Page:Cuthbert Bede--Little Mr Bouncer and Tales of College Life.djvu/222

202 finding him in, had gone back to the Star. The first thing in the morning the elder Mr. Blatherwyck returned to his son's rooms, with the intention of having breakfast with him.

He found the breakfast already laid in the sitting-room, and, hearing a snore from the bed-room, walked in and saw his son asleep in the bed, with his whiskerless cheek uppermost.

Now, as he knew that his son possessed a remarkably fine pair of whiskers, it was at once evident to him that the individual who was snoring in bed in the dimly-lighted room was not his first-born, and that he, Mr. Blatherwyck, must have made a mistake, and had entered the rooms of a stranger.

He, therefore, at once beat a retreat, and went down into the Quad, where he met a scout, to whom he politely said, "Will you be good enough to direct me to Mr. Blatherwyck's rooms?" "The first pair to the left, sir," replied the scout, pointing to the staircase. "But I have just come from there," said the other, "and they are not my son's rooms." "They are Mr. Blatherwyck's rooms, sir," replied the scout, "and I took his breakfast there not a quarter of an hour ago. He was in bed. I think he had been making hisself pleasant last night. You 'll find them all right, sir—first pair to the left."

"Very odd!" thought the country rector, as he walked back to the rooms, and again heard the snoring of the slumberer. He picked up several books, and, in each of them, saw his son's name. In various parts of the room he also recognized articles that he knew belonged to his son. But the gentleman who was snoring in bed could not be his son, for there was no whisker on his upturned cheek. Some other man must have