The Bertrams Read Online Free Page B

should congratulate him. But this was not the worst; some of them were so ill advised as to condole with Wilkinson.
    "Get it over at once," whispered Bertram to him, "and then it will be over, now and forever."
    And then they arrived at Parker's, and therefound all those whom Bertram had named, and many others. Mr. Parker was, it is believed, a pastrycook by trade; but he very commonly dabbled in more piquant luxuries than jam tarts or Bath buns. Men who knew what was what, and who were willing to pay—or to promise to pay—for their knowledge, were in the habit of breakfasting there, and lunching. Now a breakfast or a lunch at Parker's generally meant champagne.
    Harcourt was seated on the table when they got into the back room, and the other men were standing.

    "Sound the timbrels, beat the drums;
    See the conqu'ring hero comes,"

    he sung out as Bertram entered the room. "Make way for the double-first—the hero of the age, gentlemen! I am told that they mean to put up an alabaster statue to him in the Common Room at Trinity. However, I will vote for nothing more expensive than marble."
    "Make it in pie-crust," said Bertram, "and let Parker be the artist."
    "Yes; and we'll celebrate the installation with champagne and paté de foie gras ," said Twisleton.
    "And afterwards devour the object of our idolatry, to show how short-lived is the fame for which we work so hard," said Madden.
    "I should be delighted at such tokens of your regard, gentlemen. Harcourt, you haven't seen Wilkinson."
    Harcourt turned round and shook hands warmly with his other friend. "Upon myword, I did not see you, Master Wilkinson. You have such a habit of hiding yourself under a bushel that one always misses you. Well; so the great day is over, and the great deed done. It's a bore out of the way, trampled under foot and got rid of; that's my idea of a degree."
    Wilkinson merely smiled; but Harcourt saw at once that he was a deeply disappointed man. The barrister, however, was too much a man of the world either to congratulate him or condole with him.
    "There are fewer firsts this year than there have been for the last nine years," said Gerard, thinking to soften the asperity of Wilkinson's position.
    "That may be because the examiners required more, or because the men had less to give," said Madden, forgetting all about Wilkinson.
    "Why, what noodles you are," said Bertram, "not to know that it's all settled by chance at roulette the night before the lists come down! If it's not, it ought to be. The average result would be just as fair. Come, Harcourt, I know that you, with your Temple experiences, won't drink Oxford wine; but your good nature will condescend to see the children feeding. Wilkinson, sit opposite there and give Twisleton some of that pie that he was talking of." And so they sat down to their banquet; and Harcourt, in spite of the refinement which London had doubtless given to his taste, seemed perfectly able to appreciate the flavour of the University vintage.
    "Gentlemen, silence for one moment," saidHarcourt, when the graver work of eating began to lull, and men torpidly peeled their pears, and then cut them up into shapes instead of eating them. "It is always said at all the breakfasts I go to——"
    "This is not a breakfast," said Bertram, "it's a lunch."
    "Well, all the lunches, then; and God bless you. It's always said at these matutinal meals—which, by-the-by, would be the nicest things in the world, only one doesn't know what on earth to do when they're over."
    "It's time to go to dinner then," said Twisleton.
    "That may do for the ' dura ilia ' of a freshman, but now that you're a B.A., you'll find that that power fails you greatly. But, for heaven's sake, let me go on with my speech, or you'll not get away either to dinner or to supper. It is commonly declared, I say, that there should be no speaking at these delicious little morning repasts."
    "Do you call that a little repast?" said Madden, who was lying back in his