The fourth man at the breakfast-club, the Hon. Piers St. Cloud
was in his third year, and was a very well-dressed,
well-mannered, well-connected young man. His allowance was small
for the set he lived with, but he never wanted for anything. He
didn't entertain much, certainly, but when he did, everything was
in the best possible style. He was very exclusive, and knew no
man in college out of the fast set, and of these he addicted
himself chiefly to the society of the rich freshmen, for somehow
the men of his own standing seemed a little shy of him. But with
the freshmen he was always hand and glove, lived in their rooms,
and used their wines, horses, and other movable property as his
own. Being a good whist and billiard player, and not a bad
jockey, he managed in one way or another to make his young
friends pay well for the honour of his acquaintance; as, indeed,
why should they not, at least those of them who came to the
college to form eligible connexions; for had not his remote
lineal ancestor come over in the same ship with William the
Conqueror? Were not all his relations about the Court, as lords
and ladies in waiting, white sticks or black rods, and in the
innermost of all possible circles of the great world; and was
there a better coat of arms than he bore in all Burke's Peerage?
Our hero had met Drysdale at a house in the country shortly
before the beginning of his first term, and they had rather taken
to one another. Drysdale had been amongst his first callers; and,
as he came out of chapel one morning shortly after his arrival,
Drysdale's scout came up to him with an invitation to breakfast.
So he went to his own rooms, ordered his commons to be taken
across to No. 3, and followed himself a few minutes afterwards.
No one was in the rooms when he arrived, for none of the club had
finished their toilettes. Morning chapel was not meant for, or
cultivated by gentlemen-commoners; they paid double chapel fees,
in consideration of which, probably, they were not expected to
attend so often as the rest of the undergraduates; at any rate,
they didn't, and no harm came to them in consequence of their
absence. As Tom entered, a great splashing in an inner room
stopped for a moment, and Drysdale's voice shouted out that he
was in his tub, but would be with him in a minute. So Tom gave
himself up to contemplation of the rooms in which his fortunate
acquaintance dwelt; and very pleasant rooms they were. The large
room in which the breakfast-table was laid for five, was lofty
and well proportioned, and panelled with old oak, and the
furniture was handsome and solid, and in keeping with the room.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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