Page:Cuthbert Bede--Little Mr Bouncer and Tales of College Life.djvu/84

64 repeat the experiment. He cleared out the medicine bottle, and clapped the Rosolio into it; and then put the physic into the wine bottle, and mixed it up with a stiff dose of jalap. The baker's boy duly came, when no one was about, and had his usual sip at the bottle; for, when Hargrave came back, he found that about half a pint of the true 'mixture-as-before' had disappeared," and that the Rosolio was untouched. The boy did n't appear again for two weeks. Q.E.D. Moral: he never, after that, touched Hargrave's wine, or his physic."

"I thought you were going to say he never smiled again," said Mr. Fosbrooke. "Well; my moral is that of Ingoldsby: Pitch Greek to a certain person, and stick to conundrums. We have done with the old Greeks for a time, and unless we are going in for a class we sha' n't want to meet with them all the Long. I must be off! I daresay I shall see some of you on the top of the Birmingham coach to-morrow. You 'll be there, won't you, Bouncer?"

"No; not this time; I have promised to spend a day or two with old Smalls," replied little Mr. Bouncer. "And then I shall wander home by way of the little village."

"I suppose you 'll be for the coach, Larkyns?" asked Mr. Fosbrooke.

"No; I too am wandering home by way of the little village, as Bouncer says," replied Charles Larkyns.

"London seems the shortest way to everywhere," said Mr. Fosbrooke; "but you 'll go back home by the coach, won't you, Green?"

And, on Verdant replying that he intended to do so, Mr. Fosbrooke said that he had better have breakfast with him before starting; an invitation which Verdant