Mr. Slowcoach was within, and would see Mr. Verdant Green. So that
young gentleman, trembling with agitation, and feeling as though he
would have given pounds for the staircase to have been as high as
that of Babel, followed the servant upstairs, and left his father, in
almost as great a state of nervousness, pacing the quad below. But
it was not the formidable affair, nor was Mr. Slowcoach the
formidable man, that Mr. Verdant Green had anticipated; and by the
time that he had turned a piece of ~Spectator~ into Latin, our hero
had somewhat recovered his usual equanimity of mind and serenity of
expression: and the construing of half a dozen lines of Livy and
Homer, and the answering of a few questions, was a mere form; for Mr.
Slowcoach's long practice enabled him to see in a very few minutes if
the freshman before him (however nervous he might be) had the usual
average of abilities, and was up to the business of lectures. So Mr.
Verdant Green was soon dismissed, and returned to his father radiant
and happy.
[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 41]
CHAPTER V.
MR. VERDANT GREEN MATRICULATES, AND MAKES A SENSATION.
AS they went out at the gate, they inquired of the porter for Mr.
Title: Cast Adrift
Author: T. S. Arthur
Release Date: October, 2003 [Etext #4592]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on February 12, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
The Project Gutenberg Etext of Cast Adrift
by T. S. Arthur
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Charles Larkyns, but they found that he had not yet returned from the
friend's house where he had been during the vacation; whereupon Mr.
Green said that they
would go and look at the Oxford
lions, so that he might be able to answer any of the questions that
should be put to him on his return. They soon found a guide, one of
those wonderful people to which show-places give birth, and of whom
Oxford can boast a very goodly average; and under this gentleman's
guidance Mr. Verdant Green made his first acquaintance with the fair
outside of his Alma Mater.
The short, thick stick of the guide served to direct attention to the
various objects he enumerated in his rapid career: "This here's
Christ Church College," he said, as he trotted them down St Aldate's,
"built by Card'nal Hoolsy four underd feet long and the famous Tom
Tower as tolls wun underd and wun hevery night that being the number
of stoodents on the
[42 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]
foundation;" and thus the guide went on, perfectly independent of the
artificial trammels of punctuation, and not particular whether his
hearers understood him or not: that was not ~his~ business. And as
it was that gentleman's boast that he "could do the alls, collidges,
and principal hedifices in a nour and a naff," it could not be
expected but that Mr. Green should take back to Warwickshire
otherwise than a slightly confused impression of Oxford.