Sinister Street by Compton Mackenzie (great books to read TXT) 📕

glad enough to go to bed when I get home, though I always smoke a pipe first. We had two men here once who brought out a paper. Chalfont and Weymouth. I used to have some copies of it somewhere. They put in a lot of skits of the college dons. The Warden was quite annoyed. ‘Most scurrilous, Venables,’ he said to me, I remember. ‘Most scurrilous.’ ” Venner chuckled at the remembrance of the Warden’s indignation.

“This is going to be a very serious affair, Venner,” explained somebody. “It’s going to put the world quite straight again.”

“Ho-ho, I suppose you’re one of these Radicals,” said Venner to the editor. “Dear me, how anyone can be a Radical I can’t understand. I’ve always been a Conservative. We had a Socialist come up here to lecture once in a man’s rooms⁠—a great Radical this man was⁠—Sir Hugh Gaston⁠—a baronet⁠—there’s a funny thing, fancy a Radical baronet. Well, the men got to hear of this Socialist coming up and what do you think they did?” Venner chuckled in anticipatory relish. “Why, they cropped his hair down to nothing. Sir Hugh Gaston was quite upset about it, and when he made a fuss, they cut his hair too, though it was quite short already. There was a terrible rowdy set up then. The men are very much quieter nowadays.”

The door opened as Venables finished his story, and Smithers came in to order rather nervously a tin of biscuits. The familiar frequenters of Venner’s eyed in cold silence his entrance, his blushful wait and his hurried exit.

“That’s a scholar called Smithers,” Venner explained. “He’s a very quiet man. I don’t suppose any of you know him even by sight.”

“We ragged him last term,” said Michael, smiling at his friends.

“He’s a bounder,” declared Avery obstinately.

“He hasn’t much money,” said Venner. “But he’s a very nice fellow. You oughtn’t to rag him. He’s very harmless. Never speaks to anybody. He’ll get a first, I expect, but there, you don’t think anything of that, I know. But the dons do. The Warden often has him to dinner. I shouldn’t rag him any more. He’s a very sensitive fellow. His father’s a carpenter. What a wonderful thing he should have a son come up to St. Mary’s.”

The rebuke was so gently administered that only the momentary silence betrayed its efficacy.

One day Michael brought Alan to be introduced to Venables, and it was a pleasure to see how immediately the old man appreciated Alan.

“Why ever didn’t you come to St. Mary’s?” asked Venner. “Just the place for you. Don’t you find Christ Church a bit large? But they’ve got some very good land. I’ve often done a bit of shooting over the Christ Church farms. The Bursar knows me well. ‘Pleased to see you, Mr. Venables, and I hope you’ll have good sport.’ That’s what he said to me last time I saw him. Oh, he’s a very nice man! Do they still make meringues at your place? I don’t suppose you ever heard the story of the St. Mary’s men who broke into Christ Church. It caused quite a stir at the time. Well, some of our men were very tipsy one night at the Bullingdon wine, and one of them left his handkerchief in the rooms of a Christ Church man, and what do you think they did? Why, when they got back to college, this man said he wasn’t going to bed without his handkerchief. Did you ever hear of such a thing? So they all climbed out of St. Mary’s at about two in the morning and actually climbed into Christ Church. At least they thought it was Christ Church, but it was really Pembroke. Do you know Pembroke? I don’t suppose you’ve even been there. Our men always cheer Pembroke in the Eights⁠—Pemmy, as they call it⁠—because their barge is next to us. But fancy breaking in there at night to look for a handkerchief. They woke up every man in the college, and there was a regular set-to in the quad, and the night porter at Pembroke got a most terrible black eye. The President of the J.C.R. had to send an apology, and it was all put right, but this man who lost his handkerchief, Wilberforce his name was, became a regular nuisance, because for ever afterward, whenever he got drunk, he used to go looking for this old handkerchief. There you see, that’s what comes of going to the Bullingdon wine. Are you a member of the Bullingdon?”

“He’s a cricketer, Venner,” Michael explained.

“So was this fellow Wilberforce who lost his handkerchief, and what do you think? One day when we were playing Winchester⁠—you’re not a Wykehamist, are you?⁠—he came out to bat so drunk that the first ball he hit, he went and ran after it himself. It caused quite a scandal. But you don’t look one of that sort. Will you have a squash and a biscuit? The men like these biscuits very much. There’s been quite a run on them.”

Michael was anxious to know how deep an impression Venner had made on Alan.

“You’ve got nobody like him at the House?” he asked.

Alan was bound to admit there was indeed nobody.

“He’s an extraordinary chap,” said Michael. “He’s always different, and yet he’s always absolutely the same. For me he represents Oxford. When one’s in his company, one feels one’s with him forever, and yet one knows that people who have gone down can feel just the same, and that people who haven’t yet come up will feel just the same. You know, I do really think that what it sets out to do St. Mary’s does better than any other college. And the reason of that is Venner’s. It’s the only successful democracy in the world.”

“I shouldn’t have called it a democracy,” said Alan. “Everybody doesn’t go there.”

“But everybody can go there. It depends entirely on themselves.”

“What about that fellow Smithers you were talking about?” Alan asked. “He seems barred.”

“But he won’t be,” Michael urged hopefully.

“He’d be