Part 29 (1/2)

The sensation of first finding yourself in a pair of skates is peculiar. It is not unlike the sensation which must have been felt by the young bear, when he was dropped from his mamma's mouth, and, for the first time, told to walk. The poor little bear felt, that it was all very well to say ”walk,”- but how was he to do it? Was he to walk with his right fore-leg only? or, with his left fore-leg? or, with both his fore-legs? or, was he to walk with his right hind-leg?, or, with his left hind-leg? or, with both his hind-legs? or, was he to make a combination of hind and fore-legs, and walk with all four at once? or, what was he to do? So he tried each of these ways; and they all failed. Poor little bear!

Mr. Verdant Green felt very much in the little bear's condition. He was undecided whether to skate with his right leg, or with his left leg, or with both his legs. He tried his right leg, and immediately it glided off at right angles with his body, while his left leg performed a similar and spontaneous movement in the contrary direction. Having captured his left leg, he put it cautiously forwards, and immediately it twisted under him, while his right leg amused itself by describing an altogether unnecessary circle.

Obtaining a brief mastery over both legs, he put them forwards at the same moment, and they fled from beneath him,

[204 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]

and he was flung - b.u.mp!- on his back. Poor little bear! But, if it is hard to make a start in a pair of skates <vg204.jpg> when you are in a perpendicular position, how much is the difficulty increased when your position has become a horizontal one! You raise yourself on your knees, - you a.s.sist yourself with your hands, - and, no sooner have you got one leg right, than away slides the other, and down you go. It is like the movement in that scene with the pair of short stilts, in which the French clowns are so amusing, and it is almost as difficult to perform. Mr. Verdant Green soon found that though he might be ambitious to excel in the polite accomplishment of skating, yet that his ambition was destined to meet with many a fall. But he persevered, and perseverance will achieve wonders, especially when aided by the tuition of such an indefatigable gentleman as Mr.

Bouncer.

”You get on stunningly, Giglamps,” said the little gentleman, ”and hav'nt been on your beam ends more than once a minute. But I should advise you, old fellow, to get your sit-upons seated with wash-leather, - just like the eleventh hussars do with their cherry-coloured pants. It'll come cheaper in the end, and may be productive of comfort. And now, after all these exciting ups and downs, let us go and have a quiet hand at billiards.” So the two friends strolled up the High, where they saw two Queensmen ”confessing their shame,” as Mr. Bouncer phrased it, by standing under the gateway of their college; and went on to Bickerton's, where they found all the tables occupied, and Jonathan playing a match with Mr. Fluke of Christ Church. So, after watching the celebrated marker long enough to inspire them with a desire to accomplish similar feats of dexterity, they continued their walk to Broad Street, and, turning up a yard opposite to the Clarendon, found that Betteris had an upstair room at liberty. Here they accomplished several pleasing mathematical problems with the b.a.l.l.s, and contributed their modic.u.m towards the smoking of the ceiling of the room.

Since Mr. Verdant Green had acquired the art of getting

[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 205]

through a cigar without making himself ill, he had looked upon himself as a genuine smoker; and had, from time to time, bragged of his powers as regarded the fumigation of ”the herb Nicotiana, commonly called tobacco,” (as the Oxford statute <vg205-1.jpg> tersely says). This was an amiable weakness on his part that had not escaped the observant eye of Mr. Bouncer, who had frequently taken occasion, in the presence of his friends, to defer to Mr. Verdant Green's judgment in the matter of <vg205-2.jpg> cigars. The train of adulation being thus laid, an opportunity was only needed to fire it.

It soon came.

”Once upon a time,” as the story-books say, it chanced that Mr.

Bouncer was consuming his minutes and cigars at his tobacconist's, when his eye lighted for the thousandth time on the roll of cabbage-leaves, brown paper, and refuse tobacco, which being done up into the form of a monster cigar (a foot long, and of proportionate thickness), was hung in the shop window, and did duty as a truthful token of the commodity vended within. Mr. Bouncer had looked at this implement

[206 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]

nine hundred and ninety-nine times, without its suggesting anything else to his mind, than its being of the same cla.s.s of art as the monster mis-representations outside wild-beast shows; but he now gazed upon it with new sensations. In short, Mr. Bouncer took such a fancy to the thing, that he purchased it, and took it off to his rooms, - though he did not mention this fact to his friend, Mr.

Verdant Green, when he saw him soon afterwards, and spoke to him of his excellent judgment in tobacco.

”A taste for smoke comes natural, Giglamps!” said Mr. Bouncer.

”It's what you call a ~nascitur non fit~; and, if you haven't the gift, why you can't purchase it. Now, you're a judge of smoke; it's a gift with you, don't you see; and you could no more help knowing a good weed from a bad one, than you could help waggling your tail if you were a baa-lamb.”

Mr. Verdant Green bowed, and blushed, in acknowledgment of this delightful flattery.

”Now, there's old Footelights, you know; he's got an uncle, who's a governor, or some great swell, out in Barbadoes. Well, every now and then the old trump sends Footelights no end of a box of weeds; not common ones, you understand, but regular tip-toppers; but they're quite thrown away on poor Footelights, who'd think as much of cabbage-leaves as he would of real Havannahs, so he's always obliged to ask somebody else's opinion about them. Well, he's got a sample of a weed of a most terrific kind: - ~Magnifico Pomposo~ is the name; - no end uncommon, and at least a foot long. We don't meet with 'em in England because they're too expensive to import. Well, it would'nt do to throw away such a weed as this on any one; so, Footelights wants to have the opinion of a man who's really a judge of what a good weed is. I refused, because my taste has been rather out of order lately; and Billy Blades is in training for Henley, so he's obliged to decline; so I told him of you, Giglamps, and said, that if there was a man in Brazenface that could tell him what his Magnifico Pomposo was worth, that man was Verdant Green. Don't blush, old feller! you can't help having a fine judgment, you know; so don't be ashamed of it. Now, you must wine with me this evening; Footelights and some more men are coming; and we're all anxious to hear your opinion about these new weeds, because, if it's favourable we can club together, and import a box.” Mr. Bouncer's victim, being perfectly unconscious of the trap laid for him, promised to come to the wine, and give his opinion on this weed of fabled size and merit.

When the evening and company had come, he was rather staggered at beholding the dimensions of the pseudo-cigar; but, rashly judging that to express surprise would be to betray

[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 207]

ignorance, Mr. Verdant Green inspected the formidable monster with the air of a connoisseur, and smelt, pinched, and rolled his tongue round it, after the manner of the best critics. If this was a diverting spectacle to the a.s.sembled guests of Mr. <vg207.jpg> Bouncer, how must the humour of the scene have been increased, when our hero, with great difficulty, lighted the cigar, and, with still greater difficulty, held it in his mouth, and endeavoured to smoke it! As Mr. Foote afterwards observed, ”it was a situation for a screaming farce.”

”It doesn't draw well!” faltered the victim, as the bundle of rubbish went out for the fourth time.

”Why, that's always the case with the Barbadoes baccy!” said Mr.

Bouncer; ”it takes a long pull, and a strong pull, and a pull all together to get it to make a start; but when once it does go, it goes beautiful - like a house a-fire. But you can't expect it to be like a common threepenny weed. Here! let me light him for you, Giglamps; I'll give the beggar a dig in his ribs, as a gentle persuader.” Mr.

Bouncer thereupon poked his pen-knife through the rubbish, and after a time induced it to ”draw”; and Mr. Verdant Green pulled at it furiously, and made his eyes water with the unusual cloud of smoke that he raised.