The Further Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green, an Oxford Under-Graduate: Being a Continuation of "The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green, an Oxford Freshman"Bede, Cuthbert
History
The Further Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green, an Oxford Under-Graduate: Being a Continuation of "The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green, an Oxford Freshman"
Bede, Cuthbert
University of Oxford -- Fiction
And, as Mr. Bouncer professed, so did he; and, not many days after,
astonished his friends and the University generally by appearing in a
wig of curly black hair. It was a pleasing sight to see the little
gentleman with a scalp like a billiard ball, a pipe in his mouth, and
the wig mounted on a block, with books spread before him, endeavouring
to persuade himself that he was working up his subjects. It was still
more pleasing to view him, in moments of hilarity, divest himself of his
wig, and hurl it at the scout, or any other offensive object that
appeared before him. And it was a sight not to be forgotten by the
beholders, when, after too recklessly partaking of an indiscriminate
mixture of egg-flip, sangarce, and cider-cup, he feebly threw his wig at
the spectacles of Mr. Verdant Green, and, overbalanced by the exertion,
fell back into the coal-scuttle, where he lay, bald-headed and
helpless, laughing and weeping by turns, and caressed by Huz and Buz.
But the shaving of his head was not the only feature (or, rather, loss
of feature) that distinguished Mr. Bouncer's reading for his degree. The
gentleman with the limited knowledge of the cornet-à-piston, who had the
rooms immediately beneath those of our hero and his friend, had made
such slow progress in his musical education, that he had even now
scarcely got into his "Cottage near a Wood." This gentleman was Mr.
Bouncer's Frankenstein. He was always rising up when he was not wanted.
When Mr. Bouncer felt as if he could read, and sat down to his books,
wigless and determined, the doleful legend of the cottage near a wood
was forced upon him in an unpleasingly obtrusive and distracting manner.
It was in vain that Mr. Bouncer sounded his octaves in all their
discordant variations; the gentleman had no ear, and was not to be put
out of his cottage on any terms; Mr. Bouncer's notices of ejectment were
always disregarded. He had hoped that the ears of Mr. Slowcoach (whose
rooms were in the angle of the Quad) would have been pierced by the
noise, and that he would have put a stop to the nuisance; but, either
from its being too customary a custom, or that the ears of Mr. Slowcoach
had grown callous, the nuisance was suffered to continue unreproved.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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