Several of those thus appealed to exchanged glances of horror, and at last Archer, who was rather an exclusive, and particularly sensitive to ridicule, began:—
“Why, really, sir, you must excuse—”
“Umph! excuse? no excuses are required, sir; when you've lived as long as I have, you'll learn not to care in what company you sail, so as it's honest company. Noah's great-grandfather found out the truth of that, sir, when he had to be hail-fellow-well-met with tiger-cats and hippopotamuses in the ark—hippopotami, I suppose you classical men call it—though, now I come to think of it, he never was there at all. But you will let an old man go with you, there's good boys,” continued Mr. Frampton in a tone of entreaty; “not one of you feels more interest in Frank Fairlegh's success than I do.”
“Come along, governor,” exclaimed Lawless, taking him by the arm, “you and I will go together, and if anybody gets in your way, down he goes if he were as big as Goliath of Gath. You shall see the list as soon as any one of them, for you're a trump—a regular brick!”
“With a very odd tile on the top of it,” whispered Archer, pointing to the broad brim.
“Now, then,” continued Lawless, “fall in there. Follow the governor. To the right about face! March!” So saying, he flung open the door, and arm-in-arm with Mr. Frampton hurried down the stairs, followed by the others in double-quick time. When they were all gone I made an effort to rouse myself from the state of lassitude and depression into which I had fallen, and succeeded so far as to recover sufficient energy to attempt the labour of dressing, though my hands trembled to such a degree that I could scarcely accomplish it, and was forced to postpone the operation of shaving to some more favourable opportunity.
Having made my outer-man respectable, I re-entered the sitting-room, and waited with impatience for the return of my friends. Oh! the horrors of suspense! that tooth-ache of the mind, in which each moment of anxiety r stretched on the rack of expectation, appears to the overwrought senses an eternity of gnawing anguish!—of all the mental tortures with which I am acquainted, defend me from suspense!
I had worked myself up into a thorough fever, and was becoming so excited that I was on the point of rushing out to learn the worst at once, when sundry shouts, mingled with peals of laughter, reached my ear—sounds which assured me that news was at hand. And now, with the inconsistency of human nature, I trembled at, and would willingly have delayed, my friends' arrival, lest it might bring me the certainty of failure, to which even the doubt and suspense I had been so lately chafing at appeared preferable. The sounds grew louder and louder—they were approaching. Oh! how my heart beat! in another moment they would be here. Sinking into a chair, for my knees trembled so that I could scarcely stand, I remained with my eyes fixed upon the door in a state of breathless anxiety. More shouting! surely that was a cheer—
“Hurrah! hurrah! out of the way there! room for the governor!”—a rush of many feet up the stairs—more, cheering—the door is thrown open, and a party of from fifteen to twenty undergraduates come pouring in, with Mr. Frampton in the midst of them, carried in triumph on the shoulders of Lawless and another man, and waving a list in one hand, and the broad-brimmed hat in the other.