Page:Tex; a chapter in the life of Alexander Teixeira de Mattos (IA texchapterinlife00mcke).pdf/74



Ululu!

My eviction took place in the first week of August; and on 3. 8. 17 I wrote to Teixeira:

''I am thinking of moving to Chelsea on Tuesday You may remember a story of Benjamin Jowett in connection with two undergraduates who persisted in staying up at Balliol throughout the Long Vacation. Jowett, by way of gently dislodging them, insisted first that they should attend Chapel daily. The undergraduates grumbled, but obeyed. Jowett, seeing that his first attack had failed, arranged with the kitchen authorities that the food served to these recalcitrant young scholars should be entirely uneatable, and in the course of time their spirit was so much broken that they left him and Balliol in peace. He is reported to have said, as he watched them driving down to the station: "That sort goeth not forth but by prayer and fasting." So with me. I have manfully withstood the stalwart labourers who break walls down all round me throughout the night; but, when the porters are paid off, the maids deprived of their rooms, the hot-water supply disconnected and the gas cut off at the main, I feel that I may retire with dignity and the full honours of war''