Then, when he had accomplished this feat, there was no way of escaping from the noise of his neighbours. Mr. Sloe, the reading-man in the garret above, was one of those abominable nuisances, a peripatetic student, who "got up"
every subject by pacing up and down his limited apartment, and, like the sentry, "walked his dreary round" at unseasonable hours of the night, at which time could be plainly heard the wretched chuckle, and crackings of knuckles (Mr. Sloe's way of expressing intense delight), with which he welcomed some miserable joke of Aristophanes, painfully elaborated by the help of Liddell-and-Scott; or the disgustingly sonorous way in which he declaimed his Greek choruses. This was bad enough at night; but in the day-time there was a still greater nuisance. The rooms immediately beneath Verdant's were possessed by a gentleman whose musical powers were of an unusually limited description, but who, unfortunately for his neighbours, possessed the idea that the cornet-a-piston was a beautiful instrument for pic-nics, races, boating-parties, and other long-vacation amusements, and sedulously practised "In my cottage near a wood," "Away with melancholy," and other airs of a lively character, in a doleful and distracted way, that would have fully justified his immediate homicide, or, at any rate, the confiscation of his offending instrument.
Then, on the one side of Verdant's room, was Mr. Bouncer, sounding his octaves, and "going the complete unicorn;" and his bull-terriers, Huz and Buz, all and each of whom were of a restless and loud temperament; while, on the other side, were Mr. Four-in-hand Fosbrooke's rooms, in which fencing, boxing, single-stick, and other violent sports, were gone through, with a great expenditure of "Sa-ha! sa-ha!" and stampings. Verdant was sometimes induced to go in, and never could sufficiently admire the way in which men could be rapped with single-sticks without crying out or flinching; for it made him almost sore even to look at them. Mr. Blades, the stroke, was a frequent visitor there, and developed his muscles in the most satisfactory manner.
After many refusals, our hero was at length persuaded to put on the gloves, and have a friendly bout with Mr. Blades. The result was as might have been anticipated; and Mr. Smalls doubtless gave a very correct resume of the proceeding (for, as we have before said, he was thoroughly conversant with the sporting slang of Tintinnabulum's Life), when he told Verdant, that his claret had been repeatedly tapped, his bread-basket walked into, his day-lights darkened, his ivories rattled, his nozzle barked, his whisker-bed napped heavily, his kissing-trap countered, his ribs roasted, his nut spanked, and his whole person put in chancery, stung, bruised, fibbed, propped, fiddled, slogged, and otherwise ill-treated. So it is hardly to be wondered at if Mr. Verdant Green from thenceforth gave up boxing, as a senseless and ungentlemanly amusement.
But while these pleasures(?) of the body were being attended to, the recreation of the mind was not forgotten. Mr. Larkyns had proposed Verdant's name at the Union; and, to that gentleman's great satisfaction, he was not black-balled. He daily, therefore, frequented the reading-room, and made a point of looking through all the magazines and newspapers; while he felt quite a pride in sitting in luxurious state upstairs, writing his letters to the home department on the very best note-paper, and sealing them extensively with "the Oxford Union" seal; though he could not at first be persuaded that trusting his letters to a wire closet was at all a safe system of postage.