The Bullingdon Ball took place on the Tuesday night, and Joyce returned to town the following morning. Her brother may have mentioned the time, or it may have been pure coincidence that I should be buying papers and watching the trains when she arrived at the station with the girl she was chaperoning. We met as friends and exchanged papers: I gave her the Morning Post and received the New Militant in return. As the train slipped away from the platform, she waved farewell with a carefully gloved left hand. Then Dick and I strolled back to the House.
In drowsy, darkened chamber Robin was sleeping the sleep of the just. As I voyaged round his rooms, I reflected that undergraduate humour changes little through the ages, and in Oxford as elsewhere the unsuspecting just falls easy prey to wakeful, prowling injustice. An enemy had visited that peaceful home of slumber. Half-hidden by disordered bed-clothes, a cold bath prematurely awaited Robin's foot, and on his table was spread a repast such as no right-thinking man orders for himself after two nights' heavy dancing. Moist, indecorous slabs of cold boiled beef, beer for six, two jars of piccalilli and a round of over-ripe Gorgonzola cheese, offered piteous appeal to a jaded, untasting palate. Suspended from the overmantel—that soul might start on equal terms with body—hung the pious aspiration—"God Bless our Home."
"Garton, for a bob!" Robin exclaimed when I described the condition of his rooms.
Flinging the bed-clothes aside, he fell heavily into the bath, extricated himself to the accompaniment of low, vehement muttering that may have been a prayer, and bounded across the landing to render unto Garton the things that were Garton's. I followed at a non-committal distance, and watched the disposal of two pounds of boiled beef in unsuspected corners of Garton's rooms. Three slices were hidden in the tobacco jar, the rest impartially distributed behind Garton's books—to mature and strengthen during sixteen weeks of Long Vacation. Balancing the jug of beer on the door-top—whence it fell and caved in the fraudulent white head of a venerable scout—Robin hastened back to his own quarters and sported the oak.
"I was thinking of a touch of lunch on the Cher," he observed, exchanging his dripping pyjamas for a dressing-gown and making for a window-seat commanding Canterbury Gate, a cigarette in one hand and a Gorgonzola cheese in the other. "If you wouldn't mind toddling round to Phil and the Seraph and routing the girls out, we might all meet at the House barge at one. I'll cut along and dress as soon as I've given Garton a little nourishment. I suppose the pickles 'ud kill him," he added with a regretful glance at the two-pound glass jars.
I communicated the rendezvous to Philip, threw an eye over the "Where is Miss Rawnsley?" article as I crossed the Quad, and dropped anchor in the Seraph's rooms. His quaint streak of femininity showed itself in the bowls of "White Enchantress" carnations with which the tables and mantelpiece were adorned. A neat pile of foolscap covered with shorthand characters indicated early rising and studious method. I found him working his way through the Times and Westminster Gazette for the last three days.
"I suppose there is no news?" I said when I had told him Robin's arrangements for the day and described the Battle of the Beef.
"Nothing to-day," he answered. "Have you seen yesterday's Times?"
I had been far too busy with Joyce and my three wards to spare a moment for the papers. I now read for the first time that the Prime Minister had moved for the appropriation of all Private Members' days. The Poor Law Reform Bill would engage the attention of the House for the remainder of the Session, to the exclusion of Female Suffrage and every other subject.
"That's Rawnsley's answer to this," I said, giving the Seraph my copy of the New Militant.