Part 6

Peter was not alone. Gamaliel drew to itself some excellent brain. It was celebrated for young men prematurely wise--young men who had learned everything at twenty-two, and never afterwards added to their store. Peter became a leading character in the intellectual set. They jested in good Greek, filling their heads with knowledge they affected to despise, taking in vain the theories of their masters, merrily playing with their grand-sires' bones of learning. They snorted with delight at the efforts of their chief clerical instructor to evade the Rabelaisian Obscenities of Aristophanes or a too curious inquiry into certain social habits of old Greece. They reduced Hegel to half-sheets of paper, suggested profanely various readings for Petronius, speculated without reverence on the darker habits of mankind from Aristotle to the Junior Prior. But in all this horseplay of minds young and keen was a strain of contemptuous fatigue. Gamaliel, out of its clever youngsters, bred civil servants, politicians, or university professors. Intellectual pedantry waited for those whom Gamaliel intellectually satisfied. Intellectual cynicism--the cynicism of a firm belief that nothing is important or new--waited for those who played the game of scholarship with humour enough to find it barren.

Peter, therefore, was not alone in his reaction against the formal discipline of the College, but he was alone in the obstinate ardour of his youth. He had just discovered that life was absorbing. Though he sat far into many nights in scholarly gymnastics with his friends, he came away to watch the grey light creeping into a world he keenly wanted to understand. He jested only with his brain, driven to the game by physical energy and friendly emulation. He was never really touched by the cynicism and horse laughter of his set. He often left these meetings in a sudden access of desolation.

Peter's directors began sadly to shake their heads. They knew the symptoms--knew he was already marked for failure. The Warden gravely reasoned with him.

"Mr. Paragon," he said, handing Peter his papers for the term, "these are second class."

Peter was mortified. His intellectual comrades mocked, but they also satisfied, their masters. Peter was of another fibre. He could do nothing without his entire heart. Various readings in Horace no longer fired him. The kick had gone out of his work. His brain was elsewhere.

He took the papers in silence. He could not understand his failure. Hitherto satisfying the examiners had been for Peter a matter of course.

"You have neglected your reading?" the Warden suggested, as Peter turned silently away.

"No, sir."

"Won't you take us a little more seriously?"

"I cannot be interested," Peter shot out impulsively.

"Is this wise?" the Warden gravely inquired. "We expect you to do well."

"I will try, sir."

Peter was sad, but not sullen.

"You owe it to the College," said the Warden, drily incisive. Then he added: "Why must you go so quickly, Mr. Paragon? You are not yet ready for things outside."

Peter was suddenly grateful. He was, at any rate, understood.

"I will try with my whole soul," he ardently exclaimed.

"Meanwhile," the Warden concluded with a smile, "notes on gobbets need not be written in the manner of La Rochefoucauld. There isn't time."

Peter, passing into the quadrangle, met Dundoon. He was in riding breeches. He lived in riding breeches, till they became for Peter a symbol of well-born inanity. Moreover, he was freely indulging his principal pleasure--namely, he was vigorously cracking a riding-whip, making the walls ring with snap after snap.

"Hullo," he said as Peter passed within careful distance.

"Idiot," muttered Peter between his teeth.

"Freshly roasted by the Wuggins--What?"

"Dundoon, you're a damned nuisance. Put it away."

"It's most important, Peter Pagger. It's most devilish important. M.F.H.--What?"

Dundoon cracked his whip rather more successfully than usual. The snap tingled in Peter's brain. In a fit of temper he sprang at Dundoon, and wrenched the whip from his hand.

Dundoon looked at Peter's gleaming eyes as though he had seen the devil.

"What's this? In the name of Hell what _is_ it?" he said at last.

"I'm sorry," said Peter with withering humility. "Here is your whip."

He handed it back to Dundoon, who took it cautiously. Peter moved away. But Dundoon arrested him.

"Peter Pagger," he said thoughtfully, "do I understand that you've been rude to me?"

"As you please."

"Because you'll be ragged, that's all. You'll be jolly well ragged."

The party of Dundoon was strolling up, and was invited to hear the news.

"Here, you fellows. Peter Pagger has been very rude to me. What shall we do to him? Peter Pagger has been roasted by the Wuggins for his naughty life in London. Third stocking from the right--What?"

Peter strode off boiling with anger.

Dundoon belonged to a set which derived principally from a famous English school. It was a set traditionally opposed to the intellectuals; indeed these two principal sets fed fat an ancient grudge. College humour mainly consisted at this time in the invention of scandalous histories by members of one set concerning members of the other. Needless to say the Paggers far excelled the Dundoons in the pith of their libels, so that the Dundoons had often to assert their supremacy in other ways. Upon one cold winter night, for example, the Paggers, one and all, retiring to rest had missed a necessary vessel. Thick snow covered the garden quadrangle, of which the Dundoons had built an immense mound upon the lawn. After three days a thaw set vigorously in, and the Junior Prior, looking from his window in the dawn, was shocked by an unutterable stack of College china mocking the doubtful virginity of the snow. The enterprises of the Dundoons were not subtle.

The Junior Prior was not at this time happy. Quite recently he had himself been one of the Dundoons. He was a young professor of mathematics; and, because he was also an astronomer, they called him Peepy. He was brilliant on paper, but an admitted failure in dealing with the men. His discipline was openly flouted.

Peter, who naturally did not know that the Junior Prior was an error of judgment, confessed by the authorities, regarded him, unfairly to Gamaliel, as typical of the place. He derided in him a wholly ineffectual and pedantic person whose dignity at Gamaliel reduced life to absurdity. Peter was barely civil to the Junior Prior. It was characteristic of the Junior Prior that he tactlessly favoured the Dundoons. They used his pet name, and paraded with him linked in familiar conversation. Naturally, when his discipline fell upon men outside the set he favoured, it was bitterly resented. It was remembered, a fact unknown to the Fellows, that in the term before Peter came to Gamaliel the Junior Prior had been pushed downstairs by a robust man from the Colonies who, though he happened to be reading theology, was old enough to be the father of the Junior Prior, and had, it was believed, actually killed people somewhere in Mexico.

The incident between Peter and Dundoon naturally splashed rather rudely into these College politics. Clearly it needed very little to raise a scandal. One of the Dundoons talked with Peter in the boat that afternoon, telling him that vengeance was intended, but Peter was wearily contemptuous.

In the evening he sat peacefully at his window. To-day they had paddled far, passing through the locks to lower reaches of the river. Peter was tired and contemplative, his brain still rocking with the boat and filled with desolate echoes of shouting over lonely water.

Big Tom was belling his hundred-and-one. The lawn was deserted and very quiet. Peter could recover distantly the rhythm of the town band. He remembered the night of his first introduction to the dons of Gamaliel--the infinite promise that once had sounded in the Oxford bells.

A riotous party broke into the far corner. Peter was not long in doubt as to who they were. Dundoon was cracking his whip.

Peter sat still as they came irregularly towards him.

"Peter Pagger," said Dundoon, not quite certain of his syllables, "we have come to rag you. Have you any objections?"

He stood below on the grass. He had been drinking and was very serious.

"None at all," said Peter indifferently. He looked down, as it were, on a group of animals.

"He hasn't any objections," said Dundoon confidentially to his supporters.

"Listen to me," he continued, addressing the open window. "This is most important. You've been very rude to me. What are you going to do about it?"

"I'm sitting here," said Peter.

He heard them blundering up the wooden staircase. He might have sported a strong oak, locking them out until his friends had come together. But it hardly seemed worth while.

He leaned upright by the open window, his hands in his pockets, as the Dundoons playfully rearranged the furniture. The etiquette on an occasion like this was simple. He must not make himself ridiculous by taking too seriously the frolic of men not entirely sober. Neither must he allow himself to be insulted. Peter looked carelessly on, very calm but alert to decide when the joke had gone as far as the decorum of Gamaliel allowed.

One of the Dundoons was arranging Peter's coal neatly upon the mantelpiece. Another was turning his pictures to the wall. His tablecloth and hearthrug were transposed. His wardrobe was assorted into heaps upon the floor and labelled for a sale by auction.

Suddenly Peter saw that Dundoon was about to empty a water-jug into the bed. Peter passed swiftly towards him.

"I don't think we'll do that," he said. "It would be nasty."

"You've been very rude to me," said Dundoon, dangerously tilting the jug.

Peter grasped him firmly by the arm and took the jug away. He put it back into the corner.

Dundoon looked at Peter for a moment in drunken meditation. Then he put his hand on Peter's shoulder.

"Peter Pagger," he said, "this is most important. Sorry to say--absolutely necessary to cleanse and purify unwholesome bed." And he walked to the corner.

Peter followed him.

"Dundoon," he said sharply.

Dundoon turned and found Peter at his elbow. Peter shook his fist under the nose of Dundoon.

"Pick up that water-jug and I'll punch your damned head."

"Here, you fellows," shouted Dundoon. "Come and hear what Peter Pagger is saying. He's been very rude to me."

The Dundoons crowded into the little bedroom, and someone called: "Take away his trousers!"

Peter stood back. There was an uproar and a movement towards him.

"Mind yourselves," he shouted. "I'm going to fight."

There was a knock at the bedroom door, and silence fell suddenly.

"Come in," called Peter, not without relief.

The Junior Prior stood in the doorway. He had heard an uproar in Peter's rooms, and he did not immediately see the company.

"Mr. Paragon," he said with the dignity of a sergeant, "what's all this noise?"

He had got as far as this when Dundoon suddenly put a fond arm around his neck.

"It's all right, Peepy," he said. "Peter Pagger's been very rude to me."

The Junior Prior changed colour, and Peter enjoyed his confusion. The Junior Prior's attempt at discipline collapsed. He had come to assert his authority over a mere member of the college, but he had fallen among friends.

"Don't you think this has gone far enough?" He almost pleaded with Dundoon.

"Peter Pagger's been very rude to me."

"Yes. But I think you ought to come away."

"But, Peepy, this is most important."

One of the Dundoons, more alive to the position than the rest, hastily pushed his leader from the room. Already the other men had discreetly vanished.

"What are you doing?" Dundoon protested.

"Come out of it, you fool," whispered the man of tact. "Don't you see you're making it awkward for Peepy?"

"Awkward for Peepy?" said Dundoon very audibly. "Why is it awkward for Peepy?"

The Junior Prior went scarlet under Peter's dancing eyes.

"Your room seems to have suffered," he dimly smiled. "I must look to Dundoon," and he dived hastily into the passage. Peter heard a sharp scuffle. He saw, in his mind's eye, the embarrassed man of authority forcing his tactless crony from sight and hearing. He flung up his hands in glee.

The story did not lose in Peter's telling. Peter improved his description as the days went by. "Awkward for Peepy," passed into the language.

The Paggers, one and all, decided that it would be extremely awkward for Peepy if, after collapsing before Dundoon, he should ever again actively interfere with themselves.

XVI

The term drew to an end. Peter's boat went head of the river in five bumps. There was a large dinner in the College hall, and a small dinner of Peter's friends upon the following day. This last dinner had important consequences. The toasts were many, and Peter was not a seasoned man. He put vine leaves in his hair, and scarcely conscious of his limbs, danced lightly into Gamaliel quadrangle. It was a dinner at Peter's expense, exclusively of Paggers; and at one o'clock in the morning they began to do each what his brain imagined.

Peter secured a beautiful enamel bath which belonged to Dundoon, and for an hour he could not be interrupted. To sit in the bath of Dundoon, and to clatter hideously from flight to flight of the stone steps of the College hall was a perfect experience. It never palled. Meanwhile Peter's friends had discovered an open window of the buttery, and announcements were made to Peter from time to time. Peter sat gravely in his bath and smiled.

"Rows of chickens for the evening meal," said a man from the deeps of the larder. The chickens were handed out and spread decently upon the lawn.

Reports were made of a wonderful breakfast waiting to be cooked.

"How well they provide for us," said Peter, gazing upon rows of fish, joints of beef and mutton, hams and sides of bacon. Then Peter stood up in his bath and prophesied:

"Gentlemen," he said. "All kinds of food grow upon trees of the field. I should not be at all surprised--" He broke off, sunk in contemplation of a spreading elm.

Then he again carried his bath to the head of the steps, and his friends were busy for the next half hour. At the end of that time the trees were heavy with strange fruit.

Peter was then invited to join in a choral dance; but he would not leave his bath.

He felt a sudden need for violent rhythm, and began heavily to beat the bath of Dundoon.

Windows were flung up, and protesting shouts were heard from sleepy men in garments hastily caught up. The Junior Prior, who had as long as possible refrained, saw he must intervene. He flung on a few necessary clothes and issued from his turret.

Peter lay directly in his path. He paused irresolutely at the foot of the steps.

"Mr. Paragon."

The Junior Prior asserted his authority with misgiving.

"Sir?"

"Go to your rooms."

Peter descended the steps unsteadily. Then he stopped, looking wistfully towards his bath. It was too much. He began to climb back again.

"Mr. Paragon," repeated the Junior Prior.

"Sir?"

"Need you do that again?"

"This," objected Peter with the faintest parody of Dundoon, "is most important."

The Junior Prior was seen to flush in the lamplight.

"Mr. Paragon, come down!"

Peter sighed and again started to descend. He missed a step and fell rudely towards the Junior Prior, who stepped back to receive him. But the Junior Prior caught his slippered heel in a low iron railing that skirted the lawn, and fell with his legs in the air. Peter, caught by the parapet, gazed thoughtfully at the legs of the Junior Prior.

The Junior Prior was loosely clad. He had put his legs hastily into a pair of trousers, kept in place by the last abdominal button. Disordered by his sudden fall, the ends of the trousers projected beyond his feet.

Everything happened in a moment. Peter saw his enemy delivered up. His bland good-fellowship of the evening surrendered to Berserker rage. He stooped, and in a flash caught hold of the loose ends of the trousers. Unconscious of his enormous strength, he pulled sharp and wild. The button gave with a snap, and Peter, staggered for a moment by the recoil, was next seen rushing up the lawn, a strange banner streaming about his head.

Peter's friends were awed into silence. The ceremony which so largely figured in conversation at Gamaliel had at last been performed, and it had been performed on the Junior Prior.

Peter, in mad rush, came upon a meditative figure. The Warden, working late into the night, was at last disturbed. He had arrived in time to see Peter staggering back from a recumbent figure in the middle distance. He watched Peter in his furious career down the lawn, and saw Peter's miserable victim glimmer hastily away into the far turret. The Warden was not ignorant of College politics. He already suspected that this was no ordinary achievement.

"Well, Mr. Paragon," he said as Peter forged into view. "Are these your property?"

He caught at the trousers, and Peter, struck comparatively sober, decided to temporise.

"They are not my property, sir. They are, f-f-th' moment, borrowed."

Peter felt very politic and clever.

"Who is the owner of this property?" asked the Warden.

"I'm sorry, sir, but I cannot tell."

Peter was beginning to feel how impossible it was to face the fact that he had removed the trousers of the Junior Prior. He could not tell the Warden. It seemed indelicate. He wanted to cover the shame of his victim.

"You know, of course, to whom this property belongs?" the Warden persisted.

"Yes, sir."

"But you refuse to say."

Peter was struck miserably silent. He did not like to deny the Warden, but he could not utter the outrage he had committed.

"Very well," said the Warden. "I will impound the property. Doubtless it will be claimed."

He quietly took possession of the trousers and turned to go.

"Mr. Paragon."

"Yes, sir?"

"I rely on you to see that the College is in bed within the next ten minutes. I shall send for you in the morning. Good night."

"Good night, sir."

Peter soberly reported the interview to his friends, and they decided to sleep.

Already the zest was beginning to go out of life. A comfortless grey light was beginning to peer dimly at the hanging burden of the trees.

Peter sat wakefully at his window. His revolt against the discipline of Gamaliel came merely to this--that he had removed the trousers of the Junior Prior. He had been noisy and foolish, and it had seemed the best joke in the world that his friends should give the laborious College servants at least an hour's extra work to do in the morning. A large side of bacon hanging grotesquely in the pale light intolerably mocked him from the noble elm beside his window. He felt very old and tired. In the morning he was summoned to the Warden's house. The Warden met him seriously, as though, Peter thought, he instinctively knew how to make him ashamed.

"Well, Mr. Paragon, the property has been identified."

"I'm sorry, sir."

"I, too, am sorry, Mr. Paragon. You are sent down for the remaining days of the term, and I shall seriously have to consider whether I can allow you to come back after the vacation. I suppose you realise that the discipline of the College must be observed?"

"Yes, sir."

"The Junior Prior," the Warden continued with perfect gravity, "has been offered an important post in a Japanese university. Perhaps he will accept it. He desires to study the refraction of light in tropical atmospheres. It may therefore be possible for you to join us again next term. Otherwise I am afraid we shall have to strike you from the books. I think you understand the position, Mr. Paragon?"

"Yes, sir."

Peter cut short his friends when they asked for an account of his roasting.

"The Wuggins," he said emphatically, "is a big man. I'm going down by the seven-forty to Hamingburgh."

Peter wanted to get away without fuss, but the Paggers would not hear of it. It was decided there must be a procession to the railway station. All the folly had gone out of Peter, but he was now helplessly a hero.

The procession started from the College gates. Fifty hansom-cabs, decorated with purple crape, formed up under the Warden's windows. The town band was hired to play a solemn march. Peter, compelled to bear the principal part in a joke which he no longer appreciated, was borne to the leading cab pale with mortification. The slow journey to the station seemed interminable. All Oxford was grinning from the creeping pavement. At last the station was reached. Peter leaped from duress, heartily cursed his friends, and, safe at last in the train, began to wonder how his uncle would receive him.

The Warden of Gamaliel had watched Peter's funeral procession from behind the curtains of his window. He smiled as he saw Peter borne forth, clearly reflecting in his expressive young face an ineffectual dislike of his notoriety. The Warden turned from the window as the strains of a solemn march weakened along the street. He smiled again that day at odd times, but sometimes he pressed his lips together and shook his head.

"Peter Paragon is a good boy," he told the Fellows at dinner, "but I don't in the least know what we are going to do with him."

XVII

Peter spent the vacation at home solidly reading and digesting without enthusiasm the Oxford books. He soon heard from his friends that the Junior Prior had vanished, and that he himself would be invited to return. He spent his days regularly between classical literature for a task and modern literature for pleasure.

Mrs. Paragon gravely listened to Peter's story of his indiscipline. She did not, of course, find it in any way ridiculous. She brooded upon it as evidence of Peter's abounding life, and she instinctively trembled. Peter's energy was beginning to be dangerous.

Peter's uncle flung up his great head and laughed. He made Peter, to Peter's rage, recur to the story again and again, asking for unspeakable details. His red face shone and twinkled. He roared with delight.

In the middle of the vacation the author who first had stirred Peter to intellectual enthusiasm came to Hamingburgh, and talked Socialism to a local branch of the Superior Socialists. Peter was wrought to so high an admiration of the art with which the great man handled his audience, by the clarity, vigour, and wit of his speaking, that he dared at the end to ask publicly some very pertinent and searching questions. The speaker could not answer him immediately; but afterwards promised to write to Peter if Peter would remind him.

Peter thus became one of the fortunate correspondents of an author whose private letters were better than his published works. Before he returned to Oxford he already had a small pile, thumbed with continuous reading.