"Mr. Bruton," said Vincent, "what news from Staffordshire? Are the potteries pretty quiet now? Our potteries grow in importance. You need not look at the cup and saucer before you, Mr. Catley; those came from Derbyshire. But you find English crockery everywhere on the Continent. I myself found half a willow-pattern saucer in the crater of Vesuvius. Mr. Sikes, I think you have been in Italy?"
"No, sir," said Sikes; "I was near going; my family set off a fortnight ago, but I was kept here by these confounded smalls."
"Your Responsiones," answered the tutor in a tone of rebuke; "an unfortunate delay for you, for it is to be an unusually fine season, if the meteorologists of the sister University are right in their predictions. Who is in the Responsion schools, Mr. Sikes?"
"Butson of Leicester is the strict one, sir; he plucks one man in three. He plucked last week Patch of St. George's, and Patch has taken his oath he'll shoot him; and Butson has walked about ever since with a bulldog."
"These are reports, Mr. Sikes, which often flit about, but must not be trusted. Mr. Patch could not have given a better proof that his rejection was deserved."
A pause—during which poor Vincent hastily gobbled up two or three mouthfuls of bread and butter, the knives and forks meanwhile clinking upon his guests' plates.
"Sir, is it true," began one of his guests at length, "that the old Principal is going to be married?"
"These are matters, Mr. Atkins," answered Vincent, "which we should always inquire about at the fountain-head; antiquam exquirite matrem, or rather patrem; ha, ha! Take some more tea, Mr. Reding; it won't hurt your nerves. I am rather choice in my tea; this comes overland through Russia; the sea-air destroys the flavour of our common tea. Talking of air, Mr. Tenby, I think you are a chemist. Have you paid attention to the recent experiments on the composition and resolution of air? Not? I am surprised at it; they are well worth your most serious consideration. It is now pretty well ascertained that inhaling gases is the cure for all kinds of diseases. People are beginning to talk of the gas-cure, as they did of the water-cure. The great foreign chemist, Professor Scaramouch, has the credit of the discovery. The effects are astounding, quite astounding; and there are several remarkable coincidences. You know medicines are always unpleasant, and so these gases are always fetid. The Professor cures by stenches, and has brought his science to such perfection that he actually can classify them. There are six elementary stenches, and these spread into a variety of subdivisions? What do you say, Mr. Reding? Distinctive? Yes, there is something very distinctive in smells. But what is most gratifying of all, and is the great coincidence I spoke of, his ultimate resolution of fetid gases assigns to them the very same precise number as is given to existing complaints in the latest treatises on pathology. Each complaint has its gas. And, what is still more singular, an exhausted receiver is a specific for certain desperate disorders. For instance, it has effected several cures of hydrophobia. Mr. Seaton," he continued to a freshman, who, his breakfast finished, was sitting uncomfortably on his chair, looking down and playing with his knife—"Mr. Seaton, you are looking at that picture"—it was almost behind Seaton's back—"I don't wonder at it; it was given me by my good old mother, who died many years ago. It represents some beautiful Italian scenery."
Vincent stood up, and his party after him, and all crowded round the picture.
"I prefer the green of England," said Reding.