THE BATHING SHEDS, OR “PARSONS’ PLEASURE”
These sheds are built on the banks of the river Cherwell, the willow trees lining the stream being fitted with platforms at all heights for plunging.
A figure to the right is taking advantage of one of these stations; others are dressing or preparing to bathe.
The time is near sunset in summer.
unscrupulousness of their ancestors. In short, he may be a most brilliant, most fascinating, or most modest person, who has chosen to appear piebald.
His room is decorated with photographs of actresses, along with perhaps a Hogarth print, a florid male and a floral female portrait, an expensive picture of a horse, and copies from Leighton. In a corner is a piano, which he is perhaps eager and unable to play. The air is scented with roses and cigarettes. The window-seat is strewn with hunting-crops, bills, a caricature of himself from an undergraduate paper, several novels and boxes of cigarettes, a history of the Argent-Bigpotts of Bigpott, and, under a cushion, some note-books and a table of work.
He is to be met with everywhere; for he is not ashamed to be seen. He lives long in the memories of travellers from Birmingham who wait five minutes in Oxford. In the Schools he is a constant attendant, always sanguine, not quite cheerful or satisfied with the company, yet equal (at his Viva Voce) to a look of ineffectual superiority for the man who ploughs him with a smile. He is also to be found by the river, during the Eights, when he cheers and looks very well; in a bookshop, where he recognises Omar and some novels; or in the High, which never wearies him, although his bored look seems to say so.[Pg 286]