The morning hours in Cambridge are for books, the afternoon for exercise, and the evening for social intercourse. So, at least, the majority of the undergraduate members of the University regard them, and sometimes throw in an extra hour or two of work between tea and dinner. Of course there are those who work all the evening as well as all the morning, and there are others who do not work at all; but the morning for lectures and books is a general rule, and one that has few exceptions, however squeezed up the morning may be between late breakfast and early luncheon. If you go into the Great Court of Trinity, let us say about ten minutes to eleven in the morning, you will find it, comparatively speaking, deserted. Quite deserted it never is, unless in the dead hours of night, and not always then; but now its chief occupants appear to be the bed-makers, who empty their pails down the gratings, or stand for a few minutes' gossip by their respective staircases. Every now and then an idler passes through in a leisurely manner, or a don scurries across the grass in a terrible hurry. White-aproned cooks from the college kitchens collect plate and crockery from the various gyp-rooms and carry them away in green boxes balanced on their heads. Tradesmen's boys, their baskets on their arms, pass from one staircase to another, quite unawed by their surroundings, whistling as if their errands were taking them down a street of numbered houses instead of to the studious rooms of a venerable college, for centuries devoted to learning. But of the undergraduate life which is so busy in the courts of a college at other times of the day there is very little, for most undergraduates are listening to lecturers or coaches, or reading in their own rooms.
But the hour strikes and everything is changed. Men in gowns of blue or black, with note-books under their arms, come pouring out of the lecture-rooms into the court. Interspersed with them are the lecturers, laden with books, their long gowns and ribbons flying; and most curious of all, little groups of girls stand about the court waiting until it is time for another lecturer to appear and dart hurriedly into the room where his wisdom is to keep them entranced for the next hour. How horrified our grandfathers would have been could they have pictured girls and men sitting in the same lecture-room to-day, and how incredulous, could they have been told what a very little difference such an unforeseen arrangement would make in the daily life of their colleges. For the women are already in Cambridge. They have their own colleges, and if they have not yet their own lecturers, they make very good use of ours. And, strange to say, nobody takes much notice of them, or realises that they are there at all, except when they form their little groups round the college doorways, or when their names are read out before those of the men in the Senate House, or when they want something which Cambridge with all its chivalry is not quite prepared to give them.
One such little group of girls was standing by the Trinity Chapel one bright November morning in the first term of Lucius's second year, waiting for the learned gentleman who was to lecture to them during the next hour on some subject connected with the Classical Tripos. The learned gentleman was a little late and all the other lecturers had by this time penned their flocks and were busily engaged in feeding, and in some cases shearing them. The men who were booked for the same lecture as the girls were standing in twos and threes a little distance away, or strolling up and down the flagged pathways. At ten minutes past the hour the lecturer was seen approaching at a hurried pace from the direction of Neville's Court, and a minute later, girls, men, and lecturer had disappeared, and the Great Court had settled down again to its normal morning condition of dignified calm.
One of the girls was conspicuously attractive. She wore a neat costume of blue serge and a hat that showed up the gold of her pretty head. Her eyes were blue and innocent, her little nose had a mischievous tilt to it, and her mouth was like Cupid's bow. These last named attractions were not visible to Lucius Binney, who sat at the corner of a desk a few rows behind her; but he had a good view of the soft curves of a delicate tinted cheek, and a little shell-like ear perched coquettishly underneath the wavy brown hair, and, to do him justice, these beauties were not unappreciated by him, for he paid a good deal more attention to them than to the dulcet tones of the learned lecturer. It was now about the middle of the Michaelmas term, and Lucius had already sat in the same corner and looked at the same girl three times a week since the beginning of term, eleven times in all, and each time he looked his sense of the beautiful was more satisfied than before. Besides minor varieties the girl sometimes wore another costume of grey-green cloth and a felt hat to match, with a woodcock's tip in it. Lucius was like the lover in Tennyson's poem who speaks of his lady's dresses:—
"Now I know her but in two,Nor can pronounce upon it,If one should ask me whetherThe habit, hat and feather,Or the frock and gipsy bonnetBe the neater and completer;For nothing could be sweeterThan maiden Maud in either."
He sometimes spoke of her to Dizzy, who attended the same lecture, and whose admiration of the girl was æsthetically great, but had not succeeded in penetrating his feelings. These two would hang about the court, chatting unconcernedly together, while she went out through the Great Gate with her companions. After the first week, when Lucius's appreciation of her charms had begun to bite a little, she sometimes gave him the merest glance out of the corners of her blue eyes as she passed him. There seemed to be a trace of amusement lurking in the glance, and Lucius understood that his admiration, although by no means obtrusive, had been observed—and dared he hope in some measure accepted?—by its object.
"Oh, Dizzy, old man, she reallyis—that girl!" sighed Lucius, after silently watching the blue serge coat and skirt and the fair hair under the little hat disappear round the corner. "She reallyis—"
What she really was did not transpire, but Dizzy quite understood and agreed.
"She's a topper," said Dizzy. "I can't say fairer than that. She's a topper."
"Have you noticed those little fluffy curls on her neck?" inquired Lucius. "With most girls they stick out straight and look as if they ought to be tucked in somewhere. But hers don't."
"Why don't you take a snap-shot at them with a Kodak in the lecture-room?" suggested Dizzy.
Lucius did buy a Kodak after this, and stayed away from the charmed lecture-room one morning with a heavy heart, in order to take photographs of the girl as she went through the court to and from the lecture. He ensconced himself in a friend's rooms on the kitchen staircase, the nearest position he could gain, for he did not want her to see him standing in the court; but after pressing the button feverishly six or eight times, and waiting impatiently for three weeks until the other people had done the rest, he was rewarded with several curious pictures of fog effects, only one of which showed a scene which could be recognised as the Great Court, with a few dark little spots some miles away, which Lucius interpreted as the girl and her companions leaving the college, but did not gain much satisfaction from the possession of them even with the help of a magnifying glass.
The girl was a Newnhamite (hideous word!). Lucius and Dizzy knew that much, though they could not discover her name. She must have known theirs, for the lecturer was in the habit of calling them over after each lecture. Unfortunately he omitted to do so in the case of the lady students.
"It's just my luck, you know," said Lucius disconsolately. "I've got a cousin of sorts at Girton. I ought to have looked her up before now—I promised the governor I would—and I'd have done it pretty quick, you bet, if she had had the sense to go to the other place."
"What is she like?" asked Dizzy.
"I don't know. I've never seen her. She is a sister of my cousin at Queens'."
"Oh, I should look her up if I were you. She may be pretty," said Dizzy.
"Have you seen my cousin at Queens'?"
Dizzy had, and acknowledged that the inferences were not encouraging.
"Still there's no telling," he said. "She may be a regular topper."
"Her father's a country parson," said Lucius, "and she has never been anywhere. I don't see the fun of tramping out to Girton to see a fat girl with spectacles."
"And a space between her belt and the top of her skirt with hooks and eyes showing," added Dizzy. "No, I agree with you it isn't good enough, although, of course, she may be a topper, you can't tell."
Lucius did bicycle out to Girton before the end of the term along a straight and appallingly hideous road, only to find Miss Jermyn "not at home" at the end of it, and then dismissed his cousin Elizabeth and Girton College from his mind, and indulged himself in roseate dreams of the Newnham girl instead. Although he was constantly plunged in shame at the behaviour of his father, and was gradually growing poorer and poorer as time went on, owing to Mr. Binney's relentless views on the subject of filial conduct, his first term at Cambridge in the companionship of his father was not altogether an unhappy one.
At the end of it Mr. Binney went in for the first part of his Little-go and failed ignominiously, for his work had greatly deteriorated since he had been admitted to the friendship of Howden and the rest. But the disquieting news did not reach him until he had left Cambridge at the beginning of the Christmas vacation, and that blow was not added to the one caused by his failure at the Union, and another which befel him at the end of term in the shape of an interview with his Tutor. Mr. Rimington looked grave as Mr. Binney entered his presence, and shook hands with him without his usual smile.
"Sit down, please, Mr. Binney," he said. "I didn't send for you when I heard about that foolish affair in Mr. Miniken's rooms, because I thought you must have taken part in it against your will, and I couldn't but believe that nothing of the sort would happen again. But I learn, to my surprise, that you seem to have made a—a specialty of that sort of behaviour, and however unpleasant the duty may be, I must remonstrate seriously with you on the course you have adopted here."
Mr. Binney's mouth was dry. Mr. Rimington's tone was more conciliatory than that of the Junior Dean, but the latter, after his first few words, had treated him just like any other undergraduate, while Mr. Rimington addressed him as a middle-aged gentleman who had been making a fool of himself; and Mr. Binney disliked this above all things.
Mr. Rimington paused, and Mr. Binney felt he was expected to speak.
"I was gated for that affair of Miniken's, sir," he said with a gulp, "and the subject ought to be at an end. It was foolish, perhaps, but it was all done in good part, and I had no idea the man would make such a fuss about it. Since then I am not aware of having done anything to bring my conduct under the notice of the officials of the college."
Mr. Rimington heard him out in grave silence. "You have done nothing that has actually had to be punished," he said, "but if you imagine, Mr. Binney, that your conduct has not come very seriously under the notice of the officials of the college, you are mistaken. Behaviour that would not call for much remark from a boy of eighteen or nineteen is a different matter in a man of your age. For one thing it is demoralising in the extreme to the undergraduates with whom you associate. It is a very disagreeable task to have to point this out to you, and I must say that it surprises me exceedingly that there should be any necessity for my having to do so." He paused so as to give Mr. Binney a chance of speaking, who, however, took no advantage of his opportunity, but sat gazing on the carpet. His attitude seemed to show that he was taking his Tutor's remonstrances to heart, but a slight frown on his brow and the set of his mouth belied that assumption.
"Have you anything to say, Mr. Binney?" asked the Tutor.
"I should like to hear whatyouhave got to say first, sir," said Mr. Binney. "Then I will give utterance to my opinions."
"Very well," said Mr. Rimington. "Then I had better say what I have got to say in as few words and as strongly as possible. When we talked over your coming up here as an undergraduate in the spring, I pointed out that it would hardly be fair to your son to be under your constant supervision, and I pointed out other reasons why I thought you should reconsider your decision. You did not agree with me, and the objections were not strong enough to induce the college to refuse your application when you persisted in making it. No man in his senses could have foreseen that at the end of your first term, your son, who has been here over a year, should bear a high character in the college, while you, his father, should be giving us a great deal of trouble in matters of conduct. If that could have been foreseen I need scarcely say that we should not have admitted you.
"Now, look here, Mr. Rimington," said Mr. Binney, with his most uncompromising air. "I take great objection to your manner of speaking to me. My son I refuse to discuss. As far as I myself am concerned, you have acknowledged that with one exception, for which I have paid the appointed penalty, my conduct has not been such as to have called for any special remark, supposing I had been of the age of the ordinary undergraduate with whom you have to deal. I take my stand on that statement. These references to my age are offensive to me. I am here in the position of an ordinary undergraduate, and I demand fair treatment as such. That puts the matter in a nutshell."
Mr. Rimington kept his temper. "You seem to forget, Mr. Binney," he said quietly, "that no ordinary undergraduate would be permitted to speak to me in those terms. You take advantage of your age, which I think is about the same as mine, to address me as an equal, but wish it to be ignored entirely in my estimation of your behaviour. That, of course, is an unreasonable demand, and one that I cannot entertain. I sent for you to remonstrate with you on the course that you have seen fit to adopt. But as you have taken my remonstrance so badly, I must point out to you that my powers go far beyond a mere remonstrance, and if you are incapable of seeing yourself in the wrong and mending your ways, the college will have to think very seriously of asking you to take your name off the books."
"Then, sir," said Mr. Binney, now very angry, "I have to inform you that I shall not comply with the request of the college. I am here, and here I shall remain. The treatment I have received I consider infamous. I demand to be let alone. I shall keep on the right side of the law in the future, as I have done in the past, and I challenge—Idarethe college to touch me. Let me remind you, Mr. Rimington, that this University has been thrown open—yes,open, sir. The old iniquitous Test Acts have been done away. One man has as much right here as another. If I am interfered with further, I will raise such a storm throughout the country, that not only Trinity College but Cambridge University shall tremble in its shoes. I will wish you good-morning, sir; and let me advise you to take my words to heart," and with this Mr. Binney took himself out of his Tutor's rooms, and went straight round to the Union to write a fiery letter of indignation to theDaily Chronicle, unmasking the unwarrantable interference with the liberties of the subject practised by the authorities of a "well-known college in a well-known University." His letter was not inserted. So the storm he had threatened to raise delayed its raging for the present.
After his departure, Mr. Rimington pondered for some time on his course of action, and then wrote the following letter:—
"DEAR MR. BINNEY,—I enclose theexeatwhich you will require in order to enable you to leave Cambridge for the Christmas vacation. I have dated it for to-morrow. You will, I think, on consideration regret your manner towards me in our conversation of this morning, and I shall be glad to receive any expressions of regret you may feel inclined to make. I must also repeat my statement that it is subversive of all discipline in the college that a gentleman in your peculiar position should constitute himself a leader in disorderly behaviour, and warn you that if such behaviour is persisted in you will not be allowed to remain here.—Yours sincerely,
"ROBERT RIMINGTON."
"Let 'em try to remove me, that's all," said Mr. Binney, when he received this very moderate communication. "They'll be sorry for it all their lives.Exeatdated for to-morrow! What does he mean? I don't want to go down to-morrow. A piece of impertinence! I shan't go."
But on consideration Mr. Binney did go down on the appointed day, and having arrived at a more reasonable frame of mind after a few days' residence in Russell Square, wrote to Mr. Rimington that he regretted that he had been led in the heat of the moment to express himself in a way he could not justify, and that, while he still stood his stand on a position which, he thought, would prove to be unassailable, there was no reason why he and Mr. Rimington should not agree to differ in a perfectly friendly and gentlemanly way.
Mr. Binney took advantage of his unexpectedly early arrival in town for the Christmas vacation to pay a surprise visit to Mrs. Higginbotham. He found that good lady seated by her drawing-room fire as on the occasion of that momentous visit with the account of which this history opens. With the glad cry "Peter!" "Martha!" these two ardent souls were locked in a close embrace, which afforded great gratification to themselves, and not a little to the parlour-maid, who had delayed her exit in order to satisfy herself as to the warmth of their greeting.
"My dear Peter," said Mrs. Higginbotham, "I did not expect to see you for another two days at least. How is it you have managed to come home for your holidays so early?"
"We don't have holidays at Cambridge, Martha," said Mr. Binney; "we call them vacations. And of course we can come away when we like—that is if the dons will let us."
"Well, it is a very agreeable surprise to see you, Peter," said Mrs. Higginbotham. "But how you have altered! Why, you have cut off your beautiful whiskers!"
"Yes," said Mr. Binney. "Fellows don't wear whiskers at Cambridge. It is considered old-fashioned. How do you like the change, Martha?"
"I don't know," said Mrs. Higginbotham, doubtfully. "But you should have askedmyleave first, you know, Peter, before taking a step like that," she added, archly.
Mr. Binney enjoyed this. He became facetious, affected to dig Mrs. Higginbotham in the ribs, and jocularly cried, "Oh! you saucy little skipper!"
Mrs. Higginbotham was scandalised.
"Peter!" she exclaimed, "surely you forget yourself."
"Pooh! Martha," said Mr. Binney, "don't be old-fashioned. That's the way young men go on now-a-days."
"Is it?" said Mrs. Higginbotham, only half reassured. "I don't think I much like it. It isn't respectful. But I'm so pleased to see you back, Peter, that I don't mindhowyou go on. And you certainly do look younger, somehow—I suppose it is from cutting off your whiskers. But do you know I think it makes you looksmallertoo."
"Ah!" said Peter, "I used to be sorry I was rather short. I'm not now. It's a distinct score. I've got a great piece of news for you, Martha. I'm going to steer the first Lent boat next term, if all goes well. The first boat captain told me the other day that I was the most useful man they'd got, if I didn't play the fool and kept my head; he said if I steered well in the Lents I should probably steer the first boat in the Mays; and that means, Martha, that next year I shall very likely be cox of the 'Varsity and get my Blue. Think of that, now!"
"Lor!" said Mrs. Higginbotham, "And very nice too, I'm sure. But why are you wearing a tie with the Oxford colours instead of the Cambridge?"
"Oh dear! Martha!" exclaimed Peter with some irritation. "Will youneverunderstand these things? These are the First Trinity colours. Nobody can wear the Cambridge colours unless he's a Blue. And I'm not a Blue yet."
"Aren't you?" said Mrs. Higginbotham. "Well, never mind, I'm sure you will be some day if you do your lessons—I mean your work well, and satisfy the Professors. And now, Peter, there is one little thing that I wish to speak to you about. That time you got into trouble. I was very grieved to hear about that. My poor dear father always used to say——"
"Oh, bother your father, Martha!" exclaimed Peter. "What didheknow about life at the 'Varsity? I told you in my letter that nobody at Cambridge thinks anything of a lark like that except the fusty old dons—and who cares for whattheythink?"
"It isn't polite of you to say, 'bother my father,' Peter," rejoined Mrs. Higginbotham with some warmth. "He was a very good father to me, and I never gave him a moment's trouble till the day of his death. I did think that after the lesson you had received—being locked into your bedroom every night at eight o'clock as I gathered from your letter—that you would have seen the folly of such behaviour. But I am sorry to see from this paper which you sent me the other day, that this is not the case."
Mrs. Higginbotham took up from the table at her side one of those ephemeral journals which come and go at the Universities with almost as much frequency as the successive generations of undergraduates who produce them. This one was calledThe New Court Chronicle, and had been started by one of Mr. Binney's Rugby football acquaintances. In it was a weekly letter in imitation of those that appear in some of the London Society papers, and one paragraph ran as follows:—
"Millie has come up here for a week to see something of her younger brother, Arthur, who has entered at Trinity, and is quite apersona gratawith the 'smart' set at that mostchicof all the colleges. He took his brother-in-law to a dinner at Mr. 'Peter' Binney's rooms one night, and Sir George came away quite charmed with theverveandélanof his diminutive host. Sir George says that there was not so much wine drunk as in his days at Cambridge, but what there was, was of excellent quality and seemed togo further. Little Mr. Binney insisted on making a speech, and caused uproarious merriment by remarking that hesaw doublethe number of friends he had invited, but he was pleased to welcome them all, and as many more of the same sort as liked to come. Owing to the sultriness of the weather, Mr. Binney was unfortunately seized with a slight indisposition before the party broke up, but he was comfortably settled in bed by his guests before they left, and Millie met him in Jesus Lane the next morning looking as sprightly as ever, and had a short conversation with him, in which he humorously remarked that he had never turned his back upon don or devil yet."
Mrs. Higginbotham opened the paper and pointed to this paragraph.
"It was indeed a grief to me to read that, Peter," she said, "and how you could send it me of your own accord passes my comprehension. Inattention to study I can overlook, and thoughtless levity of conduct I can pardon—butdrunkenness! Oh, Peter, I never thought it would come tothat."
Mr. Binney had been getting very red during the passing of this exordium on his conduct.
"Pooh, Martha!" he burst out at last. "How could I have known that you would take it seriously. You don't think all that rubbish is true, do you? It is all made up and put in for a lark. I sent it to you because—well, because I thought it would please you to see how popular and well-known I have become in Cambridge. If you don't like it, throw it in the fire."
"But if it is not true, Peter," said Mrs. Higginbotham—"and I'm sure I'm very much relieved to hear that it is not—why do you allow such things to be put into a paper? It distinctly says you 'saw double,' and I have always understood that to be an unfailing sign of—oftipsiness. I call it disgraceful taking away a gentleman's character like that. Supposing it should come round to Dr. Toller's ears, or some others of the congregation? And you a deacon, too, and so much looked up to."
"Dr. Toller!" echoed Mr. Binney with much scorn. "What do I care for Dr. Toller?He'snot a 'Varsity man; he doesn't understand these things."
"He has got a University degree," said Mrs. Higginbotham. "Indeed,twodegrees. He is always put in the bills as Rev. Samuel Toller, B.A., D.D."
"That's nothing," said Mr. Binney. "He wasn't at Oxford or Cambridge. The rest don't count."
"Oh, don't they! I didn't know," said Mrs. Higginbotham. "But, at any rate, I shouldn't allow those things to be said of you, Peter, especially as they are not true. It might get about, and I shouldn't like that. Now, tell me about some of your speeches at the Young Men's Christian Association. I am so glad you——"
"The Union, Martha! The Union!" shouted Mr. Binney, annoyed beyond bounds at Mrs. Higginbotham's consistent inability to grasp the true inwardness of University life.
"Well, the Union then," said Mrs. Higginbotham. "It's the same thing, isn't it?"
"No, it'snotthe same thing," said Mr. Binney, and then he calmed down and gave Mrs. Higginbotham a full and true account of the building up of his forensic ambitions, and their sad and disastrous downfall. Mrs. Higginbotham was full of sympathy and womanly consolation.
"Ah, Martha," said Mr. Binney at last, "what a treasure I have gained in your love! My barque will never suffer shipwreck so long as the haven of your true woman's breast is open to it."
"I trust not," said Mrs. Higginbotham. "And now let us have tea up. I expect Annie will have toasted some muffins."
Lucius arrived home the next afternoon, and brought Dizzy with him for a few days. The point of view from which he had hitherto regarded his father had been so rudely altered by Mr. Binney's behaviour during his first term at Cambridge that Lucius had been unable to face the ordeal of the first few days alone with him in Russell Square.
"You know what the governor is, Dizzy," he had said. "It won't be so bad if you are here for a bit, and we can have a good time. I've gotsomemoney left, although my allowance has been getting smaller and smaller ever since I came up to Cambridge. We needn't be at home more than we like, and we can go about a bit and see plays."
"I should like to come, old man," said Dizzy. "I've got a bit of splosh laid by, too. I'm an economical beggar and I've let my bills stand over till next term. We'll have a rare old time. I suppose your governor won't want to go about with us, will he?"
"I shouldn't be surprised," said Lucius. "You can never tell what nonsense he'll be up to now."
"Oh, well, we must make the best of it, if he does," said Dizzy cheerfully. "He's not such bad fun if you take him in the right way, and I can always get on with him very well."
"He's not your father," said Lucius.
Dizzy considerately gave thanks inaudibly.
But when they reached Russell Square they found that a change for the better had set in in Mr. Binney's behaviour. The responsibilities of a householder and the head of a large business-house had temporarily settled down on him again. He went to the City every day for an hour or two, and spent a good deal of his spare time in the company of Mrs. Higginbotham, leaving the young men pretty well to their own devices. He had been brought up to regard theatre going as injurious to the morals, and, while he did not attempt to prevent Lucius from enjoying himself in his own way, the remains of an early prejudice prevented his accompanying him. So Dizzy spent a pleasant week with his friend, and as he was always cheery and obliging from morning to night, Mr. Binney was delighted with his company.
One evening towards the end of Dizzy's visit there was a little dinner-party in Russell Square. The guests were Mrs. Higginbotham, Dr. Toller, his wife and daughter, and a sprightly middle-aged lady called Miss Tupper, who had been a friend of the late Mrs. Binney, whose place she was generally supposed to be desirous of filling. Mrs. Higginbotham and she were very cordial to one another when they met, but there was a delicate sub-acid flavour about their conversation which hardly seemed in accord with the indelible sweetness of their respective smiles.
Mr. Binney sat at the head of the table with Mrs. Toller on his right, and Mrs. Higginbotham on his left, Lucius at the foot, flanked by Miss Tupper and Miss Toller. The Reverend Doctor and Dizzy faced one another.
"And how do you like University life, Mr. Binney?" inquired Mrs. Toller sweetly, when her husband had recited an impromptu grace, and infused as much originality into it as possible, and the company had settled themselves down to soup and agreeable conversation.
Mr. Binney, of course, was anxious to talk about Cambridge, but he did not quite like a question which drew attention to his novice state.
"Oh, all University men like University life, Mrs. Toller," he replied. "Though, of course, some are not in a position to appreciate it as much as others."
"Oh, Mr. Binney, I'm sureyouare in a position to appreciate it," said Miss Tupper gushingly.
"I hope I am, Miss Tupper," said Mr. Binney.
"Who are the people who donotappreciate it?" asked Mrs. Toller.
This gave Mr. Binney the opportunity he wanted of expatiating on the prestige to be gained by membership of a good college, and a wide circle of distinguished athletic acquaintances. Mrs. Toller seemed much interested and put many questions in a tone of innocent inquiry, which had the effect of drawing Mr. Binney into a somewhat fuller account than he would otherwise have given of his manner of life during the past term. Miss Tupper was enchanted with everything she heard. She even clapped her hands.
"Oh, do tell me more, Mr. Binney," she cried. "It is all soyoung. I simply love to hear about it. Lucius, why don't you back Mr. Binney up? I believe you are a very wicked boy when you're at college, for all you are so quiet at home. Oh, fie!"
Lucius made no reply to this sally. The old feeling towards his father which had been coming back slowly during the last few days was disappearing again as the conversation developed, and he ate his dinner in shamed silence. Miss Tupper became more and more sprightly, but she devoted herself to Mr. Binney although she was two places away from him. She was the daughter of a solicitor, while Mrs. Toller's father had been a bookseller, and she wished to show that lady that the manners of the upper classes possess a greater breadth and freedom than those of the people with whom Mrs. Toller had mixed all her life. Mrs. Higginbotham was very anxious that Mr. Binney should not give Dr. Toller reason to suppose that his habits had become at all loose during his short residence at Cambridge, and tried to bring the conversation down to the more sober aspects of University life, but the Doctor was enjoying a very good dinner and was inclined to be tolerant. He even told some anecdotes of his own salad days when he had been a student at Homerton College, but the mild devilry of his proceedings took such a long time to narrate, and amounted to so very little when it was reduced to speech, that his anecdotes fell very flat. Mrs. Higginbotham gave them rather more than their due share of appreciation, but Mr. Binney listened with ill-concealed impatience, and instantly capped each story with a much more highly-spiced one of his own, while Miss Tupper actually had the temerity to snub the great man, which exasperated his wife to such an extent that she half made up her mind to bring her unseemly conduct before the next church meeting.
Under cover of this conversation Dizzy had been trying to get on terms with his neighbour. Miss Toller was very young and very shy, but undoubtedly pretty. Dizzy, that discriminating critic of feminine beauty, had run his eye cursorily over her upon his first appearance. "Pity she ain't turned out properly," he had said to Lucius. "She's worth it. I should like to get her a proper evening frock instead of that dowdy thing, and take her somewhere to get her hair waved. I could turn her into a regular topper in no time. Give her a few lessons on how to walk, and teach her to hold her hands properly and you wouldn't know her when I'd finished with her."
"Shouldn't want to; you'd only spoil her," said Lucius. "She's a nice enough little thing as it is. I've danced with her at children's parties ever since I can remember."
"Come now," said Dizzy, "you wouldn't like to see the Newnham beauty turned out like that of an evening."
"That's different," said Lucius, with a blush.
Poor little Miss Toller would have sunk into the earth with shame if she had heard herself thus discussed. This was her first dinner-party end she had looked forward to it with tremulous but pleasurable anticipation. She was going to meet Lucius, and Lucius had always stood for her as an embodiment of everything that was worthy of admiration in the opposite sex. She had recently been put in command of her own small dress allowance, and had expended a good part of her quarter's income on the frock that Dizzy had criticised so contemptuously. Lucius had not taken so much notice of her as she had expected, considering that they had been friends all their lives; and he seemed unhappy! Poor boy! With feminine intuition she instantly divined something of the state of things that existed between him and his father. Hitherto she had regarded Mr. Binney with that respect due to his age and his standing in her father's congregation. Suddenly she found herself hating and despising him with a fervour that surprised even herself, and she would have given anything she possessed, even her new frock, to be able to console Lucius without appearing to understand why he was so downcast. Lucius spoke very little to her, although she sat next to him, and she was too shy to address him first; but now she had to collect her wits and cope with the embarrassing young man who sat on her left, who seemed more at ease than she could possibly have conceived any young man being in the awe-inspiring surroundings of a set dinner-party, and who spoke and behaved in quite a different manner from anybody she had ever met before.
"Oysters!" began Dizzy, as an opening to conversation. "I don't know whether you know that if you eat a dozen oysters and drink a wine-glassful of brandy after them, you die."
Miss Toller had never eaten oysters in her life, nor drunk brandy except under strong maternal pressure for medicinal purposes, but she looked rather frightened. "Do you?" she said.
"Yes," said Dizzy, "the brandy turns the oysters into leather. Leather's the most indigestible thing you can swallow, although of course nobody would swallow it if they could help it. But the funny part of it is, that if you eat a piece of cheese the size of a walnut—I don't know whywalnutparticularly—it melts the leather and then you are all right."
Miss Toller thought this information a trifle indelicate, but made no comment on it, except the tacit one of leaving her oysters untasted.
"Been to any plays lately?" inquired Dizzy.
"No," said Miss Toller, "my father doesn't approve of theatres."
"Doesn't he?" said Dizzy. "Quite right too. I'm sure the nonsense that's put on the stage now and called a play is enough to make you ill. And then they talk about dramatic art! Why, there's more art in a Punch and Judy show. Lucius and I have been going the rounds for the last week, and I'm hanged if I want to go and see another play till I'm seventy. Louie Freer's the only artist among the whole lot of 'em. Ever heard her sing 'Mary Jane's Top Note'? Oh, no, I forgot. You don't care for theatres. But you should have seen Lucius at the A.D.C. He was only a maid-servant—butsucha maid-servant. He had letters from all the Registry Offices in Cambridge offering him situations. Every Sunday out and as many followers as he liked. Didn't you, Lucius?"
"He's talking nonsense, Nesta," said Lucius. "He always will talk whether he's got anything to say or not."
"But did you dress up as a maid-servant, Lucius?" asked the girl.
"He did," said Dizzy, "and his waist was twenty-two inches round. His name was Mary." But here Mr. Stubbs's attention was demanded by his other neighbour, Mrs. Toller, who had learnt enough of Mr. Binney's late doings to satisfy her for the present, and had caught a few scraps of the conversation addressed to her daughter, and thought it a trifle free.
"And what may you be going to do, Mr. Stubbs, when you leave college?" she asked with a slight touch of asperity.
"Well, 'pon my word, I don't know," replied Dizzy, who may have been a little surprised at the directness of the inquiry, but didn't show it. "I leave all that sort of thing to my old father, you know. He's got plenty of ideas on the subject, but he changes 'em about once a month. I fall in with 'em all and give 'em up directly the new one comes along. It keeps him out of mischief, having something to think about, and it don't hurt me. I think it's the Church just at present—or is it brewing? No, brewing was last term. My old father read in the papers that the country spends more money on its drink bills than on anything else, so he thought that if I was put in a position to enable me to receipt a few of 'em, it wouldn't be a bad thing. However, he gave up the idea for some reason or other, and now we're turning our attention to the Church."
"And do you feel that you have any vocation for the ministry?" asked Mrs. Toller.
"Oh! I shall rub along all right," said Dizzy. "I've an old uncle who's got several livings in his gift. He'll give me one if I want it, I dare say. There's one up in Lincolnshire,—not much money, but a nice house, and five hundred acres of rough shooting—you don't often get that sort of thing with a rectory nowadays—and only about fifty people in the parish. I shouldn't mind going there, and I dare say I could if I wanted to. My old uncle's place is in the next parish, and I could have a very good time."
Mrs. Toller listened with inward disapproval, but the mention of Dizzy's uncle with his patronage and his "place" disarmed her rancour, she being as arrant a snob as ever walked, and she said with much sweetness:
"Don't you think, Mr. Stubbs, that the system of patronage adopted by the Established Church is a little—what shall I say?—a little—"
"Ido," said Dizzy with warmth. "I quite agree with you. I think it's perfectly monstrous. Now, look at my old uncle—well, perhaps I oughtn't to let out family secrets—but I assureyouthat for that old man to be able to present people to livings—though, mind you, he's a very nice old man, and I've nothing to say against him—well, upon my word, it's enough to make you turn Particular Baptist or something—never quite know why Baptists should be more particular than anybody else—-oh, Ibegyour pardon, Mrs. Toller—'pon my word I forgot we weren't of the same way of thinking—clumsy beggar, always putting my foot in it—but you're not what they call aParticularBaptist, are you?"
"Certainly not," said Mrs. Toller. "The Particular Baptists were——"
"Quite so. Yes, I remember. And I know, of course, that Dr. Toller is a most distinguished leader of religious thought—everybodyknows that. I ought to have remembered that he didn't happen to belong to the same Church as I do—stupid of me. But, you know, the truth of it is, Mrs. Toller, that when a man gets up to the top of the tree, well, he may be Archbishop of Canterbury, or a Cardinal or—or a man like your husband, and to a fellow like me who don't follow these things very closely, well, there isn't much difference, don't you know."
"You feel that, do you?" said Mrs. Toller, much gratified. "Of coursewethink so; but church people are usually so bigoted. I'm sure it's a great pleasure to meet a member of the Establishment who is so broad-minded."
Dizzy felt that he had completely retrieved his error, and proceeded to amplify his ideas.
"I think it's such rot being narrow-minded, don't you know," he said. "Look at the Buddhists. They're just as good as we are. I knew a fellow once who became one. He was fond of a good glass of wine. He had to knockthatoff, and become a teetotaller. He liked shooting, but he had to give it up, because he said he couldn't take life—he never had taken much before, but he used to hit 'em sometimes by mistake, and he didn't want to run any risks. Of course, he didn't eat meat. Then he hadn't been married very long, and there was a baby he was very fond of. He began to bring that up as a Buddhist too, and fed it on apples and filbert nuts. Don't know what his wife was doing all the time, but it died in a month.Hedidn't care. He just went on. Now, that's what I call religion, you know, and I should admire that fellow just as much if he were a Mormon or whatever he was. Wouldn't you?"
Mrs. Toller was not prepared to go quite so far as that, but she went part of the way, and went very amiably.
"I suppose you have never heard my husband preach, have you, Mr. Stubbs?" she asked.
"No, I haven't," said Dizzy. "And it's a funny thing, because I've been in London a good deal. It's the people who come up from the country who see and hear everything that's going on. Now, you wouldn't credit it, but I've actually never been to the Zoo."
Mrs. Toller did not quite see the connection of ideas, but her amiability did not decrease.
"He preached a very fine sermon last Sunday," she said, "on 'The Municipal Duties of an Enlightened Electorate.' The papers were full of it. TheDaily Chroniclesaid it was 'an epoch-making sermon.'"
"I can quite believe that," said Dizzy. "If a man talks sense in the pulpit people will listen to him. If he talks nonsense they won't."
"That is so true," said Mrs. Toller, and felt quite sorry when the time came for the ladies to leave the table, for Dizzy had by this time completely wiped out the memory of his little slip.
Driving home after the entertainment was over Mrs. Toller laid down the law.
"Mr. Binney seems to have been behaving very foolishly at Cambridge," she said. "I gathered something of the sort from Mrs. Higginbotham, and wished to find out if it was true. I could see that she was ashamed of the nonsense he talked at dinner, and I felt for her, poor thing. I shall go and see her to-morrow and tell her so. The way Miss Tupper egged him on was disgraceful. She ought to be ashamed of herself, at her age, too. If I were you, I should allude to it in your prayer on Sunday, Samuel. It will not seem so pointed as if you were to do it in the sermon, and there is never any telling what Miss Tupper may do. She might leave the chapel altogether if she is offended, and if she once took to going to church she'd give herself such airs that there'd be no holding her."
"I think Mr. Binney is a very silly little man," said Miss Toller vindictively. "I believe he is making poor Lucius miserable."
"Nesta!" exclaimed Mrs. Toller, astonished at this outburst from her usually submissive daughter, "I cannot allow you to speak like that of your elders. Mr. Binney is one of your father's greatest supporters. Pray express yourself with more respect. And as for Lucius—I've no patience with him. I've gone out of my way to be kind to that boy, and he shows no more gratitude than if I was a mere nobody—hardly troubled himself to answer when I asked him how he was getting on with his studies, and actually turned his back upon me when I began to give him a little advice about the temptations of University life. Now if he were like that nice young Mr. Stubbs it would be different. Stubbs is not a genteel name, but I believe he is very well connected, and he certainly has a well-bred manner of speaking. Samuel, I have asked him to come with us and hear you preach on Sunday evening. He said nothing would please him better. He has never been in a Nonconformist place of worship, and he will certainly come if he is still in town. I should be careful what I said about the Establishment if I were you. I should like him to carry away a good impression of your preaching."
"I'll be sure and remember it, my dear," said Dr. Toller drowsily from his corner of the carriage. "Nesta, dear, write a note for me when we get home—'Mr. Stubbs—no rubs.' Then I shan't disgrace myself." The Reverend Dr. Toller cultivated his small gift of humour; he found it necessary in order to live comfortably with his wife.
Dizzy took his departure the next morning, but not before a very painful scene had occurred in Russell Square. TheTimeswhich graced Mr. Binney's breakfast table, and was now eagerly searched each morning for news of the Little-go examination, at last published the list. Mr. Binney's name was not in it.
Dizzy came down to find a dejected figure sitting at the head of the table, while the disregarded urn which had filled the teapot and flooded the tea-tray was beginning to flow over the surrounding tract of tablecloth. As he entered the room Mr. Binney bounded from his seat with a yell of pain, and turned off the tap. The physical anguish of the moment diverted his mind from the mental shock he had undergone, but the numbing realisation of failure soon settled on him again. "Stubbs!" he said mournfully, "it is all over. I shall never hold up my head again."
"Lor, Mr. Binney!" exclaimed Dizzy. "It can't be so bad as that, is it? Shall I ring for a servant to bring a cloth and mop it up?"
"It isn't that," said Mr. Binney, with the calm born of despair. "I have failed to pass the Previous examination. I am a disgraced man."
"Oh, that's all, is it?" said Dizzy, helping himself to devilled kidneys off the side table. "I thought you'd scalded yourself. Why, bless my soul, I knew a fellow who had eight shots at the Little-go and didn't pass it then. I had three goes myself, and here I am as merry as a cricket."
"Ah, you are young!" said Mr. Binney. "You've got your life before you. I shall never get over it."
Nevertheless he did get over it, and the failure did him good. He went to Mrs. Higginbotham and confessed all. He saw now, he said, that he had wasted his time and opportunities. He had consorted with idle and graceless companions, and made himself a reproach to the authorities of the college. He had brought this appalling result on himself, and he deserved it.
Mrs. Higginbotham gave the repentant prodigal full absolution. She advised him to write to Mr. Rimington, and promise full amendment of his ways. Mr. Binney did not take her advice in this particular, but he did summon to his aid the learned Minshull, and set himself steadily to read for several hours a day during the Christmas vacation in order to make up for lost time. Lucius found the house very dull. An unexpected invitation from his cousin John Jermyn's mother came for him to spend the week after Christmas at the Norfolk Rectory, but remembering his cousin John he did not feel attracted, and receiving another invitation the day after to the ancestral home of the Stubbses he accepted that, and refused the other. He went up to Cambridge early, for there was a chance of his rowing in the University boat, and he wanted to keep a term before going to Putney, if he should be fortunate enough to be wanted there; so he saw next to nothing of his father for the remainder of the vacation.
Mr. Binney embarked on his second term at Cambridge with the full intention of acquitting himself with credit and freeing his character from the suspicion of unruliness which had unfortunately become attached to it. He was very much in earnest about his work, and mapped out a course of arduous study which was to be continued right up to the following June, when he hoped to make up for his first failure by taking a high class in both parts of the Little-go. The Union he was determined to let severely alone. His pride had had a severe rebuff from the indignity which had been put upon him in the elections. "They can do withoutme," said Mr. Binney to his fellow-aspirant, M'Gee. "Very well, then, I will show them that I can do withoutthem."
"Toch! man, have another try," said the indomitable M'Gee. "Rome wasn't built in a day." But he said it without enthusiasm, for the path to success, according to his ideas, did not lie through the follies and extravagances to which Mr. Binney had treated his audience during the previous term.
"I shall never speak at the Union again, M'Gee," said Mr. Binney firmly. And he kept his word.
He was a little troubled as to what course he should adopt with Howden and the rest of his athletic friends. He did not want to drop them altogether, but he wanted to make it clearly understood that the open restaurant which he had previously conducted for their benefit was now closed, and he had a suspicion that its closing might mean the discontinuance of their favour, and a consequent loss of prestige to himself. He gave a dinner on the second evening of the term, or perhaps it would be more correct to say that Howden, who professed himself delighted to meet his old friend once more after five weeks' absence, gave it for him in his rooms, and Mr. Binney paid the bill. It was quite as noisy as any that had gone before it, but Mr. Binney did not add to the gaiety. He made a speech in the course of the evening—he was rather fond of making speeches—in which he informed his friends that he was about to embark on a severe course of study and found he would not be able to have the pleasure of entertaining them quite so often as before on account of the time that was thrown away over these festivities. What he said was cheered to the echo, which gratified him not a little, but Howden, who followed him, did not appear to have taken his remarks in the least seriously, and assured him in a voice broken with emotion, that they would all stick by him and never forsake him. This was not quite what Mr. Binney wanted, but Howden's affecting periods caused such an outburst of enthusiasm that he succumbed to the general goodwill and allowed the matter to stand over for the present.
On the next afternoon, however, it was decided for him. He was sitting over his books for an hour before hall when he received a call from Mirrilees, the Captain of the First Trinity Boat Club. Mirrilees was an acquaintance of whom Mr. Binney might reasonably have been proud if he had ever shown the slightest wish to have anything to do with our hero apart from his official position as captain of the boat club to which Mr. Binney belonged. He was tall and well set up, a really fine oar and a thoroughly good fellow in the best sense of that misused term. He was not everybody's friend, even in the exceedingly tolerant atmosphere of undergraduate Cambridge, and athletes of the type of Howden disliked him, and said so freely; but Mr. Binney had kept his own opinion on this point, and if there was one man in Cambridge whom he respected with all the force of the hero-worship which was a part of his still undeveloped character, it was Mirrilees. He therefore rose to his feet, and showed by his nervousness of manner that he fully appreciated the honour done to him.
Mirrilees sat down on the sofa and refused the proffered suggestion of refreshment. His keen eyes glanced round the room and then rested on Mr. Binney.
"I told you last term," he said, "that we might want you to steer the first Lent boat. You're a light weight and you've got a head on your shoulders. At least you haven't lost it yet on the river, although you seem to have done so occasionally elsewhere."
What Mr. Binney suffered at that instant in the way of remorse is beyond description. This was a very different thing to Mr. Rimington's strictures on his conduct. He made no reply, but hung his head.
"Now I've come to offer you the place——" Mr. Binney revived a little—"but on certain conditions. I am not going to have the cox of any boat I've got anything to do with making himself more ridiculous than he is by nature. We shall be laughed at, of course, for having a man of your age in the boats at all. I don't mind that as long as that's all there is to laugh at. What I'm not going to stand is your making yourself the butt and crony of every drunken rowdy in Cambridge. I say what I've got to say perfectly straight as captain of the club to one of its members who may turn out useful to it. If you lay it to heart and don't take offence I shall have done what I wanted to do. If you don't like such plain speaking, say so, and I'll clear out, and we need never speak to one another again."
Mr. Binney's choler had shown signs of rising during this very plain and unvarnished statement of the light in which Mirrilees regarded him, but the hint with which the address had closed brought it down again.
"I don't take offence," he said slowly, "though I'm not used to—to——"
"Well, perhaps I put it a bit too strong," said Mirrilees, "but if I were you I shouldn't have anything more to do with Howden and that lot. I hear that they were all here last night again as usual, and that's why I'm talking to you now. They're only sponging on you and making you appear a fool all the time. If you steer the first Lent boat this term—and mind, though I make no promises, that's intended to mean the first May boatnextterm—you'll have to train with the rest, and that will mean knocking off all these diversions; and you'll find plenty of good chaps in the boat club without running after footballers, amongst whom you can't exactly expect to shine."
"I'm very grateful to you, Mirrilees, for your kind advice," said Mr. Binney. "I shall certainly take it, and you may rely upon me to do my best for the honour of the club."
"That's all right then," said Mirrilees, rising. "Walters is captain of your boat, as you know, but I thought I'd just come round and settle things up. Good-night!"
Outside in the darkness of Jesus Lane, Mirrilees smiled continuously. "Good Lord!" he said to himself. "Fancy talking like that to the father of one of your pals! But it was the only way, and I thought he'd stand it somehow. I rather fancy I've done Lucy a good turn. But I hope he'll never know."
He left Mr. Binney in a fervour of amended ambitions. What a grand thing it would be to have a friend like Mirrilees, a man whom most people turned round to look at if they passed him in the street, a man who had already rowed two years in the University boat and would probably row two years more before he left Cambridge, a man whose name was known all over England. Why, it was almost as good as knowing Muttlebury or Guy Nickalls. Lucius knew him, of course, lucky young beggar. He wondered whether it was worth while making another attempt to make acquaintances through his son, but the memory of Blathgowrie and others deterred him, for Lucius's friends were not all Mirrilees's, and he made up his mind to deserve the great man's favour by a brilliant career as a cox, and extreme carefulness as to his behaviour both on the river and away from it.
And so for the best part of that term Mr. Binney's behaviour was irreproachable. He never missed a lecture or an appointment with his Coach, and the amount of work he got through in the privacy of his rooms was little short of marvellous. He was on the river, of course, every afternoon, and suffered greatly from the exposure to the cold as he sat in his narrow seat, fumbling with numbed hands at the rudder lines, and was carried swiftly along by the combined exertions of the eight stalwart men who faced him. His appearance always caused some merriment on the tow-path, and the town urchins were a great trial to him with their coarse banter, but the men of the First Trinity Boat Club, as a rule, treated him with the respect due to his years, and, if they did show a slight disinclination to walk up from the boats with him, or to admit him into very close intimacy with them, he made up his mind to bear the deprivation, trusting that it would disappear in time, rather than fall again into the mistake he had made in trying to force himself upon Blathgowrie and his friends. As for Howden, there was not so much trouble with him as Mr. Binney had expected. For one thing, he played Rugby football regularly for the University, and, although no such arduous course of training is expected from a football player as is necessary in the case of an oarsman, still a continuous course of hilarious dinners is not regarded with favour by those in authority, and Howden did not apply so often as before for sustenance at Mr. Binney's table. Mr. Binney also conceived the idea of employing Howden himself to keep his friends off him. He got him to talk about his financial troubles one morning, a subject which he had before instinctively avoided. Howden was nothing loth, and poured out a dismal tale of debts and duns. Mr. Binney then afforded him temporary pecuniary relief, and asked, as a favour, that Howden should inform his friends that he, Mr. Binney, was very busy this term and would not be able to see quite so much of them as before. Howden accepted the responsibility, and discharged it satisfactorily, and Mr. Binney was left in peace to carry out his reformation.
But, alas! the old proverb still holds true: "Give a dog a bad name and hang him." Mr. Binney was now an exemplary character, but nobody would believe it. When his guests left his rooms after the evening already alluded to, they got into trouble with the Proctors. It was the usual offence of smoking in cap and gown, but Howden added to it by running away from avenging justice. Neither Proctor nor Bull-dogs could hope to equal him at that game, so they made no attempt to enter into competition, but entered up his name, which was perfectly familiar to all three of them, instead. So the only thing Howden got by his little sprint was the exercise, which he did not require, and a double fine the next morning, which he could ill afford to pay. His escapade also came to the ears of his tutor, Mr. Rimington. He would not have taken notice of such a comparatively slight offence, if such offences had not been of frequent occurrence with Howden. As it was, he sent for him and talked to him, and then it came out that Howden had been dining with Mr. Binney. It will be remembered that Mr. Rimington had expostulated with Mr. Binney on the last day of the previous term, and this occurrence had taken place on the second day of the present term. Mr. Rimington may therefore be excused for coming to the conclusion that his expostulations had had very little effect, and that Mr. Binney was proceeding on the reckless career which had made him such a nuisance to those responsible for the order of the college. He said nothing on this occasion, but continued to regard Mr. Binney with feelings of strong disfavour.
Mr. Binney might have lived down his reputation in time had it not been artificially sustained for him by the journal to which we have already referred, theNew Court Chronicle. The editor of that enterprising publication had found that Mr. Binney's eccentricities made very good copy for him in the previous term, and confidently looked forward to keeping up his circulation by exploiting our hero to a considerable extent as long as his paper should continue to run. He had had an altercation with Lucius one night in the Great Court upon one of those occasions when two factions meet and mutually disagree, and although, or probably because, he had been in the wrong, the editor of theNew Court Chroniclebore Lucius a grudge and was not above paying it off by ridiculing his father. He had also been one of the band whom Howden had frequently invited to partake of Mr. Binney's hospitality, with which he had made so free that Mr. Binney had decided that in his case at least he would give the cold shoulder himself and not entrust the work entirely to Howden. The journalistic gentleman had not taken this very kindly, and a flavour of malice had crept into his witticisms, where before there had only been good-humoured chaff. As Mr. Binney gave him very little occasion now for humorous writing, he allowed himself a freer hand, and invented stories against him instead of merely repeating them.
In order to provide a fitting framework for his humour, he published each week a correspondence between Mr. Binney in Cambridge and an imaginary mother in London, in which the former recounted his exploits, and the latter commented upon them. The idea was carried out with some humour and proved to be an acceptable feature of the paper. Unfortunately the editor had hit upon the name of "Martha" for Mr. Binney's supposed mother, and her letters were not so unlike Mrs. Higginbotham's in style as quite to relieve Mr. Binney of the suspicion that the story of his wooing of that good woman had reached Cambridge. The only two people who could possibly be suspected of divulging it were Lucius and Dizzy, and after the issue of the first instalment he went angrily round to his son's rooms to see if the offence could be brought home to him. Lucius was out, but seated comfortably in his armchair and smoking one of his cigars was Dizzy, who must have been the culprit, if Lucius were not, thought Mr. Binney.
"Ah, Mr. Binney, pleased to see you again," said Dizzy genially. "How are you feeling! Pretty toll-lollish?"
"No, Stubbs, I am not feeling particularly 'toll-lollish' just at present—I thank you all the same," said Mr. Binney severely. "I don't know whether this publication has come to your notice yet?" Mr. Binney put a copy of theNew Court Chronicleon the table, which Dizzy took up and glanced through with interest.
"It ain't bad," he said, "though it's got up by a set of rotters. Hullo, what's this—something about you, Mr. Binney, eh?"
"Yes, sir," said Mr. Binney angrily, "and a most scurrilous piece of work it is. My dear mother, sir, has lain in her grave these twenty years. It is a scandalous thing that contempt should be poured on her memory in this indecent fashion."
"It is," said Dizzy warmly. "A most preposterous thing! I quite agree with you. These fellows ought to be kicked, every one of them. And if they treated my old mater in that way I'd—I'd pay somebody to do it."
"But that is not all, sir," continued Mr. Binney. "I don't know whether you recollect meeting a lady of the name of Higginbotham at my table?"
"Mrs. Higginbotham!" exclaimed Dizzy. "Why, of course I do. And a most engaging old lady she was too. Don't know when I've met a nicer."
"I'm obliged for your good opinion sir," said Mr. Binney stiffly, "although I confess the idea of Mrs. Higginbotham as anoldlady is a new one to me. You are probably aware that her Christian name is Martha."
"First I've heard of it," said Dizzy, "but it's an excellent name. I had an old aunt called Martha, and I thought she was going to leave me a lot of money; but she didn't."
"You aresurethat you didn't know that Mrs. Higginbotham's name was Martha?" asked Mr. Binney suspiciously.
"'Pon my word I hadn't the slightest idea of it, Mr. Binney," said Dizzy. "I shouldn't have had a word to say if you'd told me it was Mary. But why do you ask?"
"Never mind," said Mr. Binney. "If you give me your word of honour as a gentleman that the fact is new to you, I accept your assurance, and there let the matter end. Here is Lucius. I should like to have a word alone with him, if you will permit me, Stubbs."
"Certainly," said the obliging Dizzy, rising instantly. "Come round and give me a look in presently, Lucy. I'll take another of those weeds of yours if I may."
When he had got outside, Mr. Binney turned to his son, with, "Now, sir, what is the meaning of this?"
Lucius glanced at the paper to which his father pointed.
"Oh, I've read the rubbish," he said wearily. "It makes me sick."
"Read it," said Mr. Binney. "Yes, I've no doubt you've read it, sir. What I should like to know is how much you wrote of it."
"I don't know what you mean," said Lucius. "I've had quite enough mud thrown at me since you've been up here, father. It isn't likely I should take to throwing it at myself."
"Don't prevaricate, sir," said Mr. Binney, his voice rising. "Did you write it, or did you not?"
"I'm not going to answer such a ridiculous question," said Lucius sulkily.
"Then I will answer it for you," said Mr. Binney. "Youdidwrite it. I know you have always nourished evil feelings against that excellent woman Martha Higginbotham, who I hope will one day do you the honour of becoming your mother. Not content with wreaking your unfilial spite against your own father who begat you, you must smirch the good name of a lady who has always loaded you with kindness. Out upon such conduct, I say."
Lucius held his head in his hands. "I suppose I shall understand it all soon," he said. "At present it sounds like one of Dr. Toller's sermons. Is there anything about you and Mrs. Higginbotham in the advertisements, father? I've read all the rest of the rag and I don't remember her name being mentioned."
"What is that name, sir?" asked Mr. Binney, pointing to the signature of his imaginary mother's letters.
"Martha Binney," read Lucius.
"Yes, Martha Binney," echoed his father. "And in two years and a half from now, Martha Higginbotham will change her name for Martha Binney, if we're both spared."
"It'll be a change for the better then, as far as she's concerned," said Lucius. "But whatareyou driving at, father? You can't really think I wrote that or had anything to do with it. I'm not such a scug as all that."
"And pray who else up here but you knows that Mrs. Higginbotham's name is Martha?" inquired Mr. Binney. "That's my point."
"Well, I don't think it's much of a point," said Lucius. "It's a fluke, their happening to hit upon that name. But, look here, can't you stop this sort of thing? It's really awful the way things are going on. I don't suppose there's anybody ever been up here who's had such a miserable time as I'm having. Other fellows respect their fathers. You simply don't give me a chance."
This touched Mr. Binney to the quick. He was very susceptible to criticism since Mirrilees had spoken to him so plainly. "I'm afraid I have given you some reason to say that, my boy," he said. "I—I was led away last term. I was under a wrong impression of what was the thing and what wasn't the thing. But that is all changed now. I have become a reading man and a boating man. I have turned the page on everything else."
"There was that dinner with Howden and the rest of them the very night after we came up," said Lucius.
"It was the last dinner that Howden will get out of me," said Mr. Binney. "I have done with him—at least I hope so."
"Well, then, there's some hope," said Lucius. "And, look here, father, if you've really given up that sort of thing there's a much better chance of your getting on with the fellows worth knowing. I shouldn't take any notice of that business, if I were you. It will die down in time. Would you care to come to lunch to-morrow? Mirrilees is coming. He's a good chap, you'll like to meet him."
"Oh, I know him well. He was in my rooms a few days ago," said Mr. Binney. "But I should like to meet him again very much. Yes, I'll come, Lucius," and Mr. Binney went away feeling that the reward of good behaviour had already come, in spite of theNew Court Chronicle.
But, alas! Mr. Binney's reputation proved harder matter to live down than he had anticipated. The men whom he met on the river fought rather shy of him, for to tell the truth, there was very little to recommend the poor little gentleman as a companion for youth if he was to be taken seriously as he now seemed to desire. Howden and Co. had only put up with him because of his dinners, and because, at the time he had consorted with them, he had apparently not objected to being made the butt of their not over-refined pleasantries. He now led a very dull and dejected life, but his work kept him employed, and the prospects of his boat in the Lent races gave him something to look forward to with keen expectation. The First Trinity first Lent boat had fallen to the fourth place on the river, but this year it was by far the best crew practising, with the possible exception of the head boat. It was expected to make its first three bumps with comparative ease, and to row an exciting race with Trinity Hall in the last night of the races for the head place on the river. Whenever Mr. Binney felt inclined to get down-hearted at the thought of his unpopularity he would buoy himself up with the anticipation of the glory that would accrue to him if his hopes were realised.
Unfortunately the editor of theNew Court Chroniclefound his journalistic ingenuity increasing with practice, and spent such pains over "The Binney Correspondence," that that feature of his paper soon became the talk of Cambridge. After the third number Mr. Binney wrote him a letter of expostulation, which he published with appropriate comment, but of which he took no further notice. That week's instalment of the Correspondence contained an account from "Your repentant son, Peter Binney," of how he had been asked to dine with the Vice-Chancellor, had disgraced himself by drinking too much wine, and had been escorted home by the two Esquire Bedells with their silver pokers, while he raised the town with a spirited rendering of "Rule Britannia." Mrs. Binney, the mother, expressed herself heart-broken at the news, and announced her intention of coming up to Cambridge to implore the Vice-Chancellor to overlook the offence, and give her erring boy another chance. She also alluded to her grand-daughter Lucy, who was supposed to be studying at Girton College. "She is a good girl," wrote the old lady, "and would be ashamed to carry on in the way you do, Peter, but the dear child tells me she wishes she had been sent to Newnham College. She likes the students there so much better."
Poor little Mr. Binney went round to his son's rooms almost in tears. He found Lucius still more angry than himself, for, although his admiration of the Newnham girl was well known among his immediate friends, and he did not take a mild degree of chaff on the subject at all ill, the vulgar publicity now given to it goaded him to the verge of desperation.
"Oh, it's you, father," he said. "I'm going round to that fellow Piper to tell him if this business isn't stopped I'll knock his teeth down his throat."
"Ah, Lucius," said Mr. Binney plaintively. "I wish I was big and strong like you. I'd have done that long ago. But you're a good boy to stick up for your poor father. I'm going to increase your allowance by £10 for asking me to lunch to meet Mirrilees, and if you get these disgraceful attacks stopped I'll add another £20. You'll get back to the old figure if you're careful, and even beyond it."