(a) Of having been intoxicated.
(b) Of having insulted the Dean.
(c) Of having persuaded and finally compelled the younger members of the College to drink more than was good for them.
To which I replied (a) that seeing that I was in strict training it was obvious that the charge of intoxication was unfounded; (b) that so far from insulting the Dean, I had addressed him in Danish, and that familiar as I knew him to be with all the languages of Europe and especially the Scandinavian tongues, he had probably not realized to the full the exact shade of deference, respect, and awe which the expression I used implied; (c) that as far as the charge of corrupting the young was concerned, I was not ashamed to stand in the same dock with Socrates, and I would cheerfully, if the College authorities and my Royal parents thought fit, share the doom of my august master. Finally I reminded the noble and learned assembly that were I to be expelled, even temporarily, from the College I should be unable (a) to represent the Alma Mater with the rapier against the University of Cambridge, who had a powerful champion of the noble art in Laertes, a fellow-countryman of mine; and (b) I should not be able to row in the College boat. I concluded by saying that certain as I was that my royal parents would endorse any decision which should be arrived at by the Master and his Colleagues, I was convinced that were I to be sent down from the College, my royal father, in order that my studies might not be interrupted, would immediately send me to Cambridge.
The net result of all this is that I am admonished.
Later in the Day I received a note from the Dean asking me to dine with him next Thursday.
Sunday.—Breakfasted with the Master to meet the Poet Laureate, the Archbishop of York, the Lord Chancellor, the French ambassador, and Quattrovalli, a celebrated Italian juggler. The poet laureate read out an Ode he had just composed on the King's sixth marriage. Very poor.
Monday.—Took part in the debate held by the College Debating Society. The subject being whether Homer's Epics were written by Homer or by a Committee of Athenian Dons.
Took what seemed to the audience a paradoxical view that they were written by Homer.
Tuesday.—Gave a small dinner party in my rooms. Horatio and a few others. Again compelled to feign intoxication, so as not to mar the harmony of the evening. Burnt a small organ, and rather a complicated printing press, belonging to a German undergraduate named Faustus, in the Quadrangle.