CHAPTER X

"THE NEW COURT CHRONICLE"

Mr. Binney embarked on his second term at Cambridge with the full intention of acquitting himself with credit and freeing his character from the suspicion of unruliness which had unfortunately become attached to it. He was very much in earnest about his work, and mapped out a course of arduous study which was to be continued right up to the following June, when he hoped to make up for his first failure by taking a high cla.s.s in both parts of the Little-go. The Union he was determined to let severely alone. His pride had had a severe rebuff from the indignity which had been put upon him in the elections. "They can do without _me_," said Mr. Binney to his fellow-aspirant, M'Gee.

"Very well, then, I will show them that I can do without _them_."

"Toch! man, have another try," said the indomitable M'Gee. "Rome wasn't built in a day." But he said it without enthusiasm, for the path to success, according to his ideas, did not lie through the follies and extravagances to which Mr. Binney had treated his audience during the previous term.

"I shall never speak at the Union again, M'Gee," said Mr. Binney firmly. And he kept his word.

He was a little troubled as to what course he should adopt with Howden and the rest of his athletic friends. He did not want to drop them altogether, but he wanted to make it clearly understood that the open restaurant which he had previously conducted for their benefit was now closed, and he had a suspicion that its closing might mean the discontinuance of their favour, and a consequent loss of prestige to himself. He gave a dinner on the second evening of the term, or perhaps it would be more correct to say that Howden, who professed himself delighted to meet his old friend once more after five weeks'

absence, gave it for him in his rooms, and Mr. Binney paid the bill.

It was quite as noisy as any that had gone before it, but Mr. Binney did not add to the gaiety. He made a speech in the course of the evening--he was rather fond of making speeches--in which he informed his friends that he was about to embark on a severe course of study and found he would not be able to have the pleasure of entertaining them quite so often as before on account of the time that was thrown away over these festivities. What he said was cheered to the echo, which gratified him not a little, but Howden, who followed him, did not appear to have taken his remarks in the least seriously, and a.s.sured him in a voice broken with emotion, that they would all stick by him and never forsake him. This was not quite what Mr. Binney wanted, but Howden's affecting periods caused such an outburst of enthusiasm that he succ.u.mbed to the general goodwill and allowed the matter to stand over for the present.

On the next afternoon, however, it was decided for him. He was sitting over his books for an hour before hall when he received a call from Mirrilees, the Captain of the First Trinity Boat Club. Mirrilees was an acquaintance of whom Mr. Binney might reasonably have been proud if he had ever shown the slightest wish to have anything to do with our hero apart from his official position as captain of the boat club to which Mr. Binney belonged. He was tall and well set up, a really fine oar and a thoroughly good fellow in the best sense of that misused term. He was not everybody's friend, even in the exceedingly tolerant atmosphere of undergraduate Cambridge, and athletes of the type of Howden disliked him, and said so freely; but Mr. Binney had kept his own opinion on this point, and if there was one man in Cambridge whom he respected with all the force of the hero-worship which was a part of his still undeveloped character, it was Mirrilees. He therefore rose to his feet, and showed by his nervousness of manner that he fully appreciated the honour done to him.

Mirrilees sat down on the sofa and refused the proffered suggestion of refreshment. His keen eyes glanced round the room and then rested on Mr. Binney.

"I told you last term," he said, "that we might want you to steer the first Lent boat. You're a light weight and you've got a head on your shoulders. At least you haven't lost it yet on the river, although you seem to have done so occasionally elsewhere."

What Mr. Binney suffered at that instant in the way of remorse is beyond description. This was a very different thing to Mr. Rimington's strictures on his conduct. He made no reply, but hung his head.

"Now I've come to offer you the place----" Mr. Binney revived a little--"but on certain conditions. I am not going to have the c.o.x of any boat I've got anything to do with making himself more ridiculous than he is by nature. We shall be laughed at, of course, for having a man of your age in the boats at all. I don't mind that as long as that's all there is to laugh at. What I'm not going to stand is your making yourself the b.u.t.t and crony of every drunken rowdy in Cambridge.

I say what I've got to say perfectly straight as captain of the club to one of its members who may turn out useful to it. If you lay it to heart and don't take offence I shall have done what I wanted to do. If you don't like such plain speaking, say so, and I'll clear out, and we need never speak to one another again."

Mr. Binney's choler had shown signs of rising during this very plain and unvarnished statement of the light in which Mirrilees regarded him, but the hint with which the address had closed brought it down again.

"I don't take offence," he said slowly, "though I'm not used to--to----"

"Well, perhaps I put it a bit too strong," said Mirrilees, "but if I were you I shouldn't have anything more to do with Howden and that lot.

I hear that they were all here last night again as usual, and that's why I'm talking to you now. They're only sponging on you and making you appear a fool all the time. If you steer the first Lent boat this term--and mind, though I make no promises, that's intended to mean the first May boat _next_ term--you'll have to train with the rest, and that will mean knocking off all these diversions; and you'll find plenty of good chaps in the boat club without running after footballers, amongst whom you can't exactly expect to shine."

"I'm very grateful to you, Mirrilees, for your kind advice," said Mr.

Binney. "I shall certainly take it, and you may rely upon me to do my best for the honour of the club."

"That's all right then," said Mirrilees, rising. "Walters is captain of your boat, as you know, but I thought I'd just come round and settle things up. Good-night!"

Outside in the darkness of Jesus Lane, Mirrilees smiled continuously.

"Good Lord!" he said to himself. "Fancy talking like that to the father of one of your pals! But it was the only way, and I thought he'd stand it somehow. I rather fancy I've done Lucy a good turn. But I hope he'll never know."

He left Mr. Binney in a fervour of amended ambitions. What a grand thing it would be to have a friend like Mirrilees, a man whom most people turned round to look at if they pa.s.sed him in the street, a man who had already rowed two years in the University boat and would probably row two years more before he left Cambridge, a man whose name was known all over England. Why, it was almost as good as knowing Muttlebury or Guy Nickalls. Lucius knew him, of course, lucky young beggar. He wondered whether it was worth while making another attempt to make acquaintances through his son, but the memory of Blathgowrie and others deterred him, for Lucius's friends were not all Mirrilees's, and he made up his mind to deserve the great man's favour by a brilliant career as a c.o.x, and extreme carefulness as to his behaviour both on the river and away from it.

And so for the best part of that term Mr. Binney's behaviour was irreproachable. He never missed a lecture or an appointment with his Coach, and the amount of work he got through in the privacy of his rooms was little short of marvellous. He was on the river, of course, every afternoon, and suffered greatly from the exposure to the cold as he sat in his narrow seat, fumbling with numbed hands at the rudder lines, and was carried swiftly along by the combined exertions of the eight stalwart men who faced him. His appearance always caused some merriment on the tow-path, and the town urchins were a great trial to him with their coa.r.s.e banter, but the men of the First Trinity Boat Club, as a rule, treated him with the respect due to his years, and, if they did show a slight disinclination to walk up from the boats with him, or to admit him into very close intimacy with them, he made up his mind to bear the deprivation, trusting that it would disappear in time, rather than fall again into the mistake he had made in trying to force himself upon Blathgowrie and his friends. As for Howden, there was not so much trouble with him as Mr. Binney had expected. For one thing, he played Rugby football regularly for the University, and, although no such arduous course of training is expected from a football player as is necessary in the case of an oarsman, still a continuous course of hilarious dinners is not regarded with favour by those in authority, and Howden did not apply so often as before for sustenance at Mr.

Binney's table. Mr. Binney also conceived the idea of employing Howden himself to keep his friends off him. He got him to talk about his financial troubles one morning, a subject which he had before instinctively avoided. Howden was nothing loth, and poured out a dismal tale of debts and duns. Mr. Binney then afforded him temporary pecuniary relief, and asked, as a favour, that Howden should inform his friends that he, Mr. Binney, was very busy this term and would not be able to see quite so much of them as before. Howden accepted the responsibility, and discharged it satisfactorily, and Mr. Binney was left in peace to carry out his reformation.

But, alas! the old proverb still holds true: "Give a dog a bad name and hang him." Mr. Binney was now an exemplary character, but n.o.body would believe it. When his guests left his rooms after the evening already alluded to, they got into trouble with the Proctors. It was the usual offence of smoking in cap and gown, but Howden added to it by running away from avenging justice. Neither Proctor nor Bull-dogs could hope to equal him at that game, so they made no attempt to enter into compet.i.tion, but entered up his name, which was perfectly familiar to all three of them, instead. So the only thing Howden got by his little sprint was the exercise, which he did not require, and a double fine the next morning, which he could ill afford to pay. His escapade also came to the ears of his tutor, Mr. Rimington. He would not have taken notice of such a comparatively slight offence, if such offences had not been of frequent occurrence with Howden. As it was, he sent for him and talked to him, and then it came out that Howden had been dining with Mr. Binney. It will be remembered that Mr. Rimington had expostulated with Mr. Binney on the last day of the previous term, and this occurrence had taken place on the second day of the present term.

Mr. Rimington may therefore be excused for coming to the conclusion that his expostulations had had very little effect, and that Mr. Binney was proceeding on the reckless career which had made him such a nuisance to those responsible for the order of the college. He said nothing on this occasion, but continued to regard Mr. Binney with feelings of strong disfavour.

Mr. Binney might have lived down his reputation in time had it not been artificially sustained for him by the journal to which we have already referred, the _New Court Chronicle_. The editor of that enterprising publication had found that Mr. Binney's eccentricities made very good copy for him in the previous term, and confidently looked forward to keeping up his circulation by exploiting our hero to a considerable extent as long as his paper should continue to run. He had had an altercation with Lucius one night in the Great Court upon one of those occasions when two factions meet and mutually disagree, and although, or probably because, he had been in the wrong, the editor of the _New Court Chronicle_ bore Lucius a grudge and was not above paying it off by ridiculing his father. He had also been one of the band whom Howden had frequently invited to partake of Mr. Binney's hospitality, with which he had made so free that Mr. Binney had decided that in his case at least he would give the cold shoulder himself and not entrust the work entirely to Howden. The journalistic gentleman had not taken this very kindly, and a flavour of malice had crept into his witticisms, where before there had only been good-humoured chaff. As Mr. Binney gave him very little occasion now for humorous writing, he allowed himself a freer hand, and invented stories against him instead of merely repeating them.

In order to provide a fitting framework for his humour, he published each week a correspondence between Mr. Binney in Cambridge and an imaginary mother in London, in which the former recounted his exploits, and the latter commented upon them. The idea was carried out with some humour and proved to be an acceptable feature of the paper.

Unfortunately the editor had hit upon the name of "Martha" for Mr.

Binney's supposed mother, and her letters were not so unlike Mrs.

Higginbotham's in style as quite to relieve Mr. Binney of the suspicion that the story of his wooing of that good woman had reached Cambridge.

The only two people who could possibly be suspected of divulging it were Lucius and Dizzy, and after the issue of the first instalment he went angrily round to his son's rooms to see if the offence could be brought home to him. Lucius was out, but seated comfortably in his armchair and smoking one of his cigars was Dizzy, who must have been the culprit, if Lucius were not, thought Mr. Binney.

"Ah, Mr. Binney, pleased to see you again," said Dizzy genially. "How are you feeling! Pretty toll-lollish?"

"No, Stubbs, I am not feeling particularly 'toll-lollish' just at present--I thank you all the same," said Mr. Binney severely. "I don't know whether this publication has come to your notice yet?" Mr. Binney put a copy of the _New Court Chronicle_ on the table, which Dizzy took up and glanced through with interest.

"It ain't bad," he said, "though it's got up by a set of rotters.

Hullo, what's this--something about you, Mr. Binney, eh?"

"Yes, sir," said Mr. Binney angrily, "and a most scurrilous piece of work it is. My dear mother, sir, has lain in her grave these twenty years. It is a scandalous thing that contempt should be poured on her memory in this indecent fashion."

"It is," said Dizzy warmly. "A most preposterous thing! I quite agree with you. These fellows ought to be kicked, every one of them. And if they treated my old mater in that way I'd--I'd pay somebody to do it."

"But that is not all, sir," continued Mr. Binney. "I don't know whether you recollect meeting a lady of the name of Higginbotham at my table?"

"Mrs. Higginbotham!" exclaimed Dizzy. "Why, of course I do. And a most engaging old lady she was too. Don't know when I've met a nicer."

"I'm obliged for your good opinion sir," said Mr. Binney stiffly, "although I confess the idea of Mrs. Higginbotham as an _old_ lady is a new one to me. You are probably aware that her Christian name is Martha."

"First I've heard of it," said Dizzy, "but it's an excellent name. I had an old aunt called Martha, and I thought she was going to leave me a lot of money; but she didn't."

"You are _sure_ that you didn't know that Mrs. Higginbotham's name was Martha?" asked Mr. Binney suspiciously.

"'Pon my word I hadn't the slightest idea of it, Mr. Binney," said Dizzy. "I shouldn't have had a word to say if you'd told me it was Mary. But why do you ask?"

"Never mind," said Mr. Binney. "If you give me your word of honour as a gentleman that the fact is new to you, I accept your a.s.surance, and there let the matter end. Here is Lucius. I should like to have a word alone with him, if you will permit me, Stubbs."

"Certainly," said the obliging Dizzy, rising instantly. "Come round and give me a look in presently, Lucy. I'll take another of those weeds of yours if I may."

When he had got outside, Mr. Binney turned to his son, with, "Now, sir, what is the meaning of this?"

Lucius glanced at the paper to which his father pointed.

"Oh, I've read the rubbish," he said wearily. "It makes me sick."

"Read it," said Mr. Binney. "Yes, I've no doubt you've read it, sir.

What I should like to know is how much you wrote of it."

"I don't know what you mean," said Lucius. "I've had quite enough mud thrown at me since you've been up here, father. It isn't likely I should take to throwing it at myself."

"Don't prevaricate, sir," said Mr. Binney, his voice rising. "Did you write it, or did you not?"