The Youth of Parnassus, and Other StoriesSmith, Logan Pearsall
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The Youth of Parnassus, and Other Stories
Smith, Logan Pearsall
Short stories; University of Oxford -- Fiction
"Oh, I say," one of the undergraduates exclaimed, "that was a splendid
score of yours, Miss Lamb, off the Warden. Perhaps you've not heard it,
Mr. Craik, the joke about the Garden of Eden?" he said, turning to
Craik, who had come to an end of his conversation with Mrs. Stacey. "The
Warden was showing Miss Lamb the garden, when she said to him, 'Why it
is like the Garden of Eden here, Mr. Warden; only I suppose you are
wiser than Adam, and don't disturb the Tree of Knowledge.'"
"My dear," Mrs. Stacey cried, "you didn't really speak so to the sweet
old Warden?"
"But, I say," Cobbe exclaimed, "how's this, Miss Lamb? Long and Maple
Fetters tell that story as having been got off them, and they seemed to
think that they rather scored off you."
"They didn't a bit; they were only silly!"
"Then you did get it off on them?"
"No, I didn't."
"Oh, now, that explains," another undergraduate interposed, "that
explains the story Mrs. Cotton was trying to tell. It seemed, as she
told it, to have no point at all. 'Mr. Warden,' she made you say, 'Mr.
Warden, you have a lovely garden here, but I am told you never pick the
fruit.' 'The Warden, you know, is so particular about his figs,' Mrs.
Cotton added, 'it is quite a joke with all the Fellows.'"
Miss Lamb was silent. After a little while, however, when a few other
anecdotes of Mrs. Cotton had been told, and they came to the well-known
story of that lady and the cow in St. Giles's, she began to smile, and
before long was quite consumed with merriment, for a siphon of
soda-water, fizzing off by mistake in the hands of one of the
undergraduates, had sprinkled itself over Cobbe.
"You did that on purpose, Galpin, I know you did," he cried, jumping out
of the hammock and shaking himself.
"Oh, no, he didn't!" Miss Lamb said, shaking with laughter. "Indeed, I'm
sure he wouldn't for worlds!"
Her attention was then taken by the youth up in the tree, who had been
throwing down leaves and bits of sticks on the heads of the party below.
A piece of bark falling into the jug of lemon squash, Miss Lamb feigned
great wrath and indignation.
"I wanted to give Mr. Craik some more; but oh, you haven't drunk what
you have! Isn't it sweet enough for you?"
"It is just right, thank you," he said, and he took up the glass, tepid
now from standing in the sun, and was just going to drink it, when the
young lady cried: "Oh, wait a moment, please; there's a poor little
insect tumbled into it. Dear little thing! Do take it out--oh, be
careful! I can't bear to see anything suffer."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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