Page:Cuthbert Bede--Little Mr Bouncer and Tales of College Life.djvu/64

44 ever since Mrs. Tester used it in showing me how to make tea. I told Robert to get it mended; but I suppose that he forgot to do so."

"His memory would be safe to be bad on that point," observed little Mr. Bouncer. "It's an amiable weakness of his."

"So," continued Verdant, "as I found that I got through my tea very rapidly, I shut up the tea-chest in my cupboard. But Mrs. Tester said that the cupboard must be dusted; so I let her dust it; but when I looked in the chest all the tea was gone."

"I suppose that she had dusted that also," interpolated Charles Larkyns; "without leaving you even the tea-dust."

"I thought it better to mention it to Mrs. Tester, and asked her if she knew anything about it. She said, oh, yes! she had taken it, because 'gentlemen in general liked their tea-chestes to be cleared out, so that they might begin afresh next Term.' Is that the case?" asked Mr. Verdant Green.

"Well, I expect it is—with Freshmen," replied Charles Larkyns; "but you will be able to begin afresh next Term, old fellow, without being a Freshman; and you can then be quits with old Mother Tester, and wide awake to her pickings and stealings. Has she got much brandy out of you lately, eh, Verdant?"

"Not much," replied that goodnatured gentleman. "Her spasms began to be somewhat of a bore; for, she was always attacked by them whenever she found me alone in the room; and as I did not like to refuse her request to ease them with three drops of brandy on a lump of sugar—which was the remedy that she was accustomed to take whenever she was suffering from