Page:Cuthbert Bede--Little Mr Bouncer and Tales of College Life.djvu/127

Rh old gentlemen. They were far too noisy and obtrusive to enable Mr. Bouncer to smuggle them into his own carriage; and the guard, being proof against bribes, insisted on their being placed in a locker in the luggage van. Then followed an agitating scene with a large but loose-limbed porter, who essayed to gain the confidence of the two bull-terriers, and failed to find them reciprocate his attentions. After all, their master had to summarily and roughly thrust them into the locker at the very last moment before the starting of the train; for Huz and Buz set at defiance and kept at bay both porters and guards.

In that dark age, a smoking compartment was an unknown luxury on railway lines; but as there were several Oxford men who were going down by that train, they secured a carriage to themselves, where they could blow a cloud to their hearts' content; and, of course, Mr. Smalls and little Mr. Bouncer were two of the passengers in that particular carriage. In the train, too, were several young ladies with their mothers and chaperones, who were on their way back home from the Commemoration, in company with elderly dons, younger tutors and fellows, and brotherly or cousinly undergraduates. Thus the University was largely represented, and contributed an unusual number of passengers to the train. It slid out of the station; and in another half-hour Oxford had been lost to sight, and its familiar aspect and well-known spires and towers could only be viewed in dreams or memory.

The railway journey of little Mr. Bouncer and Mr. Smalls was terminated at the Poynton Station, where they bade adieu to their undergraduate companions, and released Huz and Buz from their temporary