|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 95
"Come on," said Dicky, "you'd better steady your nerves," and treated
him liberally to ginger-beer and currant buns; but we were not allowed
to see the encounter, which Mr. Jarvis Portheris, gratefully satiate,
assured us must be conducted on strict lines of etiquette, with formal
preliminaries. He was so very young, and obviously knew so little about
what he was doing, that we questioned him with some delicacy, but we
discovered that the practice had no parallel, as Dicky put it, for lack
of incident. It was accompanied in some cases by the writing of poetry,
"German poetry, of course," said Mrs. Portheris's nephew ineffably, but
even that was more likely to be exhibited as evidence of the writer's
fervid state of mind than to be sent to its object, who plaited her
hair and attended to her domestic duties as if nobody were in the street
but the fishmonger. In Mr. Jarvis Portheris's case he did not know the
colour of her eyes, or the number of her years; he had selected her, it
seemed, at a venture, in church, from a rear view, sitting; and had
never seen her since. Dicky, whose predilections of this sort have
always been very active, asked him seriously why he adhered to such a
hollow mockery, and he said regretfully that a fellow more or less had
to; it was one of the beastly nuisances of being educated abroad. But
from what we saw of the German temperament generally we were convinced
that as a native demonstration it was sincere, and that its idiocy arose
only, as Dicky expressed it, from the remarkable lack in foreigners of
business capacity.
We all congratulated ourselves on seeing Heidelberg while the University
was in session, and we could observe the large fat students in flat blue
and pink and green club caps, swaggering about the town accompanied by
dogs of almost equal importance. The largest and fattest, I thought,
wore white caps, and, though Mr. Jarvis Portheris said that white was
the most aristocratic club's colour, they looked remarkably like bakers.
The Senator had an object in Heidelberg, as he had in so many places,
and that object was to investigate the practice of duelling, which
everybody understands to prevail to a deadly extent among the students.
It was plain from their appearance that personal assault at all events
was regrettably common, for nearly everyone of them wore traces of it
in their faces, wore them as if they were particularly becoming. Every
variety of scar that could well be imagined was represented, some
healed, some healing, and some freshly gory. The youth with the most
scars, we observed, gave himself the most airs, and the really
vainglorious were, more or less, obscured in cotton-wool, evidently just
from the hands of the surgeon. The Senator examined them individually as
they passed, with an inquisitiveness which they plainly enjoyed, and was
much impressed with their fighting qualities as a race, until Mr. Jarvis
Portheris happened to explain that the scars were very carefully given
and received with an almost exclusive view to personal adornment. Mr.
Mafferton appeared to have known this before; but that was an irritating
way he had--none of the rest of us did. The Senator regarded the next
youth he met, who had elongated his mouth to run up into his ear without
adding in the least to his charms of appearance, with barely disguised
contempt, and when Mr. Jarvis Portheris proceeded to explain how the
doctors pulled open the cuts if they promised to heal without leaving
any sign of valour, poppa's impatience with the noble army of duellists
grew so great that he could hardly remain in Heidelberg till the train
was ready to take him away.
"But don't they ever by _accident_ do themselves any harm?" inquired my
disappointed parent.
"There's one case on record," said Mr. Jarvis Portheris, "and everybody
here says it's true. One fellow that was fighting happened to have a
dog, and the dog was allowed in. Well, the other fellow, by accident,
sliced off the end of the fellow that had the dog's nose--I don't mean
the dog's nose, you know, but the fellow's. That was going a bit far,
you know; they don't generally go so far. Well, the doctor said that
would be all right, they could easily make it grow on again; but when
they looked for the nose--_the dog had eaten it!_ They never allow dogs
in now."
It was a simple little story, and it bore marks of unmistakable age and
many aliases, but it did much to reconcile the Senator to the University
student of Heidelberg, and especially to his dog.
CHAPTER XXVI.
Emmeline had childlike lapses; she rejoiced greatly, for instance, at
seeing a Strasbourg stork. She confessed, when she saw it, to having
read Hans Andersen when she was a little girl, and was happy in the
resemblance of the tall chimneys he stood on, and the high-pitched red
roofs he surveyed, to the pictures she remembered. But, for that matter,
so were we all. We had an hour and a half at Strasbourg, and we drove,
of course, to the Cathedral; but it was the stork that we saw, and that
each of us privately considered the really valuable impression. He stood
beside his nest with his chin sunk in his neck, looking immensely lucky
and wise, and one quite agreed with Emmeline that it must be lovely to
live under him.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|