legs. And he did go so far, sir, as to ask the Master, if it wouldn't be better to have a staircase as would go up of hisself, and take the gentlemen up with it, like one as they has at some public show in London - the Call-and-see-em, I think he said."
"The Colosseum, probably," suggested Mr. Green. "And what did Dr. Portman say to that, pray?"
"Why he said, sir, - leastways so Mr. Bouncer reported, - that it worn't by no means a bad idea, and that p'raps Mr. Bouncer'd find it done in six months' time, when he come back again from the country. For you see, sir, Mr. Bouncer had made hisself so pleasant, that he'd been and got the porter out o' bed, and corked his face dreadful; and then, sir, he'd been and got a Hinn-board from somewhere out of the town, and hung it on the Master's private door; so that when they went to early chapel in the morning, they read as how the Master was 'licensed to sell beer by retail,' and 'to be drunk on the premises'. So when the Master came to know who it was as did it, which in course the porter told him, he said as how Mr. Bouncer had better go down into the country for a year, for change of hair, and to visit his friends."
"Very kind indeed of Dr. Portman," said our hero, who missed the moral of the story, and took the rustication for a kind forgiveness of injuries.
"Just what Mr. Bouncer said, sir," replied the scout, "he said it were pertickler kind and thoughtful. This is his room, sir, he come up on'y yesterday." And he pointed to a door, above which was painted in white letters on a black ground, "BOUNCER."
"Why," said Mr. Green to his son, "now I think of it, Bouncer was the name of that short young gentleman who came with us on the coach yesterday, and made himself so - so unpleasant with a tin horn."
"That's the gent, sir," observed the scout; "that's Mr. Bouncer, agoing the complete unicorn, as he calls it. I dare say you'll find him a pleasant neighbour, sir. Your rooms is next to his."
With some doubts of these prospective pleasures, the Mr. Greens, pere et fils, entered through a double door painted over the outside, with the name of "SMALLS"; to which Mr. Filcher directed our hero's attention by saying, "You can have that name took out, sir, and your own name painted in. Mr. Smalls has just moved hisself to the other quad, and that's why the rooms is vacant, sir."
Mr. Filcher then went on to point out the properties and capabilities of the rooms, and also their mechanical contrivances.