It took us quite a quarter of an hour to collect our party, but when this had been done we made hastily for Jacques’ to make sure of getting something to eat and drink before closing time. Blandford, who belongs to the New Lyric, invited the whole party to sup there, but I dissuaded him; and as we afterwards found that the Club was closed indefinitely, my wisdom was justified. Crossing the Circus we lost Reggie; who subsequently scandalised the habitués of the Great Trafalgar by reappearing about 11.30 next morning in evening dress with an improbable tale of a cousin from Peckham Rye, who had taken him in for the night.
At the entrance to the Restaurant, Freddy sighted an awful looking object with an eye-glass, which subsequently caused him much perturbation. An appeal to the presiding genius of the lobster bar to have the offensive person removed proved unavailing, and so we made for the supper room endeavouring to forget his glassy eye and pinched waist. Since it was no longer as early as it had been, the room was nearly full, each table being occupied by one or more young gentlemen enjoying assorted confectionery. Before we had time to do anything a fight between two ladies, late of Hamburg, but now of Aphrodite Mansions, according to the waiter, engrossed our attention. The subject of dispute was a weak-looking little man with pince-nez who gazed helplessly at the combatants, evidently wondering if his fate would be that of the baby in the case adjudicated by the late Solomon of Jerusalem! The end came quite suddenly, for a herculean official unobstrusively removed the two ladies, leaving the poor little man to consume a double portion of rum omelette in solitude.
By running two tables together we managed to keep our party united, and an invaluable waiter who appeared to know our wants by instinct, dumped down several dishes of devilled kidneys and two magnums of the best, which were consumed as though none of us had had a meal for a week. We were doing very nicely, thank you, and Freddy and Fatty had already fallen into a comatose condition when the room was electrified by the appearance of Ironsides of Tydvil carrying the offensive eye-glass person upside down by one leg. Several waiters clung unheeded to his trousers, and the manager followed giving vent to frenzied ejaculations. The creature’s disengaged leg had only just collided with the head waiter’s face, and swept three glasses off a buffet when the lights went out, and simultaneously a piece of grilled haddock found a lodgement in my eye. Those in authority raised a melancholy chorus of ‘time, gentlemen, please,’ with a foreign accent, and Freddy, having tucked a magnum under each arm, led the procession to the door, supported by Accrington with the bill pinned on to his coat-tail.
The subsequent adventures of the party were too varied to be described in full, with the exception of Fatty, whom we sent straight back to the hotel in a hansom, and who was discovered by the charwoman at 6.30 asleep under the billiard table.
The party that breakfasted at the Great Trafalgar next morning about lunch-time was reduced in number and unusually thoughtful; the latter, partly because it is extremely difficult to raise money in London on Sunday, and partly owing to the frequent lubrication on the previous evening. Freddy had already left by the Holyhead express for Coffington Castle, Co. Down. In the brief message left with the night porter for Squiff, he explained that he had been to see the sunrise from Notting Hill, and had only just had time to fetch his luggage. Von Graussman and de Beresford, who had slept in an hotel in New Oxford Street, left by the Pullman train at 11.0 for Brighton to recruit, as they said they had both had too much pastry the night before. All traces had been entirely lost of Blandford; it is only known that he arrived home three days later with a broken bowler and a couple of ladies’ cloak-room tickets, and went to bed for several days. The rest of us returned to Oxford to pack and go through Vivas. I think I endorse the opinion of Fatty, who afterwards remarked that ‘The wicked flourish like a green bay tree, though they much prefer the dew of Glenlivet to that of Hermon.’
VII.
HOW WE RAGGED THE SUBURBAN.
Owing to the awful scenes on the last night of the ‘Cannibal Girl,’ musical comedies had become exceedingly unpopular with the authorities, and so we had to rely upon the Suburban for what Squiff calls ‘an occasional divarsion.’
It all began with the Fresher’s lunch in Wykeham’s. The Fresher is exceedingly fresh for, well, for a fresher, and his lunch, like the Miller’s daughter, ‘was fresher still.’ The party was a genial one, though, with the exception of Reggie and Accrington, most of the sportsmen present were recruited from circles outside that of the Elect. I regret to say that I arrived last of all, but then I generally do. I don’t think any of the best people would know me now if I came in first to a public function; they’d think it was my double.