The World's Greatest Books - Volume 2 Part 7

Bouncer, who whiled away the time by telling him terrible stories about the matriculation ordeal, Mr. Verdant Green and Fosbrooke ran upstairs, and spread a newspaper over a heap of pipes and pewter pots and bottles of ale, and prepared a table with pen, ink, and scribble-paper. Soon afterwards, Mr. Bouncer led in the unsuspecting victim.

"Take a seat, sir," said Mr. Fosbrooke, gravely. And Mr. Pucker put his hat on the ground, and sat down at the table in a state of blus.h.i.+ng nervousness. "Have you been at a public school?"

"Yes, sir," stammered the victim; "a very public one, sir. It was a boarding school, sir. I was a day boy, sir, and in the first cla.s.s."

"First cla.s.s of an uncommon slow train!" muttered Mr. Bouncer.

"Now, sir," continued Mr. Fosbrooke, "let us see what your Latin writing is like. Have the goodness to turn what I have written into Latin; and be very careful," added Mr. Fosbrooke sternly, "be very careful that it is good Latin!" And he handed Mr. Pucker a sheet of paper, on which he had scribbled the following:

"To be turned into Latin after the Manner of the Animals of Tacitus: She went into the garden to cut a cabbage to make an apple-pie. Just then a great she-bear, coming down the street, poked its nose into the shop window. 'What! No soap? Bos.h.!.+' So he died, and she (very imprudently) married the barber. And there were present at the wedding the Joblillies, and the Piccannies, and the Gobelites, and the great Panjandrum himself, with the little b.u.t.ton on top. So they all set to playing catch-who-catch-can, till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of their boots."

It was well for the purposes of the hoaxers that Mr. Pucker's trepidation prevented him from making a calm perusal of the paper; he was nervously doing his best to turn the nonsensical English word by word into equally nonsensical Latin, when his limited powers of Latin writing were brought to a full stop by the untranslatable word "bosh."

As he could make nothing of this, he gazed appealingly at the benignant features of Mr. Verdant Green. The appealing gaze was answered by our hero ordering Mr. Pucker to hand in his paper, and reply to the questions on history and Euclid. Mr. Pucker took the two papers of questions, and read as follows:

HISTORY.

"1. Show the strong presumption there is, that Nox was the G.o.d of battles.

"2. In what way were the shades on the banks of the Styx supplied with spirits?

"3. Give a brief account of the Roman emperors who visited the United States, and state what they did there.

EUCLID.

"1. Show the fallacy of defining an angle, as a worm at one end and a fool at the other.

"2. If a freshman _A_ have any mouth _x_ and a bottle of wine _y_, show how many applications of _x_ to _y_ will place _y_+_y_ before _A_.

"3. Find the value of a 'bob,' a 'tanner,' a 'joey,' a 'tizzy,' a 'poney,' and a 'monkey.'

"4. If seven horses eat twenty-five acres of gra.s.s in three days, what will be their condition on the fourth day? Prove this by practice."

Mr. Pucker did not know what to make of such extraordinary and unexpected questions. He blushed, tried to write, fingered his curls, and then gave himself over to despair; whereupon Mr. Bouncer was seized with an immoderate fit of laughter, which brought the farce almost to an end.

"I'm afraid, young gentleman," said Mr. Bouncer, "that your learning is not yet up to the Brazenface standard. But we will give you one more chance to retrieve yourself. We will try a little _viva voce_, Mr.

Pucker. If a coach-wheel 6 inches in diameter and 5 inches in circ.u.mference makes 240 revolutions in a second, how many men will it take to do the same piece of work in ten days?"

Mr. Pucker grew redder and hotter than before, and gasped like a fish out of water.

"I see you will not do for us yet awhile," said his tormentor, "and we are therefore under the painful necessity of rejecting you. I should advise you to read hard for another twelve months, and try to master those subjects in which you have now failed."

Disregarding poor Mr. Pucker's entreaties to matriculate him this once for the sake of his mother, when he would read very hard--indeed he would--Mr. Fosbrooke turned to Mr. Bouncer and gave him some private instructions, and Mr. Verdant Green immediately disappeared in search of his scout, Filcher. Five minutes afterwards, as the dejected Mr. Pucker was crawling out of the quad, Filcher came and led him back to the rooms of Mr. Slowcoach, the real examining tutor.

"But I have been examined," Mr. Pucker kept on saying dejectedly. "I have been examined, and they rejected me."

"I think it was an 'oax, sir," said Filcher.

"A what!" stammered Mr. Pucker.

"A 'oax--a sell," said the scout. "Those two gents has been 'aving a little game with you, sir. They often does it with fresh parties like you, sir, that seem fresh and hinnocent like."

Mr. Pucker was immensely relieved at this news, and at once went to Mr.

Slowcoach, who, after an examination of twenty minutes, pa.s.sed him. But Filcher was alarmed at the joyful way in which he rushed out of the tutor's room.

"You didn't tell 'im about the 'oax, sir, did yer?" asked the scout anxiously.

"Not a word," said the radiant Mr. Pucker.

"Then you're a trump, sir!" said Filcher. "And Mr. Verdant Green's compliments to yer, sir, and will you come up to his rooms and take a gla.s.s of wine with him, sir?"

It need hardly be said that the blus.h.i.+ng Mr. Pucker pa.s.sed a very pleasant evening with his new friends, and that Mr. Verdant Green was very proud of having got so far out of the freshman's stage of existence as to take part in one of the most successful hoaxes in the history of Oxford.

_III.--Town and Gown_

Mr. Verdant Green, Mr. Charles Larkyns, and a throng of their acquaintances were sitting in Mr. Bouncer's rooms, on the evening of November 5, when a knock at the oak was heard; and as Mr. Bouncer roared out, "Come in!" the knocker entered. Opening the door, and striking into an att.i.tude, he exclaimed in a theatrical tone and manner:

"Scene, Mr. Bouncer's rooms in Brazenface; in the centre a table, at which a party are drinking log-juice, and smoking cabbage leaves. Door, left, third entrance. Enter the Putney Pet. Slow music; lights half down."

Even Mr. Verdant Green did not require to be told the profession of the Putney Pet. His thick-set frame, his hard-featured, battered, hang-dog face proclaimed him a prize-fighter.

"Now for a toast, gentlemen," said Mr. Bouncer. "May the Gown give the Town a jolly good hiding!"

This was received with great applause, and the Putney Pet was dressed out in a gown and mortar-board, and the whole party then sallied out to battle. From time immemorial it has been the custom at Oxford for the town-people and the scholars to engage, at least once a year, in a wild scrimmage, and the pitched battle was now due. No doubt it was not quite fair for the men of Brazenface to bring the Putney Pet up from London for the occasion; but for some years Gown had been defeated by Town, and they were resolved to have their revenge.

When Mr. Bouncer's party turned the corner of Saint Mary's, they found that the Town, as usual, had taken the initiative, and in a dense body had swept the High Street and driven all the gownsmen before them. A small knot of 'varsity men were manfully struggling against superior numbers by St. Mary's Hall.

"Gown to the rescue!" shouted Mr. Bouncer, as he dashed across the street. "Come on, Pet! Here we are in the thick of it, just in the nick of time!"

Poor Mr. Verdant Green had never learnt to box. He was a lover of peace and quietness, and would have preferred to have watched the battle from a college window; but he had been drawn in the fray against his will by Mr. Bouncer. He now rushed into the scrimmage with no idea of fighting, and a valiant bargee singled him out as an easy prey, and aimed a heavy blow at him. Instinctively doubling his fists, Mr. Verdant Green found that necessity was indeed the mother of invention; and, with a pa.s.sing thought of what would be his mother's and his maiden aunt's feelings could they see him fighting with a common bargeman, he managed to guard off the blow. But he was not so fortunate in the second round, for the bargee knocked him down, but was happily knocked down in turn by the Putney Pet. The language of this gentle and refined scholar had become very peculiar.

"There's a squelcher for you, my kivey," he said to the bargee, as he sent him sprawling. Then, turning round, he asked a townsman: "What do you charge for a pint of Dutch pink?" following up the question by striking him on the nose.

Unused to being questioned in this violent way, the town party at last turned and fled, and the gownsmen went in search of other foes to conquer. Even Mr. Verdant Green felt desperately courageous when the town took to their heels and vanished.

At Exeter College another town-and-gown fight was raging furiously. The town mob had come across the Senior Proctor, the Rev. Thomas Tozer; and while Old Towzer, as he was called, was trying to a.s.sert his proctorial authority over them, they had jeered him, and torn his clothes, and bespattered him with mud. A small group of gownsmen rushed to his rescue.

"Oh, this is painful," said the Rev. Thomas Tozer, putting the handkerchief to his bleeding nose. "This is painful! This is exceedingly painful, gentlemen!"

He was at once surrounded by sympathising undergraduates, who begged him to allow them to charge the town at once. But the Town far outnumbered the Gown, and, in spite of the a.s.sistance of the reverend proctor, the fight was going against them. The Rev. Thomas Tozer had just been knocked down for the first time in his life, and the cry of "Gown to the rescue!" fell very pleasantly on his ears. Mr. Verdant Green helped him to rise, while the Putney Pet stepped before him and struck out right and left. Ten minutes of scientific pugilism, and the fate of the battle was decided. The Town fled every way, and the Rev. Thomas Tozer was at last able to look calmly about him. He at once resumed his proctorial duties.

"Why have you not on your gown, sir?" he said to the Putney Pet.

"I ax yer pardon, guv'nor," said the Pet deferentially. "I couldn't get on in it, nohow. So I pocketed it; but some cove has gone and prigged it."

"I am unable to comprehend the nature of your language, sir," said the Rev. Thomas Tozer angrily, thinking it was an impudent undergraduate. "I don't understand you, sir; but I desire at once to know your name and college."

Mr. Bouncer, however, succeeded in explaining matters to the proctor, who then congratulated the Pet on having displayed pugilistic powers worthy of the Xystics of the n.o.blest days of Ancient Rome. Both the Pet and the undergraduates wondered what a Xystic was, but instead of inquiring further into the matter, they went to the Roebuck, where, after a supper of grilled bones and welsh-rabbits, Mr. Verdant Green gave, "by particular request," his now celebrated song, "The Mar-arble Halls."