Page:Tex; a chapter in the life of Alexander Teixeira de Mattos (IA texchapterinlife00mcke).pdf/113



the House Gaudy but before leaving I may find a moment to report my movements.

Teixeira comments:

(I have heard of the House Beautiful but never of the House Gaudy. Now don't be a British snob but answer like a little Irish gentleman, as I should answer if you asked me what "acht-*en-tachtig Achtergracht" mean in Dutch. Of course, working it out in the light of my own intelligence, I feel that, if "House" is an Oxford sobriquet for Christ Church and "gaudy" Oxford slang for a merrymaking of sorts, you ought to have suppressed that capital G and written "the House gaudy," in distinction from the Balliol gaudy, the Magdalen gaudy, etc.

You are not a Hottentot (Loud cheers), but you are as fond of capital letters as a Hottentot is of glass beads.

I'm feeling rather full of beans to-day (as you perceive.)

The improvement was visibly maintained in his letter of 25. 6. 20:

''Thanks for your two letters of the 23rd and 24th instant postum. Don't start; instant postum is the ridiculous name of the toothsome bev-*''