“Right-O!” Lonsdale cheerfully agreed. “Only I don’t want my room to look like the Academy, you know.”
Wedderburn shook his head in benevolent contempt, and the conversation was deflected from Lonsdale’s artistic education by a long-legged Wykehamist with crisp chestnut hair and a thin florid face of dimpling smiles.
“Has anybody been into Venner’s yet?” he asked.
“I have,” proclaimed a dumpy Etonian whose down-curving nose hung over a perpetually open mouth. “Marjoribanks took me in just before hall. But he advised me not to go in by myself yet awhile.”
“The second-year men don’t like it,” agreed the long-legged Wykehamist with a wise air. “They say one can begin to go in occasionally in one’s third term.”
“What is Venner’s?” Michael asked.
“Don’t you know?” sniffed the dumpy Etonian who had already managed to proclaim his friendship with Marjoribanks, the President of the Junior Common Room, and therefore presumably had the right to open his mouth a little wider than usual at Michael.
“I’m not quite sure myself,” said Lonsdale quickly. “I vote that Cuffe explains.”
“I’m not going to explain,” Cuffe protested, and for some minutes his mouth was tightly closed.
“Isn’t it just a sort of special part of the J. C. R.?” suggested the smiling Wykehamist, who seemed to wish to make it pleasant for everybody, so long as he himself would not have to admit ignorance. “Old Venables himself is a ripper. They say he’s been steward of the J. C. R. for fifty years.”