Page:Cuthbert Bede--Little Mr Bouncer and Tales of College Life.djvu/115

Rh hard lines; for we had to pull in the wash of the Pembroke boat. Fortunately for us, Pembroke rowed in awfully bad form, and, at the last, had not a spurt left in them. We won by the skin of our teeth, and that was all. I suppose you are going down, as usual, on the box of the Birmingham coach?"

Mr. Four-in-hand Fosbrooke acknowledged that such was his intention, and that it was, even then, time for him to start. "So, I must leave you men to help your selves. You and I must be off, Green, or we shall be too late for the coach."

Then, good-byes were said, and little Mr. Bouncer—who was presently followed by Mr. Smalls, Mr. Pewter Potter, and one or two others of the party—accompanied them to the Mitre, from whence the famous four-horse coach started to Birmingham. There also were other Oxford men, who preferred that old mode of conveyance to the newer railway; perhaps, because it carried them nearer to their various destinations. The breakfast-party given by Mr. Smirke and Mr. Bulpit was not yet over, for some of the guests appeared at the open windows on the first floor, from whence, as they smoked, they were looking on at the lading of the coach down below.

Little Mr. Bouncer and Verdant Green went into the coffee-room; and, as Verdant leant against one of the pillars near to the bow-window, and selected from his cigar-case a particularly mild Havannah, his friend said to him, "I 'm like a parent to you, Giglamps!—coming here and seeing you safe off the premises, and keeping a sharp look-out, lest you should elope with old Mother Tester! Well, you 've said good-bye to Brazenface for a time; and now you 've got to say good-bye for a time