Augustus had become a Decadent—a silly harmless conventionally-unconventional Decadent. But, as Carey, a contemporary Rugger blood, coarsely remarked, he hadn't the innards to go far wrong.
It was part of his cheap and childish ritual as a Decadent to draw the curtains after breakfast, light candles, place the flask of Green Chartreuse and a liqueur-glass on the table, drop one drip of the liquid into the glass, burn a stinking pastille of incense, place a Birmingham "god" or an opening lily before him, ruffle his hair, and sprawl on the sofa with a wicked French novel he could not read—hoping for visitors and an audience.
If any fellow dropped in and, very naturally, exclaimed, "What the devil are you doing?" he would reply:—
"Wha'? Oh, sunligh'? Very vulgar thing sunligh'. Art is always superior to Nature. You love the garish day being a gross Philistine, wha'? Now I only live at night. Glorious wicked nigh'. So I make my own nigh'. Wha'? Have some Green Chartreuse—only drink fit for a Hedonist. I drink its colour and I taste its glorious greenness. Ichor and Nectar of Helicon and the Pierian Spring. I loved a Wooman once, with eyes of just that glowing glorious green and a soul of ruby red. I called her my Emerald-eyed, Ruby-souled Devil, and we drank together deep draughts of the red red Wine of Life——"
Sometimes the visitor would say: "Look here, Grobb, you ought to be in the Zoo, you know. There's a lot there like you, all in one big cage," or similar words of disapproval.
Sometimes a young fresher would be impressed, especially if he had been brought up by Aunts in a Vicarage, and would also become a Decadent.
During vac. the Decadents would sometimes meet in Town, and See Life—a singularly uninteresting and unattractive side of Life (much more like Death), and the better men among them—better because of a little sincerity and pluck—would achieve a petty and rather sordid "adventure" perhaps.
Augustus had no head for Mathematics and no gift for Languages, while his Classics had always been a trifle more than shaky. History bored him—so he read Moral Philosophy.
There is a somewhat dull market for second-hand and third-class Moral Philosophy in England, so Augustus took his to India. In the first college that he adorned his classes rapidly dwindled to nothing, and the College Board dispensed with the services of Augustus, who passed on to another College in another Province, leaving behind him an odour of moral dirtiness, debt, and decadence. Quite genuine decadence this time, with nothing picturesque about it, involving doctors' bills, alimony, and other the fine crops of wild-oat sowing.
At Gungapur he determined to "settle down," to "turn over a new leaf," and laid a good space of paving-stone upon his road to reward.