“He thinks you’re complete to a shade,” explained Bertram, interpreting these signs. “He ain’t much of a dab with the petticoats, but he’s a great gun, I can tell you! Up to every rig and row in town!”
Arabella looked at Mr. Scunthorpe with interest. He presented the appearance of a very mild young man; and although his fancy waistcoat bespoke the man of fashion, he seemed to her to lack address. She bowed politely, which made him blush very much, and fall into a fit of stuttering. Bertram, feeling that some further introduction might be considered desirable by his sister, said: “You don’t know him: he was at Harrow with me. He’s older than I am, but he’s got no brains, y’know: never could learn anything! I ran into him in the High.”
“The High?” repeated Arabella.
“Oxford, you know!” said Bertram loftily. “Dash it, Bella, you can’t have forgot I’ve been up to take my Smalls!”
“No, indeed!” she said. “Sophy wrote that you were gone there, and that poor James was unable to accompany you, because of the jaundice. I was so sorry! But how did you go on, Bertram? Do you think you have passed?”
“Lord, I don’t know! There was one devilish paper—but never mind that now! The thing is that I met old Felix here, the very man I wanted!”
“Oh, yes?” Arabella said, adding with a civil smile: “Were you up for Smalls too, sir?”
Mr. Scunthorpe appeared to shrink from such a suggestion, shaking his head, and making a sound in his throat which Arabella took to be a negative.
“Of course he wasn’t!” said Bertram. “Don’t I keep telling you he can’t learn anything? He was visiting some friends in Oxford! He found it pretty dull work, too, didn’t you, Felix? They would take him to blue-parties, all professors, and Bag-wigs, and the poor fellow couldn’t follow the stuff they talked. Shabby thing to do to him, for he was bound to make a cake of himself in that sort of company! However, that’s not what I want to talk about. The thing is, Bella, that Felix is going to show me all the sights, because he’s at home to a peg in London—been on the town ever since they threw him out of Harrow.”
“And Papa gave his consent?” exclaimed Arabella.