Topsy, by all that was wonderful and unexpected! A beaming, grinning little nigger girl, with tightly curled hair, rolling eyes, and white teeth showing to the gums. A short gown of brilliantly striped cotton reached to the knees, brown-stockinged arms and legs were matched by brown-painted face and neck; standing side by side with the Dutch Doll, the respective whiteness and brownness became accentuated to a positively dazzling extent, and the onlookers were jubilant with delight. The climax was reached when the two waltzed off together round the room, the doll sustaining a delightful stiffness and stoniness of mien, while Topsy’s grin threatened to reach to her very ears.
Ordinary costumes fell somewhat flat after these triumphs, though to the Freshers there was a continuing joy in beholding dignified students in their third year pirouetting in childlike abandonment. There, for instance, was the cleverest girl in college, of whom it was accepted as a certainty that she would become a world-wide celebrity, an austere and remote personage who was seldom seen to smile; there she stood, the daintiest Christmas Cracker that one could wish to behold, in a sheath of shimmery pink, tied in the middle by a golden string, finished at either end with a froth of frills, and ornamented front and back with immense bouquets of flowers. By an ingenious arrangement also, if you pulled a string in a certain way, a mysterious cracking sound was heard, and a motto made its appearance bearing an original couplet whose reference was strictly and delightfully local.
The run on these mottoes was great, and after their points were fully enjoyed, they were folded carefully away, to be kept as souvenirs of the great scholar of later years.
The evening was half over, and the girls had settled down to the dance, when suddenly, unexpectedly, the great excitement arrived. At a moment when the music had ceased, and the various couples were preparing for the usual promenade around the Hall, a loud roar was heard from without, and into the middle of the floor there trotted nothing more nor less than a tawny yellow lion, which, being confronted by a crowd of spectators, drew back as if in fear, and crouched in threatening manner. Its masked face showed a savage row of teeth; a mass of red hair, shortened by that mysterious process known as “back combing,” produced a sufficiently convincing mane; a yellow skin hearthrug was wrapped round the body, while paint and wadding combined had contrived a wonderfully good imitation of claws.
It was the colour of the hair alone which revealed the identity of the Lion to her companions. “It’s that wretched little ginger Georgie!”
“That little ginger beast!” went the cry from lip to lip. But, abuse her as they might, for the rest of the evening “Ginger Georgie” remained the centre of attraction, as she persistently ambled after Topsy, and gnawed at her brown feet, evidently recognising in her at once a compatriot and a tit-bit.
Well, well! Il faut souffrire pour être—célèbre! When supper-time arrived, and the lion’s mask was removed, behold a countenance so magenta with heat that compared with it even the Letter Box herself was pale. The two sufferers were waited upon with the most assiduous attention, as was indeed only fair. When one has voluntarily endured a condition of semi-suffocation throughout an evening’s “pleasuring” for the unselfish reason of providing amusement for others, it’s a poor thing if one cannot be assisted to lemonade in return.
The Lion sat up well into the night combing out her mane; the Letter Box had the first bad headache in her life, but both tumbled into bed at last, proud and happy in the remembrance of an historic success.