Page:Cuthbert Bede--Little Mr Bouncer and Tales of College Life.djvu/23

Rh the rooms of Mr. Slowcoach or the Rev. Richard Harmony, and the other tutors whose delightful task it was to teach the young ideas of the Brazenfacians how to shoot—instead of any tome of learning, little Mr. Bouncer bore in his hand his long tin post-horn, from which he invoked unearthly sounds, that re-echoed from the staircase to the outer quad. He particularised this performance as "sounding his octaves," and summarised it as "going the complete unicorn." In addition to this, Mr. Bouncer was smoking a cigar—that "Nicotian herb" the consumption of which is so strictly forbidden by another of those Oxford statutes, which every student, at his matriculation, is solemnly required by the Vice-Chancellor most strictly to observe. He was, moreover, accompanied by two living creatures, who would not, by any possibility, have been admitted to a college lecture. These were his two famous bull-terriers, Huz and Buz; most villainous-looking pets, with ponderous heads and savage teeth and corkscrew tails, who, at every blast of the horn, barked and howled, either in sympathy with the noise, or in direct antagonism to its defiant summons; for, it would be difficult to interpret the feelings of Huz and Buz when they heard their master's caricature imitations of Kœnig's performance in Jullien's Post-horn Galop, which, just at that time, was in the height of its popularity, and was hummed or whistled in every quad in Brazenface and the University.

The inmate of the rooms over the outer door of which was painted the monosyllable "," had "sported," or securely closed that outer door or "oak;" and this not only prevented little Mr. Bouncer from gaining immediate admission, but also caused him to prolong the fanfares on his tin horn and furnished Huz