you see, to one's lungs and all those sort of things to turn out of
the warm bed into the cold chapel, that I would answer Robert when he
hammered at the door; but, instead of getting up, I would knock my
boots against the floor, as though I was out of bed, don't you see,
and was padding about. But that wretch of a Robert was too old a
bird to be caught with this dodge; so he used to sing out, 'You must
show a leg, sir!' and, as he kept on hammering at the door till I
~did~ - for, you see, Giglamps, he was looking out for the tip at
the end of term, so it made him persevere - and as his beastly
hammering used, of course, to put a stopper on my going to sleep
again, I used to rush out in a frightful state of wax, and show a
leg. And then, being well up, you see, it was no use doing the downy
again, so it was just as well to make one's ~twilight~ and go to
chapel. Don't gape, Giglamps; it's beastly rude, and I havn't done
yet. I'm going to tell you another dodge - one of old Smalls'. He
invested money in an alarum, with a string from it tied on to the
bed-clothes, so as to pull them off at whatever time you chose to set
it. But I never saw the fun of being left high and dry on your bed:
it would be a shock to the system which I couldn't stand. But even
this dreadful expedient would be better than posting an ~aeger~;
which, you know, you didn't ought to was, Giglamps. Well, turn out,
old feller! I've told Robert to take your commons* into my room.
Smalls and Charley are coming, and I've got a dove-tart and a
spread-eagle."
"Whatever are they?" asked Mr. Verdant Green.
"Not know what they are!" cried Mr. Bouncer; "why a dove-tart is what
mortals call a pigeon-pie. I ain't much in Tennyson's line, but it
strikes me that dove-tarts are more poetical than the other thing;
spread-eagle is a barn-door fowl smashed out flat, and made jolly
with mushroom sauce, and no end of good things. I don't know how
they squash it, but I should say that they sit upon it; I daresay, if
we were to inquire, we should find that they kept a fat feller on
purpose. But you just come, and try how it eats." And, as Mr.
Verdant Green's bedroom barely afforded standing room, even for one,
Mr. Bouncer walked into the sitting-room, while his friend arose from
his couch like a youthful Adonis, and proceeded to bathe his
ambrosial person, by taking certain sanatory measures in splashing
about in a species of tub - a per-
---
* The rations of bread, butter, and milk, supplied from the buttery.
The breakfast-giver tells his scout the names of those ~in~-college
men who are coming to breakfast with him. The scout then collects
their commons, which thus forms the substratum of the entertainment.
The other things are of course supplied by the giver of the
breakfast, and are sent in by the confectioner. As to the knives and
forks and crockery, the scout produces them from his common stock.
-=-
[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 179]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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