But not all. I stopped in the hall to search my great-coat pocket for my pipe, and I overheard the farewell of the Archdeacon. Domestic circumstances called him home, and the Canon remained to see him off the premises. It fell to me, therefore, to break to the others the news that the venerable one would not join them. They bore up.
“He can’t take my new hat,” said the Rev. Patrick O’Brien, LL.D., “it hasn’t the curly brim: but he gets first pick of the umbrellas. I suppose he was created for some wise purpose, but he doesn’t eat, he doesn’t drink, he doesn’t talk, and he doesn’t smoke. Hwat can ye do with um?” And he lit a fat cigar.
“Reminds me of what Topers of Brasenose said to the Professor,” commented an elderly rector named Oldbury: (Oxford; high and dry; broadcloth, silk hat, bit of a squarson; good old chap). “Do you remember Topers?” he asked me.
I pleaded comparative youth.
“Ah, of course. Well, Topers and another man were dining at Balliol High Table with one of the dons, and the only other don present was Professor Aldrich, who hated Topers and all his ways, and was infinitely disgusted to meet him as a guest. Topers was quick to see this, and excelled himself in wit and anecdote, while the Professor was mute. The dinner was prolonged: the undergraduates departed: even the scholar whose duty it was to say Grace was released, when Topers turned to his host, and pleaded for a bottle of that admirable Balliol port to mellow the Stilton. This was too much for Aldrich: he got up and said, ‘Gentlemen, you will find coffee in the Common-room, when you are ready for it,’ and he was stalking down the empty hall.
“Topers rose from his seat with tragic solemnity: ‘Go, sir,’ he said, with a majestic wave of his hand, ‘and take with you that appreciation of the good things of this world which Heaven has not given you, and the conversation of which we have heard not a word.’”
Ah me! As the others laughed, I saw the old Hall, now used as a library, the three black-gowned figures at High Table, the empty Hall half-lighted, and at the far end two or three scouts who were clearing away dishes, turning stupidly to stare at the short square don with firm-set chin and gleaming eyes; while John de Baliol, Dervorguilla, his wife, “and others, benefactors of this college,” in their gilt-framed pictures, looked on with the cold impartiality of Gallio.
“Topers was a brilliant man,” said Miller, free from his Archdeacon: “he had the marvellous gift of concentration which so few possess.”
“Would you call it absorption, Canon?” murmured Johnson: and there was a stifled laugh, which annoyed Miller: Topers’ weakness was notorious.
“Concentration, I prefer. Day after day he used to go to Parker’s, the bookseller’s in the Broad, and take up the new book of the day. As he stood there, he read in spite of all distractions, and picked the entire marrow of it before he came away. What a faculty for a barrister, a judge, a statesman to possess! Yet he did nothing but make epigrammatical remarks which are mostly forgotten. I never meet a man called Littler without thinking of Topers. Littler came up for vivâ voce in Collections: ‘Mr. Littler,’ said Topers with venomous looks, ‘your Greek prose is disgusting, your Latin prose is disgusting, your translation is disgusting, and your name is ungrammatical.’”