"Why, of course, you see, he couldn't stand that sort of game - it wasn't to be expected; so he puts his head out of the bedroom window - and then, don't you remember crying out, as you pointed to the tassel of his night-cap sticking up straight on end, 'Tally-ho! Unearth'd at last! Look at his brush!' Don't you remember that, Gig-lamps?"
"Oh, oh, no!" groaned Mr. Bouncer's victim: "I can't remember, - oh, what could have induced me!"
"By Jove, you must have been screwed! Then I daresay you don't remember wanting to have a polka with him, when he came up to Smalls' rooms?"
"A polka! Oh dear! Oh no! Oh!"
"Or asking him if his mother knew he was out, - and what he'd take for his cap without the tassel; and telling him that he was the joy of your heart, - and that you should never be happy unless he'd smile as he was wont to smile, and would love you then as now, - and saying all sorts of bosh? What, not remember it! 'Oh, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!' as some cove says in Shakespeare. But how screwed you must have been, Gig-lamps!"
"And do you think," inquired our hero, after a short but sufficiently painful reflection, - "do you think that Mr. Slowcoach will - oh! - expel me?"
"Why, it's rather a shave for it," replied his tormentor; "but the best thing you can do is to write an apology at once: pitch it pretty strong in the pathetic line, - say it's your first offence, and that you'll never be a naughty boy again, and all that sort of thing. You just do that, Gig-lamps, and I'll see that the note goes to - the proper place."
"Oh, thank you!" said the freshman; and while, with equal difficulty from agitation both of mind and body, he composed and penned the note, Mr. Bouncer ordered up some buttery beer, and Charles Larkyns prepared some soda-water with a dash of brandy, which he gave Verdant to drink, and which considerably refreshed that gentleman.
"And I should advise you," he said, "to go out for a constitutional; for walking-time's come, although you have but just done your breakfast. A blow up Headington Hill will do you good, and set you on your legs again."