Part 3 (2/2)

”What an effective tableau it would be!” observed Mr. Foote, who had always an eye to dramatic situations. ”Enter the Pet, followed by twenty townspeople. First T.P.--Yield, traitor! Pet--Never! the man who would yield when ordered to do so, is unworthy the name of a Pet and an Englishman! Floors the twenty T.P.'s one after the other. Tableau, blue fire. Why, it would surpa.s.s the British sailor's broadsword combat for six, and bring down the house.”

”Talking of bringing down,” said Mr. Blades, ”did you remember to bring down a cap and gown for the Pet, as I told you?”

”Well, I believe those _were_ the stage directions,” answered Mr. Foote; ”but, really, the wardrobe was so ill provided that it would only supply a cap. But perhaps that will do for a super.”

”If by a super you mean a supernumerary, Footelights,” said Mr. Cheke, the gentleman Commoner of Corpus, ”then the Pet isn't one. He's the leading character of what you would call the _dramatis personae_.”

”True,” replied Mr. Foote, ”he's cast for the hero; though he will create a new _role_ as the walking-into-them gentleman.”

”You see, Footelights,” said Mr. Blades, ”that the Pet is to lead our forces; and we depend upon him to help us on to victory: and we must put him into academicals, not only because the town cads must think he is one of us, but also because the proctors might otherwise deprive us of his services--and old Towzer, the Senior Proctor, in particular, is sure to be all alive. Who's got an old gown?”

”I will lend mine with pleasure,” said Mr. Verdant Green.

”But you'll want it yourself,” said Mr. Blades.

”Why, thank you,” faltered our hero, ”I'd rather, I think, keep within college. I can see the--the fun--yes, the fun--from the window.”

”Oh, blow it, Giglamps!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mr. Bouncer, ”you'll never go to do the mean, and show the white feather, will you?”

”Music expressive of trepidation,” murmured Mr. Foote, by way of parenthesis.

”But,” pursued our hero, apologetically, ”there will be, I dare say, a large crowd.”

”A very powerful _caste_, no doubt,” observed Mr. Foote.

”And I may get my--yes, my spectacles broken; and then”----

”And then, Giglamps,” said Mr. Bouncer, ”why, and then you shall be presented with another pair as a testimonial of affection from yours truly. Come, Giglamps, don't do the mean! a man of your standing, and with a chest like that!” and the little gentleman sounded on our hero's s.h.i.+rt-front, as doctors do when they stethoscope a patient. ”Come, Giglamps, old feller, you mustn't refuse. You didn't ought to was, as Shakspeare says.”

”Pardon me! Not Shakspeare, but Wright, in the 'Green Bushes,'”

interrupted Mr. Foote, who was as painfully anxious as Mr. Payne Collier himself that the text of the great poet should be free from corruptions.

So Mr. Verdant Green, reluctantly, it must be confessed, suffered himself to be persuaded to join that section of the Gown which was to be placed under the leaders.h.i.+p of the redoubted Pet; while little Mr.

Bouncer, who had gone up into Mr. Sloe's rooms, and had vainly endeavoured to persuade that gentleman to join in the forthcoming _melee_, returned with an undergraduate's gown, and forthwith invested the Pet with it.

”I don't mind this 'ere mortar-board, sir,” remarked the professor of the n.o.ble art of self-defence, as he pointed to the academical cap which surmounted his head, ”I don't mind the mortar-board, sir; but I shall never be able to do nothink with this 'ere toggery on my shudders. I couldn't use my mawleys no how!” And the Pet ill.u.s.trated his remark in a professional manner, by sparring at an imaginary opponent in a feeble and unscientific fas.h.i.+on.

”But you can tie the tail-curtain round your shoulders--like this!” said Mr. Fosbrooke, as he twisted his own gown tightly round him.

But the Pet had taken a decided objection to the drapery: ”The costume would interfere with the action,” as Mr. Foote remarked, ”and the management of a train requires great practice.”

”You see, sir,” said the Pet, ”I ain't used to the feel of it, and I couldn't go to business properly, or give a straight nosender no how.

But the mortar-board ain't of so much consekvence.” So a compromise was made; and it was agreed that the Pet was to wear the academicals until he had arrived at the scene of action, where he could then pocket the gown, and resume it on any alarm of the Proctor's approach.

”Here, Giglamps, old feller! get a priming of fighting-powder!” said little Mr. Bouncer to our hero, as the party were on the point of sallying forth; ”it'll make you hit out from your shoulder like a steam-engine with the chill off.” And, as Mr. Bouncer whispered to Charles Larkyns,

”So he kept his spirits up By pouring spirits down,”

Verdant--who felt extremely nervous, either from excitement or from fear, or from a pleasing mixture of both sensations--drank off a deep draught of something which was evidently not drawn from Nature's spring or the college pump; for it first took away his breath, and made his eyes water; and it next made him cough, and endeavour to choke himself; and it then made his face flush, and caused him to declare that ”the first sn.o.b who 'sulted him should have a sound whopping.”

<script>