Sinister Street, vol. 2

te alarms which no amount of previous deliberation could entirely disperse. He remembered how once he had lightly seen off a Cambridge friend

ter of luggage, writing several times to remind him of his promise not to appear on the platform with more than a portmanteau of moderate size a

pulled up. Michael nodded, and made up his mind t

glected to assure himself beforehand about the etiquette of class, and nothing cou

ave any golf-clubs, did y

he platform in search of Alan, he perceived golf-clubs everywhere, and when

layed golf," said M

overnor's. He's given up

d. He was feeling rather envious of the

a shot," A

you were going to bring

s, until the governor wanged them i

n the compartment, who seemed to be eying him with a puzzled contempt; but very soon, when he perceived that this manner of looking at one's neighbor was general, he became reconciled to the attitude and ascribed it to a habit of mind rather than to the expre

neither of them felt sure enough whether St. Mary's or Chri

you this afternoon?" M

nd they turned away from one

at St. Mary's nothing should drag him forth again that day. What on earth would he say when he arrived at the college? Would he have to announce himself? How would he find his rooms? On these poi

nd face welcomed his luggage. The cabman was paid the double of his correct fare, and to Michael's relief drove off instantly. From a

ne?" rolled out

el no

her Fane?" he

down correct in my list. Mr. C. M. S. Fane," he went on, looking at a piece of paper. "St. Cuthbert's. Four. Two pair right. Your servant is Porcher.

aring to follow him at once, when the unctuous man held up a warning hand

wed Henry under a great gothic gateway, and along a gravel path. In a doorway numbered IV, Henry

" said Henry. "Mr. Fane." Then

in the lodge, si

aid Michael a

ur rooms," Porcher informed him. "

ically aware by a printed notice above a water-tap that no slops must be emptied there.

ou want me, you'll shout, of course. I

he was aware of a loneliness; yet as he once more turned to survey his room, it was a fleeting loneliness which quickly perished in the satisfaction of a privacy that hitherto he had never possessed. He turned into the bedroom, and looked out across the quad, across t

here should he obtain lunch? When should he obtain lunch? Obviously there must be some precise manner of obtaining lunch, some ritual consecrated by generations of St. Mary's men. The loneliness came back triumphant, and plunged him dejectedly down into a surprisingly deep wicker-chair. The fire crackled in the silence, and the problem of lunch remained insoluble. The need for Porcher's advice became more desperate. Other freshmen before him must have depended upon their scout's experience. He began to practice calling Porcher in accents so low that they acquired a tender and reproachful significance. Michael braced himself for the performance after these choked and muffled rehearsals, and went boldly out on to the stone landing.

ared at Michael very deliberately, came forward and, leaning over the parapet, yelled in a voice that combined rage, protest, disappointment and appeal with the maximum of sound: "Porcher!" After which, Templeton-Collins again stared

-hand door Lonsdale. What critical moment had arrived in the unpacking of Lonsdale's wine to make the scout so heedless of Templeton-Col

down there?" the la

unpacking Lo

pleton-Collins. "You might sin

ne hope of relieving the intolerable situation, he thought, which was to shout "Porcher" from

aid Porcher in a

lained, rather lamely he felt, since it must have been obvi

might bring me up a hammer or somethin

chael retreated to the security of his own rooms, where in a

take com

looked p

kes commons. If you want anything extra, you go to th

icult, and Michael gr

e,

had suggested champagne, he w

coal. He expounded the theory of roll-calls and chapels, and was indeed so generous with information on e

staircase?" Michael asked,

Bannerman is second year. Mr. Templeton-Collins had the rooms on the ground floor last term. Very nois

the coach-horn

s to regular delight him. He'd shout the head

shook

t's easier to order it as you want it from

while the voluble service of Porcher, but as he seem

t for a long time he had coveted-Mona Lisa and Primavera and Rembrandt's Knight in Armor and Montegna's St. George. Those other relics of faded and jejune aspirations would label him too definitely. People would see them hanging on his walls and consider him a decadent. Michael did not wish to be labeled in his first term. Oxf

ass and gloom of a seaside lodging: the school-books looked like trippers usurping the gothic grandeur of these shelves. Moreover, the space was eked out with tattered paper editions that with too much room at their disposal collapsed with an appearance of ill-favored intoxication. Michael examined his possessions in critical discontent. They seemed to symbolize the unpleasant crudity of

bout the academic magnificence of Oxford. An undergraduate with gown wrapped carelessly round his neck flashed past on a bicycle, and Michael was discouraged by the sense of his diabolic ease. The luxury of his own rooms, t

the quad. In every doorway stood knots of senior men talking: continually came new arrivals to hail familiarly their friends after the vacation: scouts hurried to and fro with trays of food: from window to window gossip, greetings, appointments were merrily shouted. Michael watched this scene of intimate movement played against the background of elms and gray walls. The golden fume of the

and the perpetual tapping of footsteps, the two dons treading in slow confabulation that wide flagged terrace, even himself were here forever. Michael captured again in that moment the crystallized vision of Oxford which had first been vouchsafed to him long ago by that old print of St. Mary's tower. He turned reluctantly away from Tom quad, and going on to seek Alan in Meadows, by mistake found himself in Peckwater. A tall fair u

that suppressed intellectual excitement which he had counted upon finding in Oxford, but which he had failed

At St. Mary's we drop the 'Mr.' or any other sort of title. Aren't you unpacked yet? You are a slacker. Look here, I

much?" s

conda,

mistake,"

. "What did you have for lunch? I had bread and cheese-commons we call it a

ibitioner,"

re did you get that tea-caddy? I don't believe I've got one. P

olemnly, "where shall I hang t

green frame The

it?" Michael

hat the governor gave me, but I like

hen, thinking Alan looked rather hurt, he added hastily: "You see

gue?" Alan asked, prof

e?" Michae

said Alan gravely. "We make them in the kitche

good deal about Christ Churc

d. "We call it-in fact eve

stinct and slightly affected piece of nomenclature, and he wished he possessed

e House," he urged. "You can't sta

art buying things stra

what I want,"

nded. "I'm not going to

ds of Christ Church in company, of strolling down the High in company, of looking into shop wi

he vendor as in its own way the perfect blend. He bought his cap and his gown and was measured by the tailor for a coat of Harris tweed such as everybody seemed to wear. He found the very autotype of Mona Lisa he coveted, and farther he was persuaded by the picture-dealer to buy for two guineas a signed proof of a small copperplate engraving of the Primavera. This expenditure frightened him from buying any more pictures tha

r to assert his independence in the face of Alan's continuous dissuasion, he bought a hookah, a miniature five-barred gate for a pipe-rack, a

to the café and ate a quantity of hot buttered toast and parti-colored cakes. The only thing that marred their enjoyment and faintly disturbed their equanimity was the entrance of three exquisitely untidy undergraduates who st

e is chock full of

his companions

tea: the brilliant hues of the cakes had paled: the waitress seemed to have beco

alf hoped that Alan would refuse. Dusk was falling, and he was anxi

ing, and Michael left him quickly, p

m within. It was empty save for the owner, a low-voiced man with a thin pointed beard who as he stood there among his books seemed to Michael stran

cynically, Mr. Lampard

round?" Mi

kseller

e up?" he

Michael

of books are yo

ks," sai

thick sea-green cloth and richly stamped with a golden monogram. "Nine volumes. Seven pounds

head and looked am

s," Mr. Lampard went on. "In the early 'nineties

slur upon the generati

How well those solid sea-green volumes would

ished his first volume of poems-of course, you've read his books. He was at St. Mary's. Then there was Mr. Chalfont and Mr. Weymouth. You've heard of The Patchbox? I still have some copies of the first number,

utside in the darkness a footfall echoed along some entry. The sound gave to Michael a

he Pater," he said. "Only I may

kseller

, Straparola, Masuccio, etc. Eleven guineas bound in watered silk. They'll

You might se

making luminous those silken backs of faded blue and green and red and gold, against those silk markers and the consciousness that now at last he was a buyer of books, a buyer whose spirit would haunt that bookshop. He had certainly never regretted the seventeen

to think what in a minute he must face. The list of freshmen, pinned up on the board in the Lodge, was a discouraging document to those isolated members of public schools other, than Eton, Winchester, Harrow or Charterhouse. These four seemed to have produced all but six or seven of the freshmen. Et

able. On the right, sir. Mr. Wedderbu

aced before him. He did not venture to open a conversation with either of his neighbors, but stared instead at the freshman occupying the

a table?" Michael's left-ha

he really d

nd neighbor continued, "is why they've ma

an ass?" Mic

l perceived to be a small round-faced youth, very fair and ver

shook

usin of my mother," said

looked a

ckintosh. What

el to

aircase-so's Mackintosh. It's a pity he's an Harr

table, Lonsdale went on in

t. There are two chaps from my house who are not so bad-in fact rather g

rather a good so

tutor used to like him, but really-well-I do

is other neighbor and said in his jerky and somewhat

t isn't half bad. I don't know whe

rom St.

n earth'

ndo

charity school," said Lonsdale.

ou really fro

lied coldly

me after hall. One or two O. E.'s

t something about St. James'

's that ass Tommy. He always t

and displayed such accomplished sang-froid that Michael

say," he offered, "if you'd like to meet Wedderburn, I'll ask him, too. He seems to have improve

y no

one him no e

. Mr. Fane-Mr. Grainger. I was just saying to Fa

ht," Grainger admitted

onsdale agreed. "This

re was a perceptible relaxation of tension. Still the conversation was only general in so much as that whenever anybody spoke, the rest of the table listened. The moment the flow of his information dried

l have to interview t

ger makes the same speech to the fres

to go head of the

are expected to make a

heese by sending out word to the buttery. It's re

ge a penny for the

gain, when from the second-year tables crashed the sound of a concerted sneeze. The dons from high table looked coldly down the ha

between school and Oxford might

mbarrassment had received the Sub-Warden's permission to rise from dinner; Lonsdale hurriedly marshaled as many of

tions the pleasant young creatures would appear again in house groups, in winning house elevens, and most exquisitely of all in Eton Society. Michael always admired the photographs of Pop, for they seemed to him to epitomize all the traditions of all the public-schools of England, to epitomize them moreover with something of that immortality of captured action expressed by great Athenian sculpture. In comparison with Pop the Harrow Philathletic Society was a barbarous group, with all the self-consciousness of a deliberate archaism. Besides

ry were the glossy new briars, the virgin meerschaum, the patent smoking-tables and another table evidently designed to make drinking easy, but by reason of the complexity of its machinery actually more likely to discourage one forever fro

han making it in a new machine that my sister gave me. It just makes enough for thre

perfluity of Lonsdale's wine were rather premature,

posed to be rather goo

d," several conn

sed to be rather a judge. He said 'this is wasted on you an

ses against the light, took anoth

dale, thereby drawing so much attention to Michael that

ery much," M

e, turning to the freshman who had sat in t

tion for worldly knowledge, and from having been slightly derided at Eton for his artistic ambitions was ever afterward respected and consulted.

be looked at for more than two se

picture?" as

edderburn suggested, and Mic

orse," Lonsdale answe

ll take you to buy one to-morrow,

eed. "Only I don't want my room to

was deflected from Lonsdale's artistic education by a long-legged Wykeh

en into Venner'

g over a perpetually open mouth. "Marjoribanks took me in just b

g-legged Wykehamist with a wise air. "They say one

nner's?" Mi

friendship with Marjoribanks, the President of the Junior Common Room, and therefo

" said Lonsdale quickly. "I

fe protested, and for some minu

ed to wish to make it pleasant for everybody, so long as he himself would not have to admit ignora

ally a club. You aren't elected, but somehow you know just when you can go in without being stared at. Th

conscious of the honor and glory of St. Mary's which they themselves hoped soon to affirm more publicly

eton-Collins,

?" severa

dale lightly, as if that were the most satisfactory description for

Wedderburn sternly. Already from sitting in an armchair at the head of

od?" whispered somebo

y the coach-horn?

to do, although with unanimity they invited

s," shouted Templeton-C

ty, and the long-legged Wykehamist proclaimed delightedly tha

air?" asked another Wykeh

" Sinclai

u always used to be bette

ts love one another,

n present in defiance of all England, and Michael wa

me for a bonner," said Wedderb

" queried

ed freshmen began, but Wedderburn with his accustomed gravit

e large rooms in Cloisters for the 'after Common Room.' People sing and do various parlor tricks. The President of the J. C. R. gives the first 'after' of the term. The others are usually given by three or four men togeth

bedecked ruffians of Lords nor the aggressive boors of Etonian tradition. Harrovians were beginning to suspect that some Etonians might exist less flaccid, less deliberately lackadaisical, less odiously serene than the majority of those they had so far only encountered in summer holidays. Carthusians found that athletic prowess was going to count pleasantly in their favor. Even the Wykehamists extended a cordiality that was

red to these cloistered catechumens as surprising and disconcerting and vaguely improper as a ballet-girl or a French count. At the same time he sympathized with their bewilderment and gave them credit for their attempt not to let him think he confused their social outlook. But the obviously sustained attempt depressed him with a sense of fatigue. After all,

such fanatic modishness that Michael was surprised to see he wore the crude tie of the Old Carth

chool with him?" as

wick?" stammere

hael. "You seem to

sian abruptly, and when Michael nodded, he

ng a bit, I expect,"

e form at Randell's

. Really he thought Avery was almost attractive with his fresh complexion and deep blue eyes and girlish sensitive mouth,

make an ass of myself just now? I mean,

at

ound snobbish?"

ion of petulant self-reproach he wondered how it was possible that once it mattered

to Wedderburn. Do come up to my room some time. I'm in Cloiste

ter. As he reached the corner of Longwall, Tom boomed his final warning, and over the l

them. Michael pondered the freshmen's chatter and apprehended dimly how this magical sublunary city would convert all that effusion of na?ve intolerance to her own renown. He stood still for a moment rapt in an ecstasy of submission to this austere beneficence of stone that s

t breathlessly he turned into the tall glooms of New College Street and Quee

with silver, and the tower tremulous in th

bert's quad. It was pleasant to be greeted by his own name at the entrance of his staircase. It was the greatest contentment he had

rich bindings swished luxuriously. This was how Boccaccio should be read. Michael's mind was filled with the imagination of that gay company, secluded f

hael's bedroom was scented with the breath of the October night. It was too cold to read more than a few sentences of Pater about some sple