Little Mr Bouncer and His Friend Verdant Green/Chapter 12
CHAPTER XII.
LITTLE MR. BOUNCER EATS TWO BREAKFASTS ON THE LAST MORNING OF TERM.
ISTURBING the solemn quietude that ought to dwell by night in the venerable quadrangle of a college, the tea-tray and poker music made by Mr. Smirke in the Balliol Quad was found to murder sleep in the most ruthless manner. At last, his discordant bee-hiving melody became so perfectly unendurable, that a summary stop was put to it by outraged hearers, who swooped down upon his night-gowned figure and forcibly bore him off to his own rooms, where they took measures to prevent a recurrence of the nuisance, by confiscating both the tea-tray and the poker.
Whether Mr. Smirke was put to bed by friend or foe, it is certain that when little Mr. Bouncer made his way to his bedside, at six o'clock on that sunny June morning, he found the bed to be duly tenanted by its owner, who was not only fast asleep, but was also snoring in a way that was almost as unmusical as the noise he had made down in the Quad, with his tea-tray and poker. Whoever had put Mr. Smirke to bed, had improved the occasion by artistically decorating his face with a large pair of curled moustaches and threatening eye-brows, executed with burnt cork. So far, therefore, as his face
went, he looked sufficiently valiant and warlike to be prepared to fight any number of duels.
Little Mr. Bouncer drew up the blind and let the full sunshine stream into the room and on the corked face of the slumberer, who was sleeping so heavily that there was some difficulty in rousing him. "Smirke! awake, my beauty! my lady fair, arise, and, like the winking may-buds, 'gin to ope your eyes! You ought to be up and dressed."
"Oh, don't bother!" protested Mr. Smirke, not yet fully roused; "I want to go to sleep."
"Oh, indeed, you 'll do no such thing," said Mr. Bouncer, as he gave him another vigorous shake and pulled the clothes off him. "It 's all very well for Dr. Watts' sluggard to do the downy like the door on its hinges, so he on his bed; but I can't allow it."
"I wish you 'd go away and not bother me," said Mr. Smirke, endeavouring to compose himself to sleep again.
"There, don't be offended! the only way to take a fence is to do it in that style," said little Mr. Bouncer, pointing to one of Alken's coloured hunting pictures that was nailed up on the wall over Mr. Smirke's head. "Come, rouse up, my beauty! not that you are a beauty without paint, as you 'll see for yourself, when you come to look at yourself in the glass. If you don't get up at once, I shall give you cold pig. We 've no time to lose; for, unless you are very quick, we shall not be there in time."
"Be where?" asked Mr. Smirke, rubbing his eyes.
"Where? why at the Port Meadow, to be sure," replied Mr. Bouncer, who was greatly tickled at the odd appearance of Mr. Smirke's elaborately-corked face.
"Port Meadow? What for?" asked that gentleman.
"Why, don't you remember? You were to be there at seven o'clock this morning—a duel, you know, with Bulpit, of Skimmery, whom you grossly insulted at Effingham's Little-go Wine, by shying a duck in his face."
At this brief mention of the scene of the previous evening, the wretched man's clouded brain was sufficiently cleared of some of its fogs and mists to recover a partial knowledge of what had occurred. "But Bulpit began it, with a slice of tongue. And—I have n't any pistols," pleaded Mr. Bob Acres.
"Oh! we 'll manage all that. Look at yourself in the glass; you 've got your war-paint on already." And little Mr. Bouncer enjoyed Mr. Smirke's dismay when he surveyed the burnt-cork designs with which his face had been adorned. Then he made him wash his face and put on his clothes; and, during the time that he was thus getting himself dressed, frightened him by anticipations of the probable effects of the duel. At length the victim asked, "Is there no way of getting out of it?—of course, in an honourable manner." And Mr. Bouncer took pity on him by suggesting, "I fear that matters have gone too far. The only plan that I can think of, would be to write an apology to Bulpit; and, perhaps, you would n't like to do that."
"Oh, yes; I don't mind it at all," responded Mr. Smirke with alacrity. "If I shied the duck at him, as you say I did—and I confess that I don't remember very clearly about it—it would only be right in me, as a gentleman, to apologise to Bulpit; would n't it?"
"I quite agree with you. It is better to prevent bloodshed, if possible," replied little Mr. Bouncer, as he lighted a cigar, and threw his cap and gown on the floor. "But you must write the letter at once, if it is to be written at all; or Bulpit and Effingham will have started for the Port Meadow before we can stop them. You must pitch the letter very strong, and do the gentlemanly penitential in first-rate style; or it will be of no use to soothe Bulpit's savage breast."
There, very shortly after, Effingham himself arrived, with a like letter of apology from Mr. Bulpit, with whom he had enacted a scene at St. Mary's Hall very similar to that which was being simultaneously performed, at Balliol College, with Messrs. Bouncer and Smirke for the dramatis personæ. It was agreed that the ends of justice could not be properly satisfied unless the two would-be combatants gave a breakfast at the Mitre to all who had witnessed their quarrel on the preceding evening; or, at any rate, to as many of them as would be able to accept the hasty invitation, and who would not be leaving Oxford till a later hour. This arrangement was heartily acceded to by Mr. Bulpit and Mr. Smirke, who greatly preferred the "breakfast to follow" instead of "the pistols for two."
As they were up and dressed, they at once sent out their invitations, and then went to the Mitre, where they shook hands, mutually apologised, and ordered the best breakfast that could be set upon the table. Thus, the proposed duel ended in a satisfactory and sensible way; and the two letters from the non-duellists formed a very fruitful theme for jokes at their expense, not only at that immediate time, but for many terms after.
Yet, when it was explained to them that they would have been made the victims of a hoax, and that, if they had met, their pistols would only have been loaded with paper pellets, Mr. Bulpit and Mr. Smirke were half inclined to regret that the programme of the duel had not been fully carried out, and that the Port Meadow had not been made the scene of their display of fictitious bravery. But, "all 's well that ends well," and they joined in the laugh raised against them, and cheerfully shared the bill for the breakfast at the Mitre.
Of course, little Mr. Bouncer was there, though not for long; "for," said he, "I promised to look in at Fosbrooke's, and see him and Verdant Green off by the Brummagem coach; and, instead of feeling up to two breakfasts, I can't do justice to one. I must restrict myself to devil and Soda and B."
Either the soda and brandy, or the devilled turkey, prepared by the Mitre's chef in his best style, or the fresh morning air, gave little Mr. Bouncer an appetite; for, when he had left Messrs. Bulpit and Smirke, and had gone back to Brazenface, and had sat down at Fosbrooke's breakfast-table, he was able to take his due share of the good things placed before him. But, if he needed an excuse, he could plead that it was the last morning of Term, and that more than three months would pass before he would eat another breakfast in Oxford.