College stories; College students -- Fiction; Fathers and sons -- Fiction; Trinity College (University of Cambridge) -- Fiction
When the doctor had removed himself it was time for Mr. Binney to call
on the Proctor, who was a Fellow of Jesus College. Mr. Binney crawled
along down the sunny side of the lane feeling very miserable. But the
interview was not quite so painful as he had imagined. The Proctor was
a young man with a keen sense of humour. He tried to impart a fitting
air of severity into his strictures on the disgraceful scene he had
interrupted, but spoilt it all by bursting into a peal of laughter in
the middle of his lecture. After that there was nothing further to be
done but to extort a heavy fine from the culprit and to let him go.
Mr. Binney felt somewhat relieved as he walked out through the gates of
Jesus down the passage into the lane, but his heart sank again like
lead as he remembered his coming interview with his Tutor. He had just
time enough to go into his rooms and drink a glass of milk and soda,
before it was time to repair to Trinity College to undergo the ordeal
of Mr. Rimington's displeasure.
Mr. Binney had to wait some time in the Tutor's ante-room. His
thoughts were very bitter as he sat turning over the pages of a book,
keenly aware of the titters and whispers of the men who were waiting
with him.
The Tutor's face, when Mr. Binney at last entered the inner room, was
not reassuring. It wore a severe, and, to Mr. Binney's overstrung
perceptions, it seemed a contemptuous look. Mr. Rimington did not
shake hands with his pupil as was his wont, but motioned him to a chair
and plunged immediately _in medias res_.
"You know, of course, why I have sent for you, Mr. Binney," he said.
"I have no intention of expostulating with you. I have tried that
already, and it proved to be of no avail. I simply have to say that
the college can no longer put up with the way you choose to behave
yourself, and you must go down to-day."
"What? go down for good, sir?" said poor Mr. Binney in a broken voice.
"Yes, I think so," said the Tutor.
"Oh, surely you can't be so hard as that," pleaded Mr. Binney. "Think
of the disgrace, sir."
"I do think of the disgrace," said the Tutor, with a short laugh. "I
wish you had thought of it yourself a little sooner."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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