Page:Cuthbert Bede--Little Mr Bouncer and Tales of College Life.djvu/40

20 with a piercing fanfare from his unmusical instrument, which was heard sounding octaves all down the staircase, and out into the quad.

Left to his solitude, Mr. Verdant Green made himself a very strong cup of tea—an accomplishment in which he was now tolerably perfect, thanks to the lessons in the science that he had received from his old bedmaker, Mrs. Tester; and as he sat over the steaming beverage, it painfully occurred to him that he also, like his tea, was, metaphorically, in a stew and in hot water. He did not attach any very definite meanings to those two phrases of little Mr. Bouncer, which had reference to his being in "a blue funk," and hinted at the probability of his "running a fearful mucker;" but although he was unable to grasp the full signification of the Oriental imagery of his friend's expressions, yet, undoubtedly, they sounded far from reassuring, and did not tend to add to his comfort. Nor did he feel any happier when he conjured up a gloomy series of mental pictures, which passed before his mind's eye in fantastic phantasmagorias, and showed him what the inhabitants of the Manor Green would think, and feel, and say, and do, if they only knew the course that the hope of their house was pursuing; and that, in his Freshman's term, he had already begun to bet on horse-races and make a book on the Derby. What would his father say to those three five-pound notes being handed over to the custody of Mr. Blucher Boots? What would his good mother think of his backing a dark horse—supposing that she could understand such a phrase? Would his sisters be disposed to exculpate his conduct, in consideration that it had made him the friend of a nobleman's son, with a possible introduction to Wellington