Page:Herbert Jenkins - Bindle.djvu/197

 "Nonsense!" said Dick Little; "nobody ever refuses asparagus at Bungem's."

Asperges à la Bungem is a dish the memory of which every Oxford man cherishes to the end of his days.

Bindle weakened, and helped himself liberally, a circumstance which he soon regretted.

"How do I eat it?" he enquired of Dick Little in an anxious whisper.

"Watch me," replied Little.

The asparagus was tired and refused to preserve an erect position. Each stem seemed desirous of forming itself into an inverted "U." Little selected a particularly wilted stem and threw his head well back in the position of a man about to be shaved, and lowered the asparagus slowly into his mouth.

Nobody took any particular notice of this, and Little had been very careful to take only two or three stems. To the horror of Graves, Bindle followed Dick Little's lead.

"Funny sort o' stuff, Reggie, ain't it?" said Bindle, resuming an upright position in order to select another stick. "Seems as if yer 'ad to 'ave somebody rubbin' yer while it goes down."

Never in the history of Bungem's had the famous asparagus been so neglected. Everybody was watching alternately Bindle and Graves. Bindle was enjoying himself; but on the face of Graves was painted an anguish so poignant that more than one man present pitied him his ordeal.