Page:Hornung - Fathers of Men.djvu/54

 chief haunt was the courtyard of the Mitre, and whom the boys in the quad saluted familiarly as "Mulberry." And that here was yet another instance of the appropriate nickname, a glance was enough to show, for never did richer hue or bigger nose deface the human countenance.

The trespasser was only slightly but quite humorously drunk, and the fellows in the quad formed a not unappreciative audience of the type of entertainment to be expected from a being in that precise condition. Mulberry, however, was not an ordinary stable sot; it was obvious that he had seen better days. He had ragged tags of Latin on the tip of a somewhat treacherous tongue: he inquired quite tenderly after the binominal theorem, but ascribed an unpleasant expression correctly enough to a lapsus linguae.

"I say, Mulberry, you are a swell!"

"We give you full marks for that, Mulberry!"

"My dear young friends," quoth Mulberry, "I knew Latin before any of you young devils knew the light."

"Draw it mild, Mulberry!"

"I wish you'd give us a construe before second school!"

Jan remembered all his days the stray strange picture of the debauched intruder in the middle of the sunlit quad, with the figures of young and wholesome life standing aloof from him in good-natured contempt, and more fresh faces at the ivy-mantled study windows. Jan happened to be standing nearest Mulberry, and to catch a bloodshot eye as it flickered over his audience in a comprehensive wink.

"You bet I wasn't always a groom," said Mulberry; "an' if I had ha' been, there are worse places than the stables, ain't there, young fellow?"

Jan looked as though he only wished the ground