Part 24 (2/2)

It was one of these bright days of ”the month of gloom,” that Mr.

Verdant Green and Mr. Charles Larkyns being in the room of their friend Mr. Bouncer, the little gentleman inquired, ”Now then! what are you two fellers up to? I'm game for anything, I am! from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter.”

”I'm afraid,” said Charles Larkyns, ”that we can't accommodate you in either amus.e.m.e.nt, although we are going down to the river, with which Verdant wishes to renew his acquaintance. Last term, you remember, you picked him up in the Gut, when he had been played with at pitch-and-toss in a way that very nearly resembled manslaughter.”

”I remember, I remember, how old Giglamps floated by!” said Mr.

Bouncer; ”you looked like a half-bred mermaid Giglamps.”

”But the gallant youth,” continued Mr. Larkyns, ”undismayed by the perils from which he was then happily preserved, has boldly come forward and declared himself a wors.h.i.+pper of Isis, in a way worthy of the ancient Egyptians, or of Tom Moore's Epicurean.”

”Well! stop a minute you fellers,” said Mr. Bouncer; ”I must have my beer first: I can't do without my Ba.s.s relief.

[170 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]

I'm like the party in the old song, and I likes a drop of good beer.”

And as he uncorked a bottle of Ba.s.s, little Mr. Bouncer sang, in notes as musical as those produced from his own tin horn-

'Twixt wet and dry I always try Between the extremes to steer; Though I always shrunk from getting -- intoxicated, I was always fond of my beer!

For I likes a drop of good beer!

I'm particularly partial to beer!

Porter and swipes Always give me the - stomach-ache!

But that's never the case with beer!”

”Bravo, Harry!” cried Charles Larkyns; ”you roar us an' twere any nightingale. It would do old Bishop Still's heart good to hear you; and 'sure ~I~ think, that ~you~ can drink with any that wears a hood,' or that ~will~ wear a hood when you take your Bachelor's, and put on your gown.” And Charles Larkyns sang, rather more musically than Mr. Bouncer had done, from that song which, three centuries ago, the Bishop had written in praise of good ale,-

Let back and side go bare, go bare, Both hand and foot go cold: But, belly, G.o.d send thee good ale enough, Whether it be new or old.

They were soon down at the river side, where Verdant was carefully put into a tub (alas! the dear, awkward, safe, old things are fast pa.s.sing away; they are giving place to suicidal skiffs, and will soon be numbered among the boats of other days!)- and was started off with almost as much difficulty as on his first essay. The tub - which was, indeed, his old friend the ~Sylph,~ - betrayed an awkward propensity for veering round towards Folly Bridge, which our hero at first failed to overcome; and it was not until he had performed a considerable amount of crab-catching, that he was enabled to steer himself in the proper direction. Charles Larkyns had taken his seat in an outrigger skiff (so frail and shaky that it made Verdant nervous to look at it), and, with one or two powerful strokes, had shot ahead, backed water, turned, and pulled back round the tub long before Verdant had succeeded in pa.s.sing that eccentric mansion, to which allusion has before been made, as possessing in the place of cellars, an ingenious system of small rivers to thoroughly irrigate its foundation - a hydropathic treatment which may (or may not) be agreeable in Venice, but strikes one as being decidedly cold and comfortless when applied to Oxford, - at any rate, in the month of November. Walking on the lawn which stretched from this house towards the river, our hero espied two extremely pretty young ladies, whose hearts he endeavoured at once to take captive by dis-

[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 171]

playing all his powers in that elegant exercise in which they saw him engaged. It may reasonably be presumed that Mr. Verdant Green's hopes were doomed to be blighted.

Let us leave him, and take a look at Mr. Bouncer.

Mr. Bouncer had been content to represent the prowess of his college in the cricket-field, and had never aspired to any fame as an oar.

The exertions, as well as the fame, of aquatic honours, he had left to Mr. Blades, and those others like him, who considered it a trifle to pull down to Iffley and back <vg171.jpg> again, two or three times a day, at racing pace with a fresh spurt put on every five minutes.

Mr. Bouncer, too, had an antipathy to eat beefsteaks otherwise than in the state in which they are usually brought to table; and, as it seemed a ~sine qua non~ with the gentleman who superintended the training for the boat-races, that his pupils should daily devour beefsteaks which had merely looked at the fire, Mr. Bouncer, not having been brought up to cannibal habits, was unable to conform himself to this, and those other vital principles which seemed to regulate the science of aquatic training. The little gentleman moreover, did not join with the ”Torpids” (as the second boats of a college are called), either, because he had a soul above them, - he would be ~aut Caesar, aut nullus~; either in the eight, or nowhere, - or else, because even the Torpids would cause him more trouble and pleasurable pain than would be agreeable to him. When Mr. Bouncer sat down on any hard substance, he liked to be able to do so without betraying any emotion that the action caused him personal discomfort; and he had noticed that many of the Torpids - not to mention one or two of the eight - were more particular than young men usually are about having a very easy, soft, and yielding chair to sit on. Mr.

Bouncer, too, was of opinion that continued blisters

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