Page:Cuthbert Bede--Little Mr Bouncer and Tales of College Life.djvu/126

106 that space of time. And, indeed Oxford tradesmen might make a pithy proverb to suit their own case:—

and, therefore, it behoves them to turn the sons to as much account as possible during Term time, with the hope that the sons' parents and governors will not, in the Long Vacation, or whenever the bills are presented, repudiate their liabilities, and set up the preposterous plea of infancy.

In accepting the invitation to go down with Mr. Smalls for a day or two in the country, little Mr. Bouncer experienced a difficulty with regard to the disposal of Huz and Buz. He scarcely liked to leave them in the coal-cellar outside his room-door at Brazenface, there to be fitfully attended to, or wholly neglected, by Mrs. Tester and Mr. Robert Filcher; and he did not wish to be temporarily separated from them, even if they were placed in Tollitt's stables, or confided to the care of Mr. Charley Symonds. But when he mentioned his hesitation to Mr. Smalls, that gentleman at once solved the difficulty by extending his invitation to Huz and Buz, and promising that they should be heartily welcomed at his father's house during the time of their master's visit. Mr. Bouncer was, therefore, made easy in his mind on this, to him, important subject. Not that Huz and Buz were personages to be dealt with easily in their transit from place to place; and at the Oxford railway station they rendered themselves especially obnoxious and disagreeable—now, frightening timid ladies by their loud barkings and profuse display of teeth; and then making wild rushes at the tempting calves of little children and