Page:Cuthbert Bede--Little Mr Bouncer and Tales of College Life.djvu/249

Rh into execution filled Percie with alarm, and brought before his imagination a series of startling pictures, executed in the heaviest mental distemper, in which expelling Dons and threatening Duns stood forth in sternest colours. He saw at once that he must give up his cherished plan of spending the best part of the day in the society of Miss Fanny Douglas, and must betake himself to Oxford with all expedition. But yet, when he reflected that he was but a few hundred yards from the abode of the charmer, and that the Crescent lay not so very much out of his way to the railway-station, it was more than the weakness of poor human nature could bear, not to call in there for a few moments en route.

"It will never pay to go back without a look at Fanny," thought Percie, "after I 've taken all this trouble to see her. I must manage to get a sight of her by herself, and to keep out of the reach of the rest; for I daresay the Old Boy will be making inquiries after me, and the éclaircissement might be awkward. It is unfortunate enough as it is; but who 'd have thought of meeting him at Hyde-park Corner when he ought to have been safe in Shropshire. I wish now I had n't sent for that doctor's cheque; but the game had done once before, and I thought it would do again; and I was so hard up, that I did n't know which way to turn. I wish Fanny had got something like a fortune, because then the Old Boy would n't cut up so rough about her. Her governor goes at such a pace, that he must live quite up to his means; and he 'll scarcely be able to give Fanny a sou,—and that the Old Boy knows pretty well. Hinc illæ lachrymæ: hence his advocacy of Wilhelmina. I would n't take her if her gingerbread were doubly as thick in gilt! Dear Fanny is worth a dozen of her. I must go and see