Whist is slow, but baccarat bites,Baccarat bites, and we want to be bit;Late comes dawn on these winter nights,And you need no knowledge to play at it.Hotch-potch Verses.
Whist is slow, but baccarat bites,Baccarat bites, and we want to be bit;Late comes dawn on these winter nights,And you need no knowledge to play at it.Hotch-potch Verses.
Whist is slow, but baccarat bites,Baccarat bites, and we want to be bit;Late comes dawn on these winter nights,And you need no knowledge to play at it.Hotch-potch Verses.
Inall his life for two years and a half at Cambridge, and he had associated with very many classes there, the Babe had never come across any man whom he would suspect of being capable of doing that which necessitated his going to see “the man” he knew on such an errand as this, and he concluded rightly that though such people no doubt occurred, they were not to be looked for, with any chance of finding them, at university towns. His errand was not a pleasant one, and it was far from being an easy one, and when he knocked at Feltham’s door a few minutes afterwards, he could not have hazarded the vaguest guess as to what manner of exit he would make.
The Babe was, unfortunately, strongly possessed by the gambling instinct, andwhen the night before a friend of his had come in after Hall, and proposed whist if they could get a four, the Babe said that if they were going to play cards, they might as well play something more amusing than whist, which seemed to him as a peculiarly unexhilarating mode of enjoying oneself, and which he regarded as a practical application of unmixed mathematics. If Broxton would raise two people to play at something more biting than whist, the Babe would raise two others.
The Babe raised his two without much delay, but Broxton returned with only one. However, he said he had met a chap called Feltham, who, he knew, played, and should he see whether he could come?
The Babe would have played cards with old Gooseberry himself, if he could not get anyone else, so Broxton went off to see whether Feltham would play, found him in and willing, and they played Van John for a while, until the Babe began to yawn and complained he had only lost three and six. Did they know Marmara,which was indifferently called “Only-a-penny,” chiefly because it dealt with sums usually much larger than that.
Some of them, and among these was Feltham, did know Marmara, and the others were willing to learn it. So the Babe, assuring them that no previous knowledge was required, proceeded to enlighten them. Everyone placed a small sum, say sixpence, or its equivalent in counters, in the pool, and the dealer thereupon dealt three cards face downwards all around, and three to himself. He then turned up the next card, and you had all your premises.
Thus—if, for instance, the card turned up happened to be a four of diamonds, each player in turn had to bet, before looking at his three cards which lay face downwards on the table, whether they contained a diamond higher than the four. His stake was only limited by the sum in the pool unless they chose to fix a smaller limit. Thus with the four turned up, it would probably appear to each player that there was a fair chance of hisholding a higher card of the same suit, and he would in all likelihood stake pretty well as high as he could. He would then turn up his cards, and if his hand held a diamond higher than the four, he would have the pleasure of taking the amount of his stake out of the pool, if not, the pain of paying into the pool the same sum.
The game, so said the Babe, was amusing, owing to the fact that it was pure hazard, and also because the pool mounted up in a way that would seem to the uninitiated simply incredible. An example of this occurred at the fifth deal. At the beginning of this deal the pool contained four shillings. The Babe dealt, and turned up the two of spades. The first player naturally enough went the pool, but his hand very curiously contained only diamonds, and he paid four shillings into the pool, thus raising it to eight. Even more naturally, since the first player had held no spades, the second player again staked the pool. His hand contained two hearts and a club, and the pool became sixteen shillings. It wouldhave been midsummer madness in the third player, who was Broxton, not to stake the pool, and as it was November and he was perfectly sane, he did so. His hand revealed three splendid hearts, and the pool rose to thirty-two shillings. The chances were thus enormously in favour of the fourth player clearing the pool, and he accordingly staked it. But as he held a diamond and two clubs, he paid the pool the equivalent of thirty-two shillings, in mean bone counters, belonging to the Babe. There was nothing left for the fifth player, who was Feltham, to do but to stake the pool, which he did. His hand, oddly enough, contained the seven, eight, and nine of clubs, and he remarked quite unreasonably, as he paid sixty-four shillings into the pool, that the cards had not been shuffled. Thus the Babe, who had dealt, had a pool of sixty-four shillings to win or lose. He staked the pool, but he held one diamond, one club, and the ace of spades, which counted below the two, and he wrote an I O U for sixty-four shillings, as he had not gotenough counters, and paid it into the pool, remarking that this was better than whist at three penny points. Then the pool in one deal had mounted from four shillings, to one hundred and twenty-eight shillings, and it was obvious that if a similar deal occurred again now, there would be a very considerable sum in the pool at the end of it.
The Babe in these matters was, like the Athenians, somewhat superstitious, and he said cheerfully that it was a mounting pool, and they would have some amusement. The pool showed by its subsequent conduct that he was right, and at the end of an hour it held about £50, about half of which had been contributed by Feltham, whose luck had been abominable. This, as they were playing at present, might be won by anybody, since there was no limit to the stakes, and the Babe, with the best possible motives, since he was the only one present who would not be somewhat embarrassed by the total loss of his contribution to the pool, proposed setting a limit, of, say,twenty-five shillings to the stake. Feltham objected strongly, and the alteration was vetoed.
Everyone, with the exception perhaps of the Babe, was a little excited and on edge, for when two or three are gathered together to gamble they often generate spontaneously between them—this is a sober fact—a little demon which hovers about and unsettles their nerves. Feltham especially hardly spoke, except to name his stake, and sometimes to swear when he lost it, and the Babe felt that they were all taking it too seriously and quite spoiling his pleasure. For himself, he liked a “little game” because it happened to amuse him, but the others were behaving as if they cared whether they won money or lost money, and this, to the Babe’s thinking, spoilt the whole thing. The point of gambling, according to him, was not whether you won money or lost money, but the moment when it was uncertain whether you were going to win (in the abstract) or lose (in the abstract). The view is whollyunreasonable, and so is the gambling instinct.
It was Broxton’s turn to deal. He dealt badly, holding the pack from which he dealt nearly a foot above the table, so that if any of them happened to be looking at the cards as they were dealt to him, the chances were that he would get a glimpse or a hint of what the under one was, and once before that evening the Babe had demanded a fresh deal, because as his cards were dealt him, he could not help seeing the corner of a picture card. This time, however, he was handing a cigarette to Feltham, who sat on his right. But as Feltham’s cards were dealt him the Babe saw him look up quickly, and he himself saw the face of one of them, so far, at least, that he would have been ready to swear it was a picture card in clubs. Feltham at the moment seemed to him to open his mouth to speak, but said nothing and only glanced hurriedly at the Babe, who did not look at him again during the game. The turn-up card was the nine of clubs.
The first two players naturally enough, as there were only four cards out of fifty-two which could beat the nine, staked a nominal stake merely, and turned up their cards. One of them held the king of clubs, and this would have won, leaving only three cards in the pack which could win. He took a shilling, the amount of his stake, out of the pool, and said he wished he had trusted to his instinct. It was Feltham’s turn. He staked £20, which was madness. His hand contained the queen of clubs and he won.
Very soon after, the Babe renewed his proposition that they should limit the stakes, and this time there was no opposition, and as it was already after one, they settled to stop as soon as the pool had been emptied. The pool, seeing them change their tactics, also changed its own, and instead of mounting continued to sink steadily. Every now and then it would go up again by a couple of limit stakes, but the constant tendency was to sink, and in three-quarters of anhour it was empty. Broxton gathered up the cards and counters, and Feltham and two of the others said “Good-night,” and left the room, but Anstruther and the Babe sat down and waited. The Babe helped himself to whisky, tore up his own I O U’s which he had paid for, and there was a long awkward silence.
Broxton got up, closed the door, and came and stood in front of the fire.
“That fellow cheated,” he said at last. “I saw him, twice. Did you notice, Babe?”
“I thought he saw the cards which were dealt him once. The turn-up was a nine of clubs and he staked £20. It struck me as unusual, particularly as the king was already out.”
“Then he cheated twice, as Jim said,” answered Anstruther. “I am convinced he saw his cards once before, both times when Jim was dealing.”
“Jim, you damned fool,” said the Babe, “why can’t you manage to deal properly?”
“We’re all damned fools, I think,” said Broxton. “What business have we got to ask a fellow to play whom we don’t know, and who probably can’t afford it.”
“Nor can I,” said Anstruther, “but I don’t cheat.”
“Are we quite sure he did cheat?” asked the Babe.
“Personally, I am,” said Broxton, “aren’t you, Anstruther?”
“Good Lord, yes.”
“Well, what’s to be done?” asked the Babe.
“The men who play with him ought to know,” said Anstruther.
The Babe got up, and threw his torn-up I O U’s into the fire.
“Rot,” he said. “We can’t possibly be certain. And I’m not going to ask him to play again in order to watch him. That seems to me perhaps one degree lower than cheating oneself. It’s our own fault, as Jim said, for asking him.”
“My dear Babe, we can’t leave it as it is.”
“No, I don’t want to do that. I only meant that we couldn’t tell other peoplewhat we suspected, unless we were certain, and not even then. And we can’t be certain unless we play with him again, and that I don’t mean to do.”
“Whatdoyou propose to do then?”
“I propose that one of us tells him what we thought we saw.”
“And if he denies it?”
“The matter ends there. At the same time to make it clear to him that three people separately thought they saw him.”
“Thought they saw him!” said Broxton.
“Certainly. Thought they saw him. I daresay he isn’t a bad chap. I daresay he was playing for far more than he could afford. It is even possible he will confess he did cheat, and it is quite possible that we are all wrong and that he didn’t. Personally I certainly thought he did, but I wouldn’t take my oath on it.”
“Who’s to ask him?”
There was a short silence. Then—
“I will, if you like,” said the Babe.
“Thanks, Babe,” said Jim, “you’d do it better than either of us.”
The Babe lit a cigarette, and finished his whisky.
“I’m off to bed,” he said, “I would sooner have played ‘old maid’ than that this should have happened. Of course none of us say a word about it? Good-night, you chaps.”
Anstruther and Broxton sat on for a bit after the Babe had gone.
“It’s a devilish business,” said the latter at length. “But I’m sure the Babe will manage it as well as it can be managed.”
“The Babe isn’t half a bad chap,” said Anstruther.
“No, I don’t think he is. In fact, I don’t think I ever knew a better. Are you off? Good-night.”
The Babe wrote a note to Feltham next morning asking him if he would be in at seven that evening, and receiving an affirmative answer, it thus came about that he tapped at his door at that hour.
Qui s’accuse, s’excuse.From the French.
Qui s’accuse, s’excuse.From the French.
Qui s’accuse, s’excuse.From the French.
TheBabe’s supposition that Feltham “perhaps wasn’t a bad chap” was perfectly correct. At the same time it is perfectly true that he had cheated at cards, which, quite rightly, is one of the few social crimes for which a man is ostracised.
He had cheated, and he knew it, and he was thoroughly, honestly, and unreservedly ashamed of it. He did not try to console himself by the fact that he had never done it before, and by the knowledge that he would never do it again, because he knew that he would fail to find the slightest consolation in that, though it was perfectly true. The thing was done and it was past mending. Twice he had seen the cards, or at any rate had a suspicion of one of them, when they were dealt him, without saying anything. On one of these occasions what he hadseen did not help him, for he saw only a card of another suit, but once, when he had seen the queen of clubs, he traded on it, and swindled the company of £20.
How he had come to do it, he did not know. He thought the devil must have taken possession of him, and he was probably quite right. The temptation was the stronger because he had lost, as the Babe had suggested, much more than he could afford, and the thing was done almost before he meant to do it. He more than half suspected that the Babe had noticed it, but to do him justice this suspicion weighed very light in his mind, compared with the fact that he had cheated.
Next morning the Babe’s note came, and his suspicion that the Babe had noticed it took definite form. It was no manner of use refusing to see him, but what he could not make up his mind about, was what answer he should give him. To confess it would not help him to make reparation, and to return, as he honestly wanted to do, the £20 he hadwon and besides it did not seem, in anticipation, particularly an easy thing to do. And when the Babe knocked at his door, he was still as much in the dark as ever, as to what, if the Babe’s errand was what he suspected, he should say to him.
The Babe accepted a cigarette, and sat down rather elaborately. He had determined not to remark upon the weather or the prospects of an early dissolution, or make any foolish attempts to lead up to the subject, and after a moment he spoke.
“I am awfully sorry,” he said, “to have to say what I am going to. In two words it is this: Three men with whom you were playing last night at Marmara, thought that once or twice you saw your cards, or one of your cards, before you staked. I am one of them myself, and we decided that the only fair and proper thing to do was to ask you whether this was so. I am very sorry to have to say this.”
The Babe behaved like the gentleman he was, and instead of looking at Feltham to see whether his face indicated anything, kept his eyes steadily away from him.
Feltham stood a moment without answering and if the Babe had chosen to look at him he would have seen that he paused because he could not command his voice. But the Babe did not choose to do so. Feltham would have given anything that moment to have been able to say “It is true,” but it seemed to him a physical impossibility. On the other hand he felt it equally impossible to take the high line, to threaten to kick the Babe out of the room unless he went in double quick time etc., etc.,—to do any of those things which thorough-paced swindlers are supposed to do when their honour is quite properly called in question.
“It is a damned lie,” he said at length, quite quietly and without conviction.
The Babe got up at once, and stepped across to where Feltham was standing.
“Then I wish to apologise most sincerely both for myself and the other two fellows,” he said, “and if you would like to knock me down, you may. I shall of course tell them at once we were mistaken, and I believe what you say entirely. Will you shake hands?”
Feltham let the Babe take his hand, and as the latter turned to leave the room, sat limply down in the chair from which the Babe had got up.
But the Babe had hardly got half-way across the room, when Feltham spoke again.
The Babe’s utter frankness had suddenly made it impossible for Feltham to let him go without telling him, but to tell him now was not made easier by having lied about it.
“Please wait a minute,” he said.
The Babe’s cigarette had gone out, and he lit it again over the lamp. Then he sat down in the window seat and waited. Outside, the grass was sparkling with frost and the clock chimed a quarter past seven. Simultaneously Feltham spoke:
“I have lied to you as well,” he said. “What you saw was perfectly true. I cheated twice, at least I saw one of the cards dealt me twice, and said nothing about it. Once the card happened to be immaterial, and once I staked £20 knowing I should win. I have told you all.”
The Babe was a person of infinite variety, and if those who knew him best had seen him now, they would hardly have believed it was he. He sat down on the arm of the chair where Feltham was sitting, and to himself cursed the whole pack of cards from ace to king, and above all Jim Broxton. Then aloud—
“My poor dear fellow,” he said. “I’m devilish sorry for you.”
Feltham, who had been expecting to hear a few biting remarks or else merely the door slam behind the Babe, looked up. The Babe was looking at him, quite kindly, quite naturally, as if he was condoling with him on some misfortune.
Feltham began, “Damn it all—” then stopped, and without a moment’s warning burst out crying.
The Babe got up, went to the door and sported it. Then he sat down again on the arm of the chair.
“Poor chap,” he said. “It’s beastly hard lines, and I fully expect it’s as much our fault as yours. You needn’t trouble to tell me you never did it before: ofcourse you didn’t. I fully believe that. People who would confess that sort of thing don’t do that sort of thing twice. It was like this perhaps—we were playing for far more than you could afford, and you didn’t mean to do it, until somehow it was done. Money is a devilish contrivance.”
“Yes, it was just like that,” said Feltham. “As I told you, the first time I saw a card, it didn’t make any difference, though of course I ought to have said so. But the second time it did, and before I knew what I had done, I had cheated. Why don’t you call me a swindler and tell me I’m not fit to associate with gentlemen? It’s God’s truth.”
The corners of the Babe’s mouth twitched.
“It’s not my concern then. What would be the good of saying that?”
He paused a moment, hoping that Feltham would make a certain suggestion, and he was not disappointed.
“Look here, there’s the twenty pounds: what can I do with it? Can you help me?”
The Babe thought a moment.
“Yes, give it me. I’ll see that the other fellows get it somehow, if you’ll leave it to my discretion. And, you know, it sounds absurd for a fool like me to give advice, but if I were you I shouldn’t play cards for money again. It’s no use running one’s head into danger. If it’s not rude, what is your allowance?”
“Two hundred and fifty.”
“You bally ass! Yet I don’t know. It’s our fault. You couldn’t tell that the pool would behave in that manner, and I know, personally, I should find it out of the question to say one was playing for more than one could afford. Some people call it moral cowardice, it seems to me a perfectly natural reticence.”
“Of course I won’t play again,” said Feltham. “Why have you been so awfully good to me?”
“I haven’t. What else was I to do? Oh, yes, and I think I respected you for telling the truth. Most fellows would have lied like George Washington.”
Feltham smiled feebly.
“All that remains is this,” said the Babe. “Of course I must tell those other two fellows about it, the two I mean with whom I talked, but you can trust them absolutely. It is impossible that anyone else should ever know about it.”
“You don’t think—oughtn’t I to tell them all?” stammered Feltham.
The Babe frowned.
“Of course you ought not. Why the deuce should you? About the money—it must be divided up between us all. Six into twenty, about three pound ten each. Rather an awkward sum.”
“Why six?”
“Because there were six of us.”
“I can’t take any.”
“Your feelings have nothing to do with it,” remarked the Babe. “The money in the pool of course belongs to everyone. You return the others’ shares of that £20 and keep your own. Well, I’ll manage it somehow. I will make absurd bets, seventy to one in shillings. That will surprise nobody: I often do it. Good Lord, it’s a quarter to eight. Ifyou’re going into Hall, you’ll be very late, and so shall I for my dinner. I must go. Oh, by the way, did you lose much altogether?”
“About twenty-five pounds.”
“Is it, is it”—began the Babe. “I mean, are you in a hole? If so, I wish you’d let me lend you some money. Why shouldn’t you? No? Are you sure you don’t want some? It’s no use receiving unpleasant letters from one’s father, when there’s no need. Well as you like. Good-night. Come round and look me up some time: I’m on the next stair-case.”
Feltham followed him to the door.
“I can’t tell you what I feel,” he said huskily, “but I am not ungrateful. Half an hour ago you asked me to shake hands with you. Will you shake hands with me?”
“Why, surely,” said the Babe.
He sailed his little paper boats,And when the folk thought scorn of that,He spudded up the waiting wormAnd yearned towards the master’s hat.Hotch-potch Verses.
He sailed his little paper boats,And when the folk thought scorn of that,He spudded up the waiting wormAnd yearned towards the master’s hat.Hotch-potch Verses.
He sailed his little paper boats,And when the folk thought scorn of that,He spudded up the waiting wormAnd yearned towards the master’s hat.Hotch-potch Verses.
TheBabe went off to dress for dinner much relieved in mind. Now that it was over he confessed to himself that he had been quite certain that Feltham had cheated, but that he should own up to it, was fine, and the Babe who considered himself totally devoid of anything which could possibly be construed into moral courage, respected him for it. He also registered a vow that never to the crack of doom—which cracked three days afterwards—would he play unlimited Marmara again, and told himself that he was not cut out for the sort of thing that he had just been through, and that he was glad it was over. He went round at once to tell Broxton and Anstruther what had happened, and after that shook the whole
CLARE COLLEGE AND BRIDGE.
CLARE COLLEGE AND BRIDGE.
CLARE COLLEGE AND BRIDGE.
affair from his mind, as a puppy shakes itself after being in the water.
He was, naturally, late for dinner, and Mr. Stewart who knew the value of soup and also the habits of the Babe, had not waited. When he did appear, he was, of course, perfectly unabashed, and took the bottom of the table with unassuming grace.
“The psychology of punctuality,” he remarked, “is a most interesting study. Some day I mean to study it, and I shall write a little monograph on the subject uniform with those which Sherlock Holmes wrote on tobacco ash and the tails of cart horses. I think there must be a punctuality bacillus, something like a death-watch, always ticking, and if there isn’t one, I shall invent it. It doesn’t take to me. I am too healthy.”
“My dear Babe,” said the Stewart, “you have disappointed me. I always hoped that you were the one person I have been looking for so long, who has never been punctual; But you have been punctual to my knowledge twice, once on an occasion in the Long——”
“When was that?” interrupted the Babe. “I don’t believe it.”
“On a memorable occasion. At lunch in your own rooms.”
The Babe caught Reggie’s eye, and looked away.
“Oh, yes.”
“And as Clytemnestra, you always killed Agamemnon with ruthless punctuality. I was always hoping to hear him scream during the next Chorus but one.”
“I did the screaming for him,” said the Babe complacently, “except on the first night. He could only scream like an empty syphon.”
“There is nothing more tragic or blood-curdling than the scream of an empty syphon,” said Stewart. “It shrieks to you, like a banshee of all the whisky and soda you have drunk. The only thing that could shriek worse would be an empty whisky bottle, and that can’t shriek at all. If he really could scream like that, you robbed him of a chance of greatness by screaming for him, although you screamed very well.”
“There are syphons and syphons,” said the Babe, “he screamed like an empty but undervitalised one, which had never really been full.”
“Babe, if you talk about undervitalised syphons during fish,” said Reggie, “you will drive us all mad, before the end of dinner.”
“Going mad,” said Mr. Stewart, “is an effort of will. I could go mad in a minute if I wished, and the Babe certainly determined to go mad when he was yet a boy. No offence meant, Babe. I can confidently state that during the three years I have known him, he has never for a moment seemed to be really sane.”
“I was perfectly sane when I settled to go in for the tripos,” said the Babe.
“You never settled to do anything of the kind. You think you did and it is one of your wildest delusions.”
“Secondly I was sane,” said the Babe, “when I—”
“No you weren’t,” put in Reggie.
“Reggie, don’t be like Longridge. But you are quite right. I wasn’t sanethen, though I thought I was for the moment.”
“Longridge is better, though he still has a large piece of sticking plaster over his nose,” said Mr. Stewart. “He came to see me to-day. He insisted on arguing with me in spite of my expostulations. When he talks, I always want to cover him up, as one covers up a chirping canary.”
“I wish you would do it some day. With a piece of green baize you know, and a hole in it where the handle of the cage comes out.”
“He would continue to make confused noises within,” said Reggie.
“He always makes confused noises,” said Mr. Stewart wearily. “Confused, ingenious, noises. Babe, tell me if that champagne is drinkable.”
The Babe drank off his glass.
“Obviously,” he said. “But it’s no use asking me: all champagne seems to me delicious. I drink Miller’s cheapest for choice.”
A small withered don who was sittingnext the Babe, and had not previously spoken, here looked up.
“A nice, dry, light wine,” he said.
The Babe started violently, and if he had not just emptied his glass of champagne, he would certainly have spilled it. He explained afterwards that he really had forgotten that anyone was occupying the chair on the right.
This curious old gentlemen, one of the few surviving specimens of this particular type of elderly don had the classical name of Moffat, and Mr. Stewart at once introduced him to the Babe, a ceremony which had escaped his memory before, and Mr. Moffat who had been shivering on the brink of conversation all dinner, decided to plunge in.
“I saw your performance of theAgamemnonlast week,” he said.
“I hope you enjoyed it,” said the Babe politely.
“The stage is not what it was in me young days,” said Mr. Moffat.
The Babe looked interested and waited for further criticisms, but the old gentleman returned to his dinner without offering any. His face looked as if it was made of cast iron, painted with Aspinall’s buff-coloured enamel.
There was a short silence, and Mr. Stewart, looking up, saw that the Babe was fighting like a man against an inward convulsion of laughter. His face changed from pink to red, and a vein stood out on his usually unwrinkled brow. Stewart knew that when the Babe had a fit of the giggles it was, so to speak, no laughing matter, and he made things worse by asking Mr. Moffat how his sister was. At this point the Babe left the room with a rapid, uneven step, and he was heard to plunge violently into the dishes outside. Stewart had been particularly unfortunate in his choice of a subject, because what had started the Babe off, was the very thought that Mr. Moffat’s sister was no doubt the original Miss Moffat, and he had been rashly indulging in wild conjectures as to what would happen if he said suddenly:
“I believe your sister doesn’t like spiders.”
Mr. Moffat had resumed the subject of the Greek play when the Babe returned—he seemed not to have noticed his ill-mannered exit—and was finding fault with the chorus, particularly with the leader, who, in the person of Reggie, was sitting opposite him. Of this, however, he had not the slightest idea.
“I call them a dowdy crew,” he said. “They were dressed like old baize doors. Not me idea of a chorus at all. But it was all very creditable, very creditable indeed, and we have to thank me young friend here for a very fine performance of Clytemnestra. Why, me sister”—here the Babe gasped for a moment like a drowning man, but recovered himself bravely—“me sister came down next morning at breakfast, and said she’d hardly been able to sleep a wink, hardly a wink, for thinking of Clytemnestra.”
The Babe made a violent effort and checked himself.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, with his most engaging manner. “I hope you will apologise to her for me.”
“Not at all, not at all,” said Mr. Moffat. “It’s me own opinion she slept far more than she knew. But she was always nervous,”—the Babe bit his tongue—“easily upset. A very good pheasant, Mr. Stewart, a very good pheasant. Thank ye, yes, a glass of champagne. A glass of wine with you, heh, heh, Clytemnestra.”
Mr. Moffat, as the Babe allowed afterwards, was a very pleasant old gentleman. When dinner was over and he had settled himself into an arm-chair by the fire, smoking one of Stewart’s strongest cigars, he told several stories about the old generation of dons whom he had known.
“There was an old fellow of King’s” he was saying, “in me undergraduate days, who must have been eighty, and never a night had he spent out of Cambridge since he came up as an undergraduate. An infidel old lot he was. Many a time I’ve seen him in the evening, when the worms were come out on the grass plot, hobbling about and trying to kill them with the point of his stick. He used to talk to them and makefaces at them and say, ‘Ah, damn you. You haven’t got me yet.’ A queer lot they all were, not the worms I mean, heh, heh, but the old dons. There were two others who had been great mathematicians in their time, and they used to spend their evenings together doing, what do you think? Making paper boats, sir, which they went and sailed on the Cam next day. They would start them from the King’s bridge, and sail them down to the willow at the other end of the lawn. And such quarrels as they had over which had won! One of them one morning, his name was Jenkinson, if I’m not mistaken, an old Yorkshireman, got so heated over it,—for he said the other boat had fouled his, as if they were racing for a cup,—that he went for the other man, by gad, sir, he went for him, and tried to push him into the river. But the other—his name was Keggs—was too quick for him, and stepped out of the way, and head over ears into the river went Jenkinson himself, being unable to stop himself, sir, by reason of the impetushe had got up. The river isn’t over deep, there, as you know, perhaps two feet deep, and he stood up as soon as he could find his feet and bawled out: ‘Ah misdoot ye’ve drooned me, Keggs.’”
The Babe was delighted.
“Do tell me some more,” he said, when Mr. Moffat had finished laughing himself, which he did in a silent, internal manner.
“Ah, some of those old fellows did things not quite fit for boys to hear about.Maxima reverentia, eh, Mr. Stewart? But there was an Irishman, a fellow of Clare too, in my time. I might tell you about him; he used to live in the rooms above the gate. He had a quarrel with the Master, and as often as the Master went in and out of the gate, egad, the old chap would try to spit on his head. If the Master was out to dinner, he would wait up, sitting in his window till he came back, be it eleven o’clock or twelve, or later than that. At last the Master had to put up an umbrella when he walked under the gate of his own college and then the old fellow would shout out,‘Come, out o’ that, ye ould divil, and let me get at ye.’ A disreputable old crew they were!—Ah well, it’s half-past ten. Eleven’s me bedtime, and I must be going. Good-night to you Mr. Stewart, and many thanks for your kind hospitality. And good-night to you, sir,” he said turning to the Babe; “I heard them shout ‘Clytemnestra, good old Clytemnestra,’ after you all down the street. And you deserved an ovation, sir, you richly deserved an ovation, and I’m glad you got it.”
After Mr. Moffat’s departure, they settled down again, and Stewart remarked:
“You’ve made a conquest, Babe. But you behaved abominably during dinner.”
“I couldn’t help it. I could think of nothing but Miss Moffat. On the top of that you enquired about his sister. I ask you, what was I to do?”
“You needn’t have danced in the dishes outside,” said Reggie.
“I only danced in the soup, and we’d finished with the soup. And there’s a soupçon of it on my—”
“Shut up.”
“Pumps,” continued the Babe. “May I have some whisky? Thanks. For what I’m going to receive. What a funny undergraduate Moffat must have been.”
“I believe he was born like that,” said Stewart. “I know when I came up, ten years ago, he was just the same. That’s the best of getting old early: you don’t change any more.”
“That’s one for you, Babe,” remarked Reggie.
“The Babe is the imperishable child,” said Stewart.
“You called me a man of the world the other day,” said the Babe in self-defence.
“I think not.”
“You did really. However, we’ll pass it over.”
“By the way, Babe, you are corrupting the youth of the college. Two men went into their lodgings last night at ten minutes past two. It transpired that they had been playing cards with you.”
“Well, it is true that I was playing cards last night. But they could have gone away earlier if they had wished.”
“Your fascinations were probably too strong,” said Reggie.
“Now you’re being personal, and possibly sarcastic,” said the Babe with dignity. “I must go to bed. I was late last night.”
“The night is yet young, Babe,” said Stewart.
“So am I. But if I don’t go, I shall continue to drink whisky and soda, and smoke.”
“You are welcome. How is the tripos work progressing?”
“Oh, it’s getting on,” said the Babe, hopefully. “A little at a time, you know, but often. I’m not one of those people who can work five hours at a stretch.”
“I suppose not. Is it to be a second or a third?”
“I believe there are three classes in the tripos,” said the Babe stiffly. “You have only mentioned two. Well, yes, perhaps one of your small cigaretteswould not hurt me. But I must go at eleven, because I am sapping. Oh, isn’t that theShop Girlon the table? There are some awfully good songs in it. May I go and get my banjo?”
“Do. I got it expressly for you to sing.”
The Babe slept his usual eight and a half hours that night. He did not awake till 10.30.
Where three times slipping from the outside edgeI bumped the ice into three several stars.Tennyson.
Where three times slipping from the outside edgeI bumped the ice into three several stars.Tennyson.
Where three times slipping from the outside edgeI bumped the ice into three several stars.Tennyson.
Thefrost continued, black and clean, and the Babe, like the Polar Bear, thought it would be nice to practise skating. He bought himself a pair of Dowler blades with Mount Charles fittings, which he was assured by an enthusiastic friend were the only skates with which it was possible to preserve one’s self-respect, and fondly hoped that self-respect was a synonym for balance. Hitherto his accomplishments in this particular line had been limited to what is popularly known as a little outside edge, but Reggie who was a first-rate skater undertook his education. The Babe, however, refused to leave his work altogether alone, for he was beginning to be seriously touched with the sapping epidemic, and he and Reggie used to set off about one, takinglunch with them, to the skating club, of which Reggie was a member, and of which the Babe was not.
Sykes only went with them once, and he would not have gone then, had it been possible to foresee that he would put skates in the same category as croquet balls and bathers, but it was soon clear that he did. He made a bee-line for the unemployed leg of Professor Robertson, who was conscious of having done the counter rocking turn for the first time in his life without the semblance of a scrape, and brought him down like a rabbit shot through the head. The Babe hurried across to the assistance of the disabled scientist, and dragged Sykes away. But Sykes had his principles, and as he dared not use threats to the Babe, he implored, almost commanded him not to put on his skates.
“Sykes, dear, you are a little unreasonable,” said the Babe pacifically. “Reggie, what are we to do with Sykes? There was nearly one scientist the less in this naughty world.”
The cab in which they had driven up, was still waiting, and at Reggie’s suggestion Sykes was put inside and driven back to the stable where he slept.
The Babe wobbled industriously about, trying to skate large, and not deceive himself into thinking that a three was finished as soon as he had made the turn, and Reggie practised by himself round an orange, waiting for a four to be made up, until the Babe ate it.
About the third day the Babe was hopelessly down with the skating fever, which went badly with the sapping epidemic. He took his skates round to King’s in the evening, after skating all day, for the sapping epidemic was rapidly fleeing from him like a beautiful dream at the awakening, and skated on the fountain; he slid about his carpet trying to get his pose right; he put his looking-glass on the floor and corrected the position of the unemployed foot; he traced grapevines with a fork on the tablecloth and loops with wineglasses; he dreamed that he covered a pond with alternatebrackets and rocking turns, and woke up to find it was not true; he even watered the pavement outside his rooms in order to get a little piece of ice big enough for a turn, with the only result that the bed-maker, coming in next morning, fell heavily over it, barking her elbow, and breaking the greater part of the china she was carrying, which, as the Babe said, was happily not his. Unfortunately, however, the porter discovered it, as he brought round letters, and ruthlessly spread salt thickly over it, while the baffled Babe looked angrily on from the window.
Snow fell after this, and the Babe proposed tobogganing down Market Hill. He talked it over with Reggie, and they quarrelled as to which was the top of the hill and which the bottom, “for it would never do,” said the scrupulous Babe, “to be seen tobogganing up hill,” and on referring the matter to a third person, it was decided that the hill was perfectly level, so that they were both right and both wrong, whichever way you chose to look at the question.
The King’s Comby (which is an abbreviation for Combination and means Junior Combination Room, but takes place in quite a different apartment) went off satisfactorily. The Babe, secure in the knowledge that there was no rhyme to Babe in the English language (his other name, which I have omitted to mention before, was Arbuthnot, and it would require an excess of ingenuity to find a rhyme even to that), made scurrilous allusions, most of them quite unfounded, about his friends, in vile decasyllables, and enjoyed himself very much. Later in the evening he with two of the performers in the original play acted a short skit on theAgamemnon, in which he parodied himself with the most ruthlessly realistic accuracy, and killed Agamemnon in a sponging tin with the aid of a landing net and a pair of scissors. Last of all he disgraced himself by stamping out in the snow, in enormous letters, the initials of a popular and widely known don of the college, with such thoroughness, that the grass has never grown since, and the initials are to be seen to this day,to witness if I lie. The proceedings terminated about three in the morning, and the Babe was left waiting for some minutes outside the porter’s lodge at Trinity, while that indignant official got out of bed to open the gate to him.
The Babe ought to have caught a bad cold, but with an indefensible miscarriage of justice, it was the porter who caught cold, and not he, and the Babe observed cynically, when he heard of it, that the memory of the dog in the nursery rhyme, that bit a man from Islington in the leg, and then died itself, had at last been avenged.
Christmas, the Babe announced, fell early that year, and consequently he with several others stayed up till Christmas Eve, when they were allowed to stay no longer. He had gone up to town for two days to play in the University Rugby match, which he had been largely instrumental in winning, for the ground was like a buttered ballroom floor, a state of things which the Babe for some occult reason delighted in, and for an hour’s space he proceeded to slip and slide and gloom and glance in a way that seemed to paralyse his opponents, and resulted in Cambridge winning by two tries and a dropped goal. The dropped goal was the Babe’s doing: theoretically it had been impossible, for he appeared to drop it out of the middle of a scrimmage, but it counted just the same, and he had also secured one of the tries. TheSportsmanfor December 15th gives a full account of the match; also the Babe’s portrait, in which he looks like a cross between a forger and a parricide.
On returning to Cambridge, in order to be up to date, he and some friends went out carol-singing one night, visiting the heads of colleges, and the houses of the married fellows. The Babe acted as showman and spoke broad Somersetshire, which interested a certain philologist, who had no suspicion that they were not town people, very much. The Babe declared that his father and grandfather had lived in Barnwell all their lives, and that he himself had never even attempted to set footout of Cambridgeshire except once on the August Bank Holiday, when he had intended to go to Hunstanton but had missed the train. At this point, however, the philologist winked and said: “Mr. Arbuthnot, I believe.” They collected in all seventeen shillings and eightpence, which they settled should be given to a local charity, but the Babe, as he counted the amount over with trembling, avaricious fingers, looked up with a brilliant smile as he announced the total and exclaimed: “Not a penny of that shall the poor ever see.” They also got what Rudyard Kipling calls “lashings of beer” at several houses, and Bill Sykes who had been coached to carry a small tin into which offerings of money were put by the open-handed householder, was without a shadow of reason filled with so uncontrollable a fit of rage at the sight of the cook at one of the houses in Selwyn Gardens, who patted him on the head, and called him a pretty dear, that he dropped the tin mug, and nipped her shrewdly in the parts about the ankle.
Reggie parted from the Babe at the station, the latter going to London, and Reggie to Lincolnshire. The Babe travelled first because he said Sykes refused to go second or third, but that intelligent animal, poking his nose out from under the seat just as the guard was taking the tickets, was ignominiously hauled out, and compelled to go in the van, which cannot be considered as a class at all.