Americans -- England -- Oxford; Education -- United States; Education, Higher -- England -- Oxford; University of Oxford
Breakfast comes soon after chapel, or roll-call. If a man has "kept a
dirty roller," that is, has reported in pyjamas, ulster, and boots,
and has turned in again, the scout puts the breakfast before the fire
on a trestle built of shovel, poker, and tongs, where it remains
edible until noon. If a man has a breakfast party on, the scout makes
sure that he is stirring in season, and, hurrying through the other
rooms on the staircase, is presently on hand for as long as he may be
wanted. The usual Oxford breakfast is a single course, which not
infrequently consists of some one of the excellent English pork
products, with an egg or kidneys. There may be two courses, in which
case the first is of the no less excellent fresh fish. There are no
vegetables. The breakfast is ended with toast and jam or marmalade.
When one has fellows in to breakfast,--and the Oxford custom of
rooming alone instead of chumming makes such hospitality
frequent,--his usual meal is increased by a course, say, of chicken.
In any case it leads to a morning cigarette, for tobacco aids
digestion, and helps fill the hour or so after meals which an
Englishman gives to relaxation.
At ten o'clock the breakfast may be interrupted for a moment by the
exit of some one bent on attending a lecture, though one apologizes
for such an act as if it were scarcely good form. An appointment with
one's tutor is a more legitimate excuse for leaving; but even this is
always an occasion for an apology, in behalf of the tutor of course,
for one is certainly not himself responsible. If a quorum is left,
they manage to sit comfortably by the fire, smoking and chatting in
spite of lectures and tutors, until by mutual consent they scatter to
glance at the "Times" and the "Sportsman" in the common-room, or even
to get in a bit of reading.
Luncheon often consists of bread and cheese and jam from the buttery,
with perhaps a half pint of bitter beer; but it may, like the
breakfast, come from the college kitchen. In any case it is very
light, for almost immediately after it everybody scatters to field and
track and river for the exercise that the English climate makes
necessary and the sport that the English temperament demands.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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