Cover
"LET ME GIVE YOU ONE HINT, MY LAD" (p. [48])
HAPPY-GO-LUCKY
BY
IAN HAY
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
C. E. BROCK
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY IAN HAY BEITH
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Published August, 1913
TO
T. S. A. B.
CONTENTS
BOOK ONE
YOUTHFUL EXCURSIONS
BOOK TWO
A BLIND ALLEY
- [Travels with a First Reserve]
- [Very Odious]
- [Forbidden Fruit--A Digression]
- [Unearned Increment]
- [A Relapse]
- [The Only Way Out]
- [Still at Large]
- [The First Turning to the Right]
BOOK THREE
THE RIGHT ROAD
- [Mice and Men]
- [Lucidity Itself]
- [Another Cosy Chat, with an Interruption]
- [A Day of Calm Reflection]
- [An Impossible Family]
- [The Word "Swank"]
- [De L'Audace, et encore de l'Audace, et toujours de l'Audace!]
- [Sidelights on a Public Character]
- [Rehearsed Effects]
- [Unrehearsed]
- [The Real Tilly]
- [The Real Mr. Welwyn]
- [A Garden Plot in Russell Square]
- [Purely Commercial]
- [The Final Freak]
ILLUSTRATIONS
["Let me give you one Hint, my Lad"] (p. [48]) . . . Frontispiece
["Chorus once more, please, Gentlemen!"]
["How do you do, Miss Weller?" said Lady Adela, mystified but well-bred]
["Reflect!" urged the Broker's Man, gently resisting Percy's Efforts to eject him]
["This is very naughty," he announced reproachfully]
HAPPY-GO-LUCKY
BOOK ONE
YOUTHFUL EXCURSIONS
HAPPY-GO-LUCKY
CHAPTER I
A BRIEF INTRODUCTION
They--that is, the London-and-the-south-thereof contingent of the Hivite House at Grandwich--always celebrated the first morning of the holidays by breakfasting together at the Imperial Hotel at Oakleigh, as a preliminary to catching the nine-fifty-two.
A certain stateliness--not to say pomp--distinguished the function. Negotiations for the provision of the feast were opened at an early date--usually about half-term--the first step taking the form of a dignified but ungrammatical communication, cast in that most intricate and treacherous of moulds, the third person, to the proprietor of the hotel, intimating, after compliments, that Mr. Rumbold (major), Hivite House, Grandwich School, would be much obliged if our party could be supplied with breakfast, and you usually do it for half-a-crown as there are a lot of us, and if you don't we shall probably go to the George, and as the party wishes to catch the train Mr. Rumbold would be obliged if you can give it to me punctually.
To this mine host would reply with a most gratifying typewritten document addressed to--Rumbold, Esq.,--a form of address which never fails to please so long as your parents and other adult correspondents persist in designating you "Master,"--expressing the utmost willingness to provide breakfast for Mr. Rumbold's party at two-and-sixpence per head (which, by the way, was the normal charge), and concluding with a tactfully-worded request for information (inadvertently omitted from Mr. Rumbold's original communication) upon the following points:--
(1) The date of the feast.
(2) The number of young gentlemen likely to be present.
(3) The hour of the train which they propose to catch.
During the second half-term Mr. Rumbold's leisure would be pleasantly occupied in recruiting the breakfast-party and communicating its numbers and requirements, intermittently and piecemeal, together with searching enquiries re kidneys and ultimatums on the subject of scrambled eggs, to the rapidly ageing proprietor of the Imperial Hotel.
On the joyous morning of departure a dozen emancipated Helots, all glorious in bowler hats and coloured ties which atoned at a bound for thirteen weeks of statutory headgear and subfusc. haberdashery, descended upon the Imperial Hotel and sat down with intense but businesslike cheerfulness to the half-crown breakfast. On these occasions distinctions of caste were disregarded. Fag and prefect sat side by side. Brothers who had religiously cut one another throughout the term were reunited, even indulging in Christian names. Gentlemen who had fought to a finish behind the fives-court every alternate Wednesday afternoon since term began, took sweet counsel together upon the respective merits of Egyptian and Turkish cigarettes.
On the particular occasion with which we are concerned--a crisp morning in December--the party numbered twelve. It is not necessary to describe them in detail, for ten of them make their appearance, in this narrative, at any rate, for the first and last time. Let it suffice to say that Mr. Rumbold major sat at the head of the table and Mr. Rumbold minor at the foot, Mr. Rumbold tertius occupying a position about halfway down. Among others present might have been noticed (as the little society papers say) Mr. "Balmy" Coke, Mr. "Oaf" Sandiford, Mr. "Buggy" Reid, Mr. "Slimy" Green, Mr. "Lummy" Law, and Mr. "Adenoid" Smith. More notable figures were Messrs. "Spangle" Jerningham and "Tiny" Carmyle--lesser luminaries than Rumbold himself, but shining lights in the athletic firmament for all that.
One place only was vacant. The company, in accordance with what is probably the most rigorous social code in existence--schoolboy etiquette--had divided itself into two groups. The first, consisting of those whose right to a place at the head of the table was unquestioned, settled down at once with loud and confident anticipations of enjoyment. The remainder followed their example with more diffidence, beginning at the foot of the table and extending coyly upwards, those whose claim to a place above the salt was beginning to be more than considerable punctiliously taking the lowest places in order to escape the dread stigma of "side." Thus, by reason of the forces of mutual repulsion, a gap occurred in the very middle of the table, between a nervous little boy in spectacles, one Buggy Reid, and the magnificent Mr. Jerningham, Secretary of the Fifteen and the best racquets-player in the school.
"One short!" announced Rumbold. "Who is it?"
There was a general counting of heads. Mr. Reid timidly offered information.
"I think it is The Freak," he said.
There was a general laugh.
"Wonder what he's up to now," mused Mr. Jerningham. "You ought to know, Rummy. Your fag, is n't he?"
"I gave him the bag two terms ago," replied the great man contentedly. "Tiny has him now."
He turned to another of the seniors--a long-legged youth with a subdued manner.
"Still got him, Tiny?"
"Yes," said Mr. Carmyle gloomily, "I have still got him. It's a hard life, though."
"I know," said Rumbold sympathetically. "Does he cross-question you about the photographs on your mantelpiece?"
"Yes," said Carmyle. "He spoke very favourably of my youngest sister. Showed me a photograph of his own, and asked me to come and stay with them in the holidays. Said he thought I would have much in common with his father."
There was general merriment at this, for Mr. Carmyle was patriarchal, both in appearance and habits. But it did nothing to soothe the nerves of The Freak himself, who happened at the moment to be standing shyly upon one leg outside the door, endeavouring to summon up sufficient courage to walk in.
He was a small sandy-haired boy with shrewd blue eyes and a most disarming smile, and he belonged to a not uncommon and distinctly unlucky class. There are boys who are shy and who look shy. Such are usually left to themselves, and gradually attain to confidence. There are boys who are bumptious and behave bumptiously. Such are usually put through a brief disciplinary course by their friends, and ultimately achieve respectability. And there are boys who are shy, but who, through sheer self-consciousness and a desire to conceal their shyness, behave bumptiously. The way of such is hard. Public School disciplinary methods do not discriminate between the sheep and the goats. Variations from the normal, whether voluntary or involuntary, are all corrected by the same methods. Unconventionality of every kind is rebuked by stern moralists who have been through the mill themselves, and are convinced that it would be ungenerous to deprive the succeeding generation of the benefits which have produced such brilliant results in their own case.
The Freak--Master Richard Mainwaring--entered the school-world unfairly handicapped. He had never been from home before. He was an only son, and had had few companions but his parents. Consequently he was addicted to language and phraseology which, though meet and fitting upon the lips of elderly gentlemen, sounded ineffably pedantic upon those of an unkempt fag of fourteen. Finally, he was shy and sensitive, yet quite unable to indicate that characteristic by a retiring demeanour.
Life at school, then, did not begin too easily for him. He was naturally of a chirpy and confiding disposition, and the more nervous he felt the more chirpy and confiding he became. He had no instincts, either, upon the subject of caste. Instead of confining himself to his own impossible order of pariahs, he attempted to fraternise with any boy who interested him. He addressed great personages by their pet names; he invited high potentates to come and partake of refreshment at his expense. Now, promiscuous bonhomie in new boys is not usually encouraged in the great schools of England, and all the ponderous and relentless machinery available for the purpose was set in motion to impress this truth upon the over-demonstrative Freak. Most of us know this mighty engine. Under its operations many sensitive little boys crumple up into furtive and apathetic nonentities. Others grow into licensed buffoons, battening upon their own shame, cadging for cheap applause, thinking always of things to say and to do which will make fellows laugh. The Freak did neither. He remained obstinately and resolutely a Freak. If chidden for eccentricity he answered back, sometimes too effectively, and suffered. But he never gave in. At last, finding that he apparently feared no one,--though really this was far from being the case: his most audacious flights were as often as not inspired by sheer nervous excitement,--the world in which he moved decided to tolerate him, and finally ended by extending towards him a sort of amused respect.
All this time we have left our friend standing outside the door. Presently, drawing a deep breath, he entered, jauntily enough.
"Hallo, Freak, where have you been?" enquired Mr. Rumbold.
"I felt constrained," replied The Freak, as one old gentleman to another, "to return to the House upon an errand of reparation."
A full half of the company present were blankly ignorant as to the meaning of the word "reparation," so they giggled contentedly and decided that The Freak was in good form this morning.
"What was the trouble?" asked Jerningham.
"As I was counting my change in the cab," explained The Freak, "I found that I was a penny short. (I'll have fried sole, and then bacon-and-eggs, please. And chocolate.)"
"Shylock!" commented the humorous Mr. Jerningham.
The Freak hastened to explain.
"It was the only penny I had," he said: "that was why I missed it. The rest was silver. I saw what had happened: I had given a penny to Seagrave by mistake, instead of half-a-crown."
The thought of Mr. Seagrave, the stern and awful butler of the Hivite House, incredulously contemplating a solitary copper in his palm, what time the unconscious Freak drove away two-and-fivepence to the good, tickled the company greatly, and the narrator had made considerable inroads upon the fried sole before he was called upon to continue.
"What did you do?" asked Rumbold.
"I drove back and apologised, and gave him two-and-fivepence," said The Freak simply.
"Was he shirty about it?"
"No; he did n't seem at all surprised," was the rather naïve reply.
There was another laugh at this, and Jerningham observed:--
"Freak, you are the limit."
"I may be the limit," countered The Freak hotly,--ordinary chaff he could endure, but Mr. Jerningham had more than once exceeded the bounds of recognised fag-baiting that term,--"but I am wearing my own shirt, Jerningham, and not one of Carmyle's!"
There was a roar at this unexpected riposte, for Jerningham, though a dandy of the most ambitious type, was notoriously addicted to borrowed plumage, and the cubicle of the easy-going Carmyle was next his own.
"You will be booted for that afterwards, my lad," announced the discomfited wearer of Mr. Carmyle's shirt.
The Freak surveyed his tormentor thoughtfully. After all, he was safe from reprisals for nearly five weeks. He therefore replied, deliberately and pedantically:--
"I do not dispute the probability of the occurrence. But that won't prevent you," he added, reverting to the vernacular, "from feeling jolly well scored off, all the same. And"--after a brief interval to allow this psychological point full play--"mind you send the shirt back to Carmyle. I have enough trouble looking after his things as it is. Get it washed, and then carefully dis--"
"Carefully what?" enquired Mr. Jerningham, beginning to push back his chair.
The Freak, who had intended to say "disinfected," decided not to endanger his clean collar, carefully brushed hair, and other appurtenances of the homeward-bound.
--"And carefully despatched per Parcels Post," he concluded sweetly. "Hello, you fellows--finished?"
"Yes: buck up!" commanded Rumbold.
The feast ended in traditional fashion. No bill was ever asked for or presented upon these occasions. Rumbold major merely took the sugar-basin and, having emptied it of its contents, placed therein the sum of two-and-nine-pence--half-a-crown for his breakfast and threepence for the waiters. The bowl was then sent round the table in the manner of an offertory plate, and the resulting collection was handed without ceremony to the fat head-waiter, who received it with a stately bow and a few well-chosen and long-familiar phrases upon the subject of a good holiday and a Merry Christmas; after which the members of the party dispersed to the railway station and went their several ways.
It was characteristic of The Freak that he hung behind at the last moment, for the purpose of handing a furtive shilling to the inarticulate Teuton who had assisted in dispensing breakfast, and whose underfed appearance had roused beneath the comfortably distended waistcoat of our altruistic friend certain suspicions, not altogether unfounded, as to the principle upon which head-waiters share tips with their subordinates.
CHAPTER II
THE FIRST FREAK
My name is Carmyle. Possibly you may have noticed it in the previous chapter, among the list of those present at the breakfast at the Imperial. It was not a particularly hilarious meal for me, for I was leaving Grandwich for good that morning; and the schoolboy bids farewell to this, the first chapter of his life, with a ceremony--not to say solemnity--sadly at variance with the cheerfulness or indifference with which he sometimes turns the page at the close of later epochs.
I parted from the main body of Hivites at Peterborough, for they were bound for London, while I had to transfer my person and effects to the care of the Great Eastern Railway for conveyance to my home in Essex.
At Ely, a little tired of the company and conversation of five East Anglian farmers, who occupied more than their fair share of room and conducted an extremely dull technical conversation with quite surprising heat and vehemence over my head and across my waistcoat, I walked up the platform in search of a little more cubic space. At the very front of the train I found a third-class compartment containing only a single occupant.
"Hallo, Freak!" I said. "I thought you were bound for London."
"Your surmise," replied my late fag, "is correct. But there was a slight mishap at Peterborough."
"You got left behind?"
"Practically, yes. In point of fact, I was bunged out of the train by Spangle Jerningham."
"Why?"
"He bought some bananas, and I warned him not to. I said some people had been prosecuted only last week for eating fruit in a railway carriage."
"Silly young idiot!" I replied, falling into the trap, even as Jerningham had done. "Why--"
"But they were," persisted The Freak. "They were caught sucking dates--off their tickets! And as there was no train on for two hours," he concluded, neatly dodging "The Strand Magazine," "I decided to come round this way. We get to Liverpool Street by four. How far are you going?"
I told him, and the train resumed its journey through the fenland.
The next stop was Cambridge, where The Freak, suddenly remembering that the railway ticket in his possession was entirely useless for his present purpose, got out to buy another. I hung out of the carriage window, wondering which of the Colleges the tall yellow-brick building just outside the station might be, and gazing reverentially upon a group of three young men in tweed jackets and flannel trousers, who had temporarily torn themselves from the pursuit of knowledge for the purpose of bidding farewell to the members of a theatrical touring company.
Presently our engine and brake-van removed themselves to a place of refreshment down the line; whereupon a somnolent horse of mountainous aspect, which had been meekly standing by, attached by a trace to an empty third-class coach, took advantage of their absence to tow its burden to the front of our train and leave it there, like a foundling on a doorstep, subsequently departing in search of further practical jokes.
With that instinctive shrinking from publicity which marks the professions of literature, art, and the drama, each of the compartments of the third-class coach bore a label, printed in three colours, announcing that this accommodation was reserved for Mr. Wilton Spurge's Number One Company--I have always desired to meet a Number Two Company, but have never succeeded--in "The Sign of the Cross," proceeding from Cambridge to Liverpool Street, for Walthamstow.
The majority of Mr. Wilton Spurge's followers took their seats at once; but three young ladies, hugging boxes of chocolate, remained in affectionate conversation with the undergraduates upon the platform. Most of the gentlemen of the company still lingered in the refreshment-room. Suddenly there was a gentle tremor throughout the train, as the engine and brake-van reluctantly backed themselves into a position of contact. A whistle blew, and a white flag fluttered far down the platform.
"There's no hurry," observed The Freak, who had returned from the ticket office and was now surveying the passing show with his head thrust out of the window under my arm. "That white flag only means that the Westinghouse brake is working all right."
But the female mind takes no account of technical trifles, least of all upon a railway journey. To a woman flags and whistles all spell panic. At the first blast, a lady (whom I took to be the Empress Poppeia) hastily shepherded every one within reach into the train, and then directed a piercing summons in the direction of the refreshment-room. She was seconded by an irregular but impressive chorus of admonition upon the perils of delay, led by Mercia in person and supported by a bevy of Christian Martyrs and Roman Dancing-Girls.
The whistle sounded again, and a second flag fluttered--a green one this time. There was a concerted shriek from the locomotive and the ladies, followed by a commotion at the door of the refreshment-room, from which eftsoons the Emperor Nero, bearing a bag of buns and a copy of "The Era," shot hastily forth. He was closely followed by Marcus Superbus, running rapidly and carrying two bottles of stout. Three Roman Patricians with their mouths full, together with a Father of the Early Church clinging to a half-consumed pork-pie, brought up the rear.
Deeply interested in the progress of the race, and speculating eagerly as to whether Pagan or Christian would secure the corner-seats, The Freak and I failed for the moment to note that our own compartment was in danger of invasion. But resistance was vain. At the very last moment the door was wrenched open by the guard, and four human beings were projected into our company just as the train began to move. A handbag and two paper parcels hurtled through the air after them.
"Sorry to hurry you, Mr. Welwyn, sir," said the guard, standing on the footboard and addressing the leader of the party through the window, "but we are behind time as it is, with that theatrical lot."
"My fault entirely, guard," replied Mr. Welwyn graciously. He was a handsome scholarly man of about forty. I put him down as a University Don of the best type--possibly one of the Tutors of a great college. "We should have come earlier. And--er"--here followed the indeterminate mumble and sleight-of-hand performance which accompany the bestowal of the British tip--"thank you for your trouble."
"Thank you, sir," replied the gratified menial, and disappeared into space with half-a-crown in his palm. Evidently Mr. Welwyn was a man of substance as well as consequence.
"You did n't ought to have given him so much, father dear!"
This just but ungrammatical observation emanated from the female head of the party; and despite an innate disinclination to risk catching the eye of strangers in public, I turned and inspected the speaker. From her style of address it was plain that she was either wife or daughter to Mr. Welwyn. Daughter she probably was not, for she must have been quite thirty; and therefore by a process of exhaustion I was led to the reluctant conclusion that she was his wife. I say reluctant, for it seemed incredible that a suave polished academic gentleman could be mated with a lady:--
(1) Who would initiate a domestic discussion in the presence of strangers.
(2) Whose syntax was shaky.
(3) Who wore a crimson blouse, with vermilion feathers in her hat.
But it was so. Mr. Welwyn waved a hand deprecatingly.
"One has one's position to consider, dear," he said. "Besides, these poor fellows are not overpaid, I fear, by their employers."
At this, a grim contraction flitted for a moment over Mrs. Welwyn's florid good-tempered features, and I saw suitable retorts crowding to her lips. But that admirable and exceptional woman--as in later days she proved herself over and over again to be--said nothing. Instead, she smiled indulgently upon her extravagant husband, as upon a child of the largest possible growth, and accepted from him with nothing more than a comical little sigh two magazines which had cost sixpence each.
I now had time to inspect the other two members of the party. They were children. One was a little boy--a vulgar, overdressed, plebian, open-mouthed little boy--and I was not in the least surprised a moment later to hear his mother address him as "Percy." (It had to be either "Percy" or "Douglas.") He was dressed in a tight and rather dusty suit of velveteen, with a crumpled lace collar and a plush jockey-cap. He looked about seven years old, wore curls down to his shoulders, and extracted intermittent nourishment from a long and glutinous stick of licorice.
The other was a girl--one of the prettiest little girls I have ever seen. I was not--and am not--an expert on children's ages, but I put her down as four years old. She was a plump and well-proportioned child, with an abundance of brown hair, solemn grey eyes, and a friendly smile. She sat curled up on the seat, leaning her head against her mother's arm, an oasis of contentment and neatness in that dusty railway carriage; and I felt dimly conscious that in due time I should like to possess a little girl of my own like that.
At present she was engaged in industriously staring The Freak out of countenance.
The Freak, not at all embarrassed, smiled back at her. Miss Welwyn broke into an unmaidenly chuckle, and her father put down "The Morning Post."
"Why this hilarity, my daughter?" he enquired.
The little girl, who was apparently accustomed to academically long words, indicated The Freak with a little nod of her head.
"I like that boy," she said frankly. "Not the other. Too big!"
"Baby dearie, don't talk so!" exclaimed Mrs. Welwyn, highly scandalised.
"I apologise for my daughter's lack of reserve--and discrimination," said Mr. Welwyn to me, courteously. "She will not be so sincere and unaffected in twenty years' time, I am afraid. Are you gentlemen going home for the holidays?"
I entered into conversation with him, in the course of which I learned that he was a member of the University, off on vacation. He did not tell me his College.
"Do you get long holi--vacations, sir, at Cambridge?" I asked. "When do you have to be back?"
Youth is not usually observant, but on this occasion even my untutored faculties informed me that Mr. Welwyn was looking suddenly older.
"I am not going back," he said briefly. Then he smiled, a little mechanically, and initiated a discussion on compound locomotives.
Presently his attention was caught by some occurrence at the other end of the compartment. He laughed.
"My daughter appears to be pressing her companionship upon your friend with a distressing lack of modesty," he said.
I turned. The Freak had installed his admirer in the corner-seat beside him, and, having found paper and pencil, was engaged in turning out masterpieces of art at her behest. With a flat suitcase for a desk, he was executing--so far as the Great Eastern Railway would permit him--a portrait of Miss Welwyn herself; his model, pleasantly thrilled, affectionately clasping one of his arms in both of hers and breathing heavily through her small nose, which she held about six inches from the paper.
Finally the likeness was completed and presented.
"Now draw a cow," said Miss Welwyn immediately.
The Freak meekly set to work again.
Then came the inevitable question.
"What's her name?"
The artist considered.
"Sylvia," he said at length. Sylvia, I knew, was the name of his sister.
"Not like that name!" said the child, more prophetically than she knew.
The Freak apologised and suggested Mary Ann, which so pleased his patroness that she immediately lodged an order for twelve more cows. The artist executed the commission with unflagging zeal and care, Miss Welwyn following every stroke of the pencil with critical interest and numbering off the animals as they were created.
About this time Master Percy Welwyn, who had fallen into a fitful slumber, woke up and loudly expressed a desire for a commodity which he described as "kike." His mother supplied his needs from a string-bag. Refreshed and appeased, he slept anew.
Meanwhile the herd of cows had been completed, and The Freak was, immediately set to work to find names for each. The appellation Mary Ann had established a fatal precedent, for The Freak's employer ruthlessly demanded a double title for each of Mary Ann's successors. Appealed to for a personal contribution, she shook her small head firmly: to her, evidently, in common with the rest of her sex, destructive criticism of male endeavour was woman's true sphere in life. But when the despairing Freak, after submitting Mabel-Maud, Emily-Kate, Elizabeth-Jane, and Maria-Theresa, made a second pathetic appeal for assistance, the lady so far relented as to suggest "Seener Angler"--a form of address which, though neither bovine nor feminine, seemed to me to come naturally enough from the daughter of a Don, but caused Mr. and Mrs. Welwyn to exchange glances.
At last the tale was completed,--I think the last cow was christened "Bishop's Stortford," through which station we were passing at the moment,--and the exhausted Freak smilingly laid down his pencil. But no one who has ever embarked upon that most comprehensive and interminable of enterprises, the entertainment of a child, will be surprised to hear that Miss Welwyn now laid a pudgy fore-finger upon the first cow, and enquired:--
"Where that cow going?"
"Cambridge," answered The Freak after consideration.
"Next one?"
"London."
"Next one?"
Freak thought again.
"Grandwich," he said.
The round face puckered.
"Not like it. Anuvver place!"
"You think of one," said The Freak boldly.
The small despot promptly named a locality which sounded like "Tumpiton," and passed on pitilessly to the next cow.
"Where that one going?" she enquired.
"It is n't going: it's coming back," replied The Freak, rather ingeniously.
Strange to say, this answer appeared to satisfy the hitherto insatiable infant, and the game was abruptly abandoned. Picking up The Freak's pencil, Miss Welwyn projected a seraphic smile upon its owner.
"You give this to Tilly?" she enquired, in a voice which most men know.
"Rather."
"Tilly, ducky, don't act so greedy," came the inevitable maternal correction. "Give back the young gentleman--"
"It's all right," said The Freak awkwardly. "I don't want it, really."
"But--"
There came a shriek from the engine, and the train slowed down.
"Is this where they collect tickets, father?" enquired Mrs. Welwyn, breaking off suddenly.
Mr. Welwyn nodded, and his wife rather hurriedly plucked her daughter from her seat beside The Freak and transferred her to her own lap, to that damsel's unfeigned dolour.
"Sit on mother's knee just now, dearie," urged Mrs. Welwyn--"just for a minute or two!"
Miss Welwyn, who appeared to be a biddable infant, settled down without further objection. A moment later the train stopped and the carriage door was thrown open.
"Tickets, please!"
Mr. Welwyn and I sat next the door, and I accordingly submitted my ticket for inspection. It was approved and returned to me by the collector, an austere person with what Charles Surface once described as "a damned disinheriting countenance."
"Change next stop," he remarked. "Yours, sir?"
Mr. Welwyn handed him three tickets. The collector appeared to count them. Then his gloomy gaze fell upon the unconscious Miss Welwyn, who from the safe harbourage of her mother's arms was endeavouring to administer to him what is technically known, I believe, as The Glad Eye.
"Have you a ticket for that child, madam?" he enquired. "Too old to be carried."
Mrs. Welwyn looked helplessly at her husband, who replied for her.
"Yes, surely. Did n't I give it to you, my man?"
"No, sir," said the collector dryly; "you did not."
Mr. Welwyn began to feel in his pockets.
"That is uncommonly stupid of me," he said. "I must have it somewhere. I thought I put them all in one pocket."
He pursued his researches further, and the collector waited grimly. I looked at Mrs. Welwyn. She was an honest woman, and a fleeting glance at her face informed me that the search for this particular ticket was to be of a purely academic description.
"I must trouble you," began the man, "for--"
"It must be somewhere!" persisted Mr. Welwyn, with unruffled cheerfulness. "Perhaps I dropped it on the floor."
"Let me look!"
Next moment The Freak, who had been a silent spectator of the scene, dropped upon his knees and dived under the seat. The collector, obviously sceptical, fidgeted impatiently and stepped back on to the platform, as if to look for an inspector. I saw an appealing glance pass from Mrs. Welwyn to her husband. He smiled back airily, and I realised that probably this comedy had been played once or twice before.
The collector reappeared.
"The fare," he began briskly, "is--"
"Here's the ticket," announced a muffled voice from beneath the seat, and The Freak, crimson and dusty, emerged from the depths flourishing a green pasteboard slip.
The collector took it from his hand and examined it carefully.
"All right," he snapped. "Now your own, sir."
The Freak dutifully complied. At the sight of his ticket the collector's morose countenance lightened almost to the point of geniality. He was not to go empty away after all.
"Great Northern ticket. Not available on this line," he announced.
"It's all right, old man," explained my fag affably. "I changed from the Great Northern at Peterborough. This line of yours is so much jollier," he added soothingly.
"Six-and-fourpence," said the collector.
The Freak, who was well endowed with pocket-money even at the end of term, complied with the utmost cheerfulness; asked for a receipt; expressed an earnest hope that the collector's real state of health belied his appearance; and resumed his corner-seat with a friendly nod of farewell.
Two minutes later this curious episode was at an end, and the train was swinging on its way to London. Mrs. Welwyn, looking puzzled and ashamed, sat silently in her corner; Mr. Welwyn, who was not the man to question the workings of Providence when Providence worked the right way, hummed a cheerful little tune in his. The deplorable child Percy slept. The Freak, with a scarlet face, industriously perused a newspaper.
As for Miss Tilly Welwyn, she sat happily upon a suitcase on the floor, still engaged in making unmaidenly eyes at the quixotic young gentleman who had just acted, not for the last time in his life, as her banker.
CHAPTER III
IO SATURNALIA!
I
Presently my turn came.
A small, spectacled, and entirely inarticulate gentleman in a very long gown, after a last glance to assure himself that my coat was sufficiently funereal and my trousers not turned up, took my hand in his; and we advanced mincingly, after the manner of partners in a country dance, over the tesselated pavement of the Senate House until we halted before the resplendent figure of the Vice-Chancellor.
Here my little companion delivered himself of a hurried and perfunctory harangue, in a language which I took to be Latin, but may for all I know have been Esperanto. The Vice-Chancellor muttered a response which I could not catch; impelled by an unseen power, I knelt before him and placed my two hands between his: an indistinct benediction fell from his lips, gently tickling my overheated scalp; and lo! the deed was done. I rose to my feet a Master of Arts of Cambridge University, at the trifling outlay of some twenty pounds odd.
Thereafter, by means of what the drill-book calls a "right-incline," I slunk unobtrusively past two sardonic-looking gentlemen in white bands, and escaped through the open north door into the cool solitude of Senate House Passage, and ultimately into Trinity Street.
I walked straight into the arms of my friend The Freak--The Freak in cap and gown, twenty-two years of age, and in his last year at the University.
"Hallo, Tiny!" was his joyous greeting. "This is topping!"
"Hallo, Freak!" I replied, shaking hands. "You got my wire, then?"
"Yes, what are you up for? I presume it is a case of one more shot at the General Examination for the B.A. Degree--what?"
I explained coldly that I had been receiving the Degree of Master of Arts.
"As a senior member of the University," I added severely, "I believe it is my duty to report you to the Proctors for smoking while in academic dress."
Freak's repartee was to offer me a cigarette.
"Let us take a walk down Trinity Street," he continued. "I have to go and see The Tut."
"Who?"
"My Tutor. Don't get fossilised all at once, old thing!"
I apologised.
"What are you going to see him about?" I enquired. "Been sent down?"
"No. I am going to get leave to hold a dinner-party consisting of more than four persons," replied my friend, quoting pedantically from the College Statute which seeks (vainly) to regulate the convivial tendencies of the undergraduate.
"Ah," I remarked airily--"quite so! For my part, such rules no longer apply to me."
Fatal vaunt! Next moment Dicky was frantically embracing me before all Trinity Street.
"Brave heart," he announced, "this is providential! You are a godsend--a deus ex machina--a little cherub sent from aloft! It never occurred to me: I need not go to The Tut for leave at all now! It would have been a forlorn hope in any case. But now all is well. You shall come to the dinner. In fact, you shall give it! Then no Tut in the world can interfere. Come along, host and honoured guest! Come and see Wicky about it!"
As The Freak hustled me down All Saints' Passage, I enquired plaintively who Mr. Wicky might be.
"Wickham is his name," replied The Freak. "He is nominally giving the dinner. We are going to--"
"Pardon me," I interposed. "How many people are nominally giving this dinner? So far, we have you, Wicky, and myself. I--"
"It's this way," explained my friend. "Wicky is nominally the host; he will do the honours. But I have dropped out. The dinner will be ordered in your name now. That's all."
"Why is Wicky nominally the host?" I enquired, still befogged.
"We are all giving the dinner--seven of us," explained The Freak; "all except yourself and The Jebber, in fact. Wicky has to be host because he is the only man who is not going to the dinner disguised as some one else. Now, do you understand?"
"There are one or two minor points," I remarked timidly, "which--"
"Go ahead!" sighed my friend.
"Who," I enquired, "is The Jebber? And why should he share with me the privilege of not paying for his dinner?"
The Freak became suddenly serious.
"The Jebber," he said, "is a poisonous growth called Jebson. He is in his first year. He owns bags of money, which he squanders in the wrong manner on every occasion. He runs after Blues and other celebrities, but has never caught one yet. On the other hand, he is rude to porters and bedmakers. He gathers unto himself bands of admiring smugs and tells them of the fast life he lives in town. He plays no games of any kind, except a little billiards with the marker, but he buttonholes you outside Hall in the evening and tells you how much he has won by backing the winner of the three o'clock race by wire. I think he has a kind of vague notion that he is sowing wild oats; but as he seems quite incapable of speaking the truth, I have no idea whether he is the vicious young mug he makes himself out to be or is merely endeavouring to impress us yokels. That is the sort of customer The Jebber is."
"And you have invited him to dinner?" I said.
"Yes; it's like this. We stood him as well as we could for quite a long while. Then, one evening, he turned up in my rooms when half a dozen of us were there--he is on my staircase, and I had rashly called upon him his first term--and after handing out a few fairy tales about his triumphs as a lady's man, he pulled a photograph from his pocket and passed it round. It was a girl--a jolly pretty girl, too! He said he was engaged to her. Said it as if--" The Freak's honest face grew suddenly hot, and his fingers bit ferociously into my arm. "Well, he began to talk about her. Said she was 'fearfully mashed on him!' That fairly turned our stomachs to begin with, but there was more to come. He confided to us that she was a dear little thing, but not quite up to his form; and he did n't intend to marry her until he had sown a few more of his rotten wild oats. And so on. That settled me, Tiny! So far I had not been so fierce about him as the other men. I had considered him just a harmless bounder, who would tone down when he got into the ways of the place. But a fellow who would talk like that before a roomful of men about a girl--his own girl--My God, Tiny! what would you do with such a thing?"
"Kill it," I said simply.
"That's what we nearly did, on the spot," said Dicky. "But--well--one feels a delicacy about even taking notice of that sort of stuff. You understand?"
I nodded. The reserve of the youthful male on affairs of the heart is much deeper than that of the female, though the female can never recognise the fact.
"So we simply sat still, feeling we should like to be sick. Then the man Jebson gave himself a respite and us an idea by going on to talk of his social ambitions. He confided to us that he had come up here to form influential friendships--with athletic bloods, future statesmen, sons of peers, and so forth. He explained that it was merely a matter of money. All he wanted was a start. As soon as the athletes and peers heard of him and his wealth, they would be only too pleased to hobnob with him. Suddenly old Wicky, who had been sitting in the corner absolutely mum, as usual, asked him straight off to come and dine with him, and said he would get a few of the most prominent men in the 'Varsity to come and meet him. We simply gaped at first, but presently we saw there was some game on; and when The Jebber had removed himself, Wicky explained what he wanted us to do. He's a silent bird, Wicky, but he thinks a lot. Here are his digs."
We had reached a house in Jesus Lane, which we now entered, ascending to the first floor.
Dicky rapidly introduced me to Mr. Wickham, who had just finished luncheon. He proved to be a young gentleman of diminutive stature and few words, in a Leander tie. He was, it appeared, a coxswain of high degree, and was only talkative when afloat. Then, one learned, he was a terror. It was credibly reported that on one occasion a freshman rowing bow in a trial eight, of a sensitive temperament and privately educated, had burst into tears and tried to throw away his oar after listening to Mr. Wickham's blistering comments upon the crew in general and himself in particular during a particularly unsteady half-minute round Grassy Corner.
He silently furnished us with cigarettes, and my somewhat unexpected inclusion in the coming revels was explained to him.
"Good egg!" he remarked, when Dicky had finished. "Go round to the kitchen presently. Have dinner in these rooms, Freak. May be awkward for the men to get into College all togged up."
"You see the idea now, Tiny?" said Dicky to me. "Wicky is going to be host, and the rest of us are going to dress up as influential young members of the University. We shall pull The Jebber's leg right off!"
"Do you think you will be able to keep up your assumed characters all dinner-time?" I asked. "You know what sometimes happens towards the end of--"
"That's all right," said The Freak. "We are n't going to keep it up right to the end. At a given signal we shall unveil."
"What then?" I enquired, not without concern.
"We shall hold a sort of court martial. After that I don't quite know what we will do, but we ought to be able to think of something pretty good by then," replied The Freak confidently.
Mr. Wickham summed up the situation.
"The man Jebson," he said briefly, "must die."
"What character are you going to assume?" I enquired of The Freak. "Athlete, politician, peer, scholar--?"
"I am the Marquis of Puddox," said my friend, with simple dignity.
"Only son," added Mr. Wickham, "of the Duke of Damsillie. Scotland for ever!"
"A Highlander?" I asked.
"Yes," said The Freak gleefully. "I am going to wear a red beard and talk Gaelic."
"Who are to be the other--inmates?" I asked.
"You'll see when the time comes," replied Dicky. "At present we have to decide on a part for you, my lad."
"I think I had better be Absent Friends," I said. "Then I need not come, but you can drink my health."
Mr. Wickham said nothing, but rose to his feet and crossed the room to the mantelpiece. On the corner of the mirror which surmounted it hung a red Turkish fez, with a long black tassel. This my host reached down and handed to me.
"Wear that," he said briefly--"with your ordinary evening things."
"What shall I be then?" I enquired meekly.
"Junior Egyptologist to the Fitzwilliam Museum," replied the fertile Mr. Wickham.
II
That shrinking but helpless puppet, the Junior Egyptologist to the Fitzwilliam Museum, duly presented himself at Mr. Wickham's at seven-thirty that evening, surmounted by the fez.
Here I was introduced to the guest of the evening, Mr. Jebson. He was a pasty-faced, pig-eyed youth of about four-and-twenty, in an extravagantly cut dress suit with a velvet collar. He wore a diamond ring and a soft shirt. He looked like an unsuccessful compromise between a billiard-marker and a casino croupier at a French watering-place. His right forefinger was firmly embedded in the buttonhole of a shaggy monster in a kilt, whom, from the fact that he spoke a language which I recognised as that of Mr. Harry Lauder, I took to be the heir of the Duke of Damsillie.
The Freak was certainly playing his part as though he enjoyed it, but the other celebrities, who stood conversing in a sheepish undertone in various corners, looked too like stage conspirators to be entirely convincing. However, Mr. Jebson appeared to harbour no suspicion as to the bona fides of the company in which he found himself, which was the main point.
I was now introduced to the President of the Cambridge University Boat Club, a magnificent personage in a made-up bow tie of light-blue satin; to the Sultan of Cholerabad, a coffee-coloured potentate in sweeping Oriental robes, in whom the dignity that doth hedge a king was less conspicuous than a thoroughly British giggle; and to the Senior Wrangler of the previous year, who wore a turn-down collar, trousers the bagginess of which a music-hall comedian would have envied, and blue spectacles.
Mesmerised by Mr. Wickham's cold eye and correct deportment, we greeted one another with stately courtesy: but the President of the Boat Club winked at me cheerfully; the Sultan of Cholerabad, scrutinising my fez, enquired in broken English the exact date of my escape from the cigarette factory; and the Senior Wrangler invited my opinion, sotto voce, upon the cut of his trousers.
In a distant corner of the room, which was very dimly lighted,--probably for purposes of theatrical effect,--I descried two more guests--uncanny figures both. One was a youth in semi-clerical attire, with short trousers and white cotton socks, diligently exercising what is best described as a Private Secretary voice upon his companion, a scarlet-faced gentleman in an exaggerated hunting-kit--horn and all. The latter I identified (rightly) as The Master of the University Bloodhounds, but I was at a loss to assign a character to The Private Secretary. I learned during the evening, from his own lips, that he was the Assistant Professor of Comparative Theology.
The party was completed by the arrival of a stout young gentleman with a strong German accent and fluffy hair. He was presented to us as The Baron Guldenschwein. (He actually was a Baron, as it turned out, but not a German. However, he possessed a strong sense of humour--a more priceless possession than sixty-four quarterings or a castle on the Rhine.)
Dinner was announced, and we took our places. Wickham sat at the head of the table, with Mr. Jebson on his right and the Marquis of Puddox on his left. I took the foot, supported on either hand by the President of the Boat Club and the Assistant Professor of Comparative Theology. The other four disposed themselves in the intervening places, the Sultan taking his seat upon Jebson's right, with the Baron opposite.
The dinner was served in the immaculate fashion customary at undergraduate feasts and other functions where long-suffering parents loom in the background with cheque-books. The table decorations had obviously been selected upon the principle that what is most expensive must be best, and each guest was confronted with a much beribboned menu with his title printed upon it. Champagne, at the covert but urgent representation of the Assistant Professor of Comparative Theology, was served with the hors d'oeuvres.
At first we hardly lived up to our costumes. A practical joke which begins upon an empty stomach does not usually speed from the mark. Fortunately The Freak, who was not as other men are in these matters, had entered upon his night's work at the very top of his form, and he gave us all an invaluable lead. The fish found him standing with one foot upon the table, pledging Mr. Jebson in language which may have been Gaelic, but more nearly resembled the baying of one of the University bloodhounds. This gave us courage, and presently the Assistant Theologian and the M.B.H. abandoned a furtive interchange of Rugby football "shop" and entered into a heated discussion with the Senior Wrangler upon certain drastic alterations which, apparently, the mathematical savants of the day contemplated making in the multiplication table.
I devoted my attention chiefly to observing the masterly fashion in which The Freak and the saturnine Mr. Wickham handled Jebson. The latter was without doubt a most unpleasant creature. The undergraduate tolerates and, too often, admires the vicious individual who is reputed to be a devil of a fellow. Still, that individual usually has some redeeming qualities. In the ordinary way of business he probably pulls an oar and shoves in the scrimmage as heartily as his neighbour: his recourses to riotous living are in the nature of reaction from these strenuous pursuits. They arise less from a desire to pose as a man of the world than from sheer weakness of the flesh. He is not in the least proud of them: indeed, like the rest of us, he is usually very repentant afterwards. And above all, he observes a decent reticence about his follies. He regards them as liabilities, not assets; and therein lies the difference between him and creatures of the Jebson type. Jebson took no part in clean open-air enthusiasms: he had few moments of reckless self-abandonment: to him the serious business of life was the methodical establishment of a reputation as a viveur. He sought to excite the admiration of his fellows by the recital of his exploits in what he called "the world." Such, naturally, were conspicuous neither for reticence nor truth. He was a pitiful transparent fraud, and I felt rather surprised, as I considered the elaborate nature of the present scheme for his discomfiture, that the tolerant easy-going crew who sat round the table should have thought the game worth the candle. I began to feel rather sorry for Jebson. After all, he was not the only noxious insect in the University. Then I remembered the story of the girl's photograph, and I understood. It was an ill day for The Jebber, I reflected, when he spoke lightly of his lady-love in the presence of Dicky Mainwaring.
The banquet ran its course. Presently dessert was placed upon the table and the waiters withdrew. The Sultan of Cholerabad, I noticed, had mastered the diffidence which had characterised his behaviour during the earlier stages of the proceedings, and was now joining freely in the conversation at the head of the table. I overheard Mr. Jebson extending to him a cordial invitation to come up with him to town at the end of the term and be introduced to a galaxy of music-hall stars, jockeys, and bookmakers--an invitation which had already been deferentially accepted by Mr. Wickham and the Marquis of Puddox. In return, the Sultan announced that the harem at Cholerabad was open to inspection by select parties of visitors on Tuesdays and Thursdays, on presentation of visiting-card.
The spirits of the party in general were now rising rapidly, and more than once the tranquillity of the proceedings was seriously imperilled. After the Baron Guldenschwein had been frustrated in an attempt to recite an ode in praise of the Master of the Bloodhounds (on the somewhat inadequate grounds that "I myself wear always bogskin boods"), our nominal host found himself compelled to cope with the Assistant Professor of Comparative Theology, who, rising unsteadily to his legs, proclaimed his intention of giving imitations of a few celebrated actors, beginning with Sir Henry Irving. The Theologian was in a condition which rendered censure and argument equally futile. He had consumed perhaps half a bottle of champagne and two glasses of port, so it was obvious that his present exalted condition was due not so much to the depths of his potations as to the shallowness of his accommodation for the same. I for one, having drunk at least as much as he and feeling painfully decorous, forbore to judge him. The rest of the company were sober enough, but leniently disposed, and our theological friend was allowed his way. He threw himself into a convulsive attitude, mouthed out an entirely unintelligible limerick about a young man from Patagonia, and sat down abruptly, well pleased with his performance.
Then came an ominous silence. The time for business was at hand. Mr. Jebson, still impervious to atmospheric influence, selected this moment for weaving his own shroud. He rose to his feet and made a speech. He addressed us as "fellow-sports"; he referred to Mr. Wickham as "our worthy Chair," and to myself as "our young friend Mr. Vice." The company as a whole he designated "hot stuff." After expressing, with evident sincerity, the pleasure with which he found himself in his present company, he revealed to us the true purport of his uprising, which was to propose the toast of "The Girls." Under the circumstances a more unfortunate selection of subject could not have been made. The speaker had barely concluded his opening sentence when the Marquis of Puddox, speaking in his natural tone of voice, rose to his feet and brought what promised to be a rather nauseous eulogy to a summary conclusion.
"Dry up," he rapped out, "and sit down at once. Clear the table, you fellows, and get the tablecloth off."
Without further ado the distinguished company present, with the exception of the Theologian, who had retired into a corner by himself to rehearse an imitation, obeyed Dicky's behest. The decanters and glasses were removed to the sideboard, and the cloth was whipped off.
"Take this loathsome sweep," continued the Marquis in the same dispassionate voice, indicating the guest of the evening, now as white as his own shirt-front, "and tie him up with table-napkins."
The dazed Jebson offered no resistance. Presently he found himself lying flat on his back upon the table, his arms and legs pinioned by Mr. Wickham's table-linen.
"Roll him up in the tablecloth," was The Freak's next order, "and set him on a chair."
This time Jebson found his tongue.
"Gentlemen all," he gasped between revolutions--the Master of the Bloodhounds and Baron Guldenschwein were swiftly converting him into a snowy cocoon--"a joke's all very well in its way between pals; but--"
"Put him on that chair," continued Dicky, taking not the slightest notice.
Willing hands dumped the mummified and inanimate form of Jebson into an armchair, and the unique collection of Sports sat round him in a ring.
Then suddenly Dicky laughed.
"That's all, Jebson," he said. "We are n't going to do anything else with you. You are not worth it."
Mr. Jebson, who had been expecting the Death by a Thousand Cuts at the very least, merely gaped like a stranded carp. He was utterly demoralised. To a coward, fear of pain is worse than pain itself.
Dicky continued:--
"We merely want to inform you that we think you are not suited to University life. The great world without is calling you. You are wasted here: in fact, you have been a bit of a failure. You mean well, but you are lacking in perception. There is too much Ego in your Cosmos. Napoleon, you will remember, suffered from the same infirmity. For nearly two terms you have deluded yourself into the belief that we think you a devil of a fellow. We have sat and listened politely to your reminiscences: we have permitted you to refer to all the Strand loafers that one has ever heard of by their pet names. And all the time you have entirely failed to realise that we see through you. For a while you rather amused us, but now we are fed up with you. You are getting the College a bad name, too. We are not a very big College, but we are a very old and very proud one, and we have always kept our end up against larger and less particular establishments. So I'm afraid we must part with you. You are too high for us. That is all, I think. Would any one else like to say anything?"
"Are n't we going to toy with him a little?" asked the Senior Wrangler. "We might bastinado him, or shave one side of his head."
But Dicky would have none of it.
"Too childish," he said. "We will just leave him as he is, and finish our evening. Then he can go home and pack his carpet-bag. But"--The Freak turned suddenly and savagely upon the gently perspiring Jebson--"let me give you one hint, my lad. Never again mention ladies' names before a roomful of men, or, by God, you'll get a lesson from some one some day that you will remember to the end of your life! That is all. I have finished. The Committee for Dealing with Public Nuisances is dissolved. Let us--"
"I will now," suddenly remarked a confidential but slightly vinous voice from the other end of the room, "have great pleasure in giving you an imitation of Mr. Beerbohm Tree."
And the Assistant Professor of Comparative Theology, who had been neglecting the rôle of avenging angel in order to prime himself at the sideboard for another excursion into the realms of mimetic art, struck exactly the same attitude as before, and began to mouth out, with precisely similar intonation and gesture, the limerick which had already done duty in the case of Sir Henry Irving.
After this the proceedings degenerated rapidly into a "rag" of the most ordinary and healthy type. The company, having dined, had ceased to feel vindictive, and The Freak's admirably appropriate handling of the situation met with their entire appreciation. With relief they proceeded from labour to recreation. Mr. Jebson was unceremoniously bundled into a corner; some one opened Mr. Wickham's piano, and in two minutes an impromptu dance was in full swing. I first found myself involved in an extravagant perversion of the Lancers, danced by the entire strength of the company with the exception of Baron Guldenschwein, who presided at the piano. After this the Theologian, amid prolonged cries of dissent, gave another imitation--I think it was of Sarah Bernhardt--which was terminated by a happy suggestion of Dicky's that the entertainer should be "forcibly fed"--an overripe banana being employed as the medium of nourishment. Then the Baron struck up "The Eton Boating Song." Next moment I found myself (under strict injunctions to remember that I was "lady") waltzing madly round in the embrace of the Senior Wrangler, dimly wondering whether the rôle of battering-ram which I found thrust upon me during the next ten minutes was an inevitable one for all female partners, and if so, why girls ever went to balls.
Presently my partner suggested a rest, and having propped me with exaggerated gallantry against the window-ledge, took off his dickey and fanned me with it.
After that we played "Nuts in May."
The fun grew more uproarious. Each man was enjoying himself with that priceless abandon which only youth can confer, little recking that with the passing of a very few years he would look back from the world-weary heights of, say, twenty-five, upon such a memory as this with pained and incredulous amazement. Later still, say at forty, he would look back again, and the retrospect would warm his heart. For the present, however, our warmth was of a purely material nature, and the only Master of Arts present mopped his streaming brow and felt glad that he was alive. To a man who has worked without a holiday for three years either in a drawing-office or an engineering-shop in South London, an undergraduate riot of the most primitive description is not without its points.
"The Eton Boating Song" is an infectious measure: in a short time we were all singing as well as dancing. The floor trembled: the chandelier rattled: the windows shook: Jesus Lane quaked.
"Swing, swing, together,"