Page:Cuthbert Bede--Little Mr Bouncer and Tales of College Life.djvu/223

Rh got into his son's bed! He would go and wake up the intruder, and ask him if Mr. Blatherwyck was coming to breakfast.

With this intent he went to the bed, and gave its occupant a hearty shake. To his great surprise, the roused slumberer turned round his head, and displayed one well known whisker, and the features of his son. The son's question, "Hallo, Governor! where did you spring from?" was answered by the father's question, "Why, Tom! where 's your other whisker?" "My other what?" "Whisker!"

The unhappy undergraduate placed his hand to his cheek, and felt, with a bitter pang, that it was denuded of its hirsute attraction. Then he sprang from his bed, and rushed to the looking-glass, and there saw the peculiar figure that was presented to his view.

"It 's that wild Irishman!" he cried, as he vowed vengeance on the perpetrator of the deed.

"Make a clean breast of it, Tom, and tell me how it all happened," said his father.

So, poor Esau made a clean breast of it, and told his father everything—what he had done at Woodstock, and how Kelly had driven him back to College, and put him to bed.

"Let it be a warning to you, Tom, never to get tipsy again," said his father. "If you acquire tippling habits, you will lose what will be worth more to you than a whisker." The son promised amendment, and they sat down to breakfast; after which, Blatherwyck shaved off his other pet whisker, and appeared at the Commemoration festivities, looking so altered that his friends scarcely recognized him. It was but a sorry consolation to assure him that, before the end of the Long