Part 17 (2/2)
”Put the cards in your pocket, sir, and don't let me see them again!”
said our hero in his newly-confirmed t.i.tle of the junior examiner; quite rejoiced at the opportunity afforded him of proving to his friend that ~he~ was no longer a Freshman.
”He forgives you for the sake of your family, young man!” said Mr.
Bouncer with pathos; ”you've come to the right shop, for ~this~ is Brazenface; and you've come just at the right time, for here is the gentleman who will a.s.sist Mr. Pluckem in examining you;” and Mr.
Bouncer pointed to Mr. Four-in-hand Fosbrooke, who was coming up the street on his way from the Schools, where he was making a very laudable (but as it proved, futile) endeavour ”to get through his smalls,” or, in other words, to pa.s.s his Little-go examination. The hoax which had been suggested to the ingenious mind of Mr. Bouncer, was based upon the fact of Mr. Fosbrooke's being properly got-up for his sacrifice in a white tie, and a pair of very small bands - the two articles, which, with the usual academicals, form the costume demanded by Alma Mater of all her children when they take their places in her Schools. And, as Mr. Fosbrooke was far too politic a gentleman to irritate the Examiners by appearing in a ”loud” or sporting costume, he had carried out the idea of clerical character suggested by the bands and choker, by a quiet, gentlemanly suit of black, which, he had fondly hoped, would have softened his Examiners'
manners, and not permitted them to be brutal.
Mr. Four-in-hand Fosbrooke, therefore, to the unsophisticated eye of the blus.h.i.+ng Mr. Pucker, presented a very fine specimen of the Examining Tutor; and this impression on Mr. Pucker's mind was heightened by Mr. Fosbrooke, after a few minutes' private conversation with the other two gentlemen, turning to him, and saying, ”It will be extremely inconvenient to me to examine you now; but as you probably wish to return home as soon as possible, I will endeavour to conclude the business at once - this gentleman, Mr.
Pluckem,” pointing to our hero, ”having kindly promised to a.s.sist me.
Mr. Bouncer, will you have the goodness to follow with the young gentleman to my rooms?”
Leaving Mr. Pucker to express his thanks for this great kindness, and Mr. Bouncer to plunge him into the depths of trepidation by telling him terrible ~stories~ of the Examiner's
[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 129]
fondness for rejecting the candidates for examination, Mr. Fosbrooke and our hero ascended to the rooms of the former, where they hastily cleared away cigar-boxes and pipes, turned certain French pictures with their faces to the wall, and covered over with an outspread ~Times~ a regiment of porter and spirit bottles which had just been smuggled in, and were drawn up rank-and-file on the sofa. Having made this preparation, and furnished the table with pens, ink, and scribble-paper, Mr. Bouncer and the victim were admitted. <vg129.jpg>
”Take a seat, sir,” said Mr. Fosbrooke, gravely; and Mr. Pucker put his hat on the ground, and sat down at the table in a state of blus.h.i.+ng nervousness. ”Have you been at a public school?”
”Yes, sir,” stammered the victim; ”a very public one, sir; it was a boarding-school, sir; forty boarders, and thirty day-boys, sir; I was a day-boy, sir, and in the first cla.s.s.”
”First cla.s.s of an uncommon slow train!” muttered Mr. Bouncer.
”And are you going back to the boarding-school?” asked Mr. Verdant Green, with the air of an a.s.sistant judge.
”No sir,” replied Mr. Pucker, ”I have just done with it; quite done with school, sir, this last half; and papa is going to put me to read with a clergyman until it is time for me to come to college.”
”Refres.h.i.+ng innocence!” murmured Mr. Bouncer; while Mr. Fosbrooke and our hero conferred together, and hastily wrote on two sheets of the scribble-paper.
”Now, sir,” said Mr. Fosbrooke to the victim, after a paper had been completed, ”let us see what your Latin writing is
[130 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]
like. Have the goodness to turn what I have written into Latin; and be very careful, sir,” added Mr. Fosbrooke, sternly, ”be very careful that it is Cicero's Latin, sir!” and he handed Mr. Pucker a sheet of paper, on which he had scribbled the following:
”TO BE TRANSLATED INTO PROSE-Y LATIN, IN THE MANNER OF CICERO'S ORATIONS AFTER DINNER.
”If, therefore, any on your bench, my luds, or in this a.s.sembly, should entertain an opinion that the proximate parts of a mellifluous mind are for ever conjoined and unconnected, I submit to you, my luds, that it will of necessity follow, that such clandestine conduct being a mere nothing, - or, in the n.o.ble language of our philosophers, bosh, - every individual act of overt misunderstanding will bring interminable limits to the empiricism of thought, and will rebound in the very lowest degree to the credit of the malefactor.”
”TO BE TURNED INTO LATIN AFTER THE MANNER OF THE ANIMALS OF TACITUS.
”She went into the garden to cut a cabbage to make an apple-pie. Just then, a great she-bear coming down the street, poked its nose into the shop-window. 'What! no soap?' So he died, and she (very imprudently) married the barber. And there were present at the wedding the Joblillies, and the Piccannies, and the Gobelites, and the great Panjandrum himself, with the little b.u.t.ton on top. So they all set to playing Catch-who-catch-can, till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of their boots.”
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