they were no nearer an agreement on it than before, he told him peremptorily that he had made up his mind that the paper should be stopped, and stopped it must be. He pointed out several offensive articles aimed at the authorities of the University and Colleges, and alluded very little to the "Binney Correspondence," and finally found it necessary to tell Mr. Piper that he might choose between publishing another number of the paper and remaining at Cambridge.
So the New Court Chronicle came to an end, and neither Mr. Binney nor Lucius suffered any further annoyances from the printed expression of Piper's malice. The effects of the hitherto published instalments of the "Binney Correspondence," however, did not end there as far as Mr. Binney was concerned, as will afterwards, appear.