where you dines, sir, leastways when you ain't 'AEger,' or elseweer.
That at the top is the lantern, sir, ~that~ is; called so because it
never has no candle in it. The chapel's the hopposite side, sir.
-Please not to walk on the grass, sir; there's a fine agen it, unless
you're a Master. This way if ~you~ please, gentlemen!" Thus the
scout beguiled them, as he led them to an open doorway with a large 4
painted over it; inside was a door on either hand, while a coal-bin
displayed its black face from under a staircase that rose immediately
before them. Up this they went, following the scout (who had
vanished for a moment with the boots and beer), and when they had
passed the first floor they found the ascent by no means easy to the
body, or pleasant to the sight. The once white-washed walls were
coated with the uncleansed dust of the three past terms; and where
the plaster had not been chipped off by flying porter-bottles, or the
heels of Wellington boots, its surface had afforded an irresistible
temptation to those imaginative undergraduates who displayed their
artistic genius in candle-smoke cartoons of the heads of the
University, and other popular and unpopular characters. All Mr.
Green's caution, as he crept up the
[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 37]
dark, twisting staircase, could not prevent him from crushing his hat
against the low, cobwebbed ceiling, and he gave vent to a very strong
Bride of the Mistletoe
THE BRIDE OF THE MISTLETOE
BY
JAMES LANE ALLEN
AUTHOR OF "FLUTE AND VIOLIN," "A KENTUCKY CARDINAL," "AFTERMATH," ETC.
TO ONE WHO KNOWS
Je crois que pour produire il ne faut pas trop raissoner. Mais il
faut regarder beaucoup et songer a ce qu'on a vu. Voir: tout est la,
et voir juste. J'entends, par voir juste, voir avec ses propres yeux
et non avec ceux des maitres. L'originalite d'un artiste s'indique
d'abord dans les petites choses et non dans les grandes.
Il faut trouver aux choses une signification qui n'a pas encore
decouverte et tacher de l'exprimer d'une facon personelle.
but quiet anathema, which glided quietly and audibly into the remark,
"Confounded awkward staircase, I think!"
"Just what Mr. Bouncer says," replied the scout, "although he don't
reach so high as you, sir; but he ~do~ say, sir, when he, comes home
pleasant at night from some wine-party, that it ~is~ the aukardest
staircase as was ever put before a gentleman's
legs. And
he ~did~ go so far, sir, as to ask the Master, if it wouldn't be
better to have a staircase as would go up of hisself, and take the
gentlemen up with it, like one as they has at some public show in
London - the Call-and-see-em, I think he said."
"The Colosseum, probably," suggested Mr. Green. "And what did Dr.
Portman say to that, pray?"
"Why he said, sir, - leastways so Mr. Bouncer reported, - that it
worn't by no means a bad idea, and that p'raps Mr. Bouncer'd find
it done in six months' time, when he come back again from the
country. For you see, sir, Mr. Bouncer had made hisself so pleasant,
that he'd been and got the porter out o' bed, and corked his face
dreadful; and then, sir, he'd been and got a Hinn-board from
somewhere out of the town, and hung it on the Master's private door;
so that when they went to early chapel in the morning, they read as
how the Master was 'licensed to sell beer by retail,' and 'to be drunk
