"Put it down at once, then, and don"t lose any more time about it.
Minshull had never heard of the "Pitt," but I have learnt since I came up that all the best known people belong to it. And I should like to belong to the A.D.C. too."
"I daresay I can manage that for you. I"m on the committee now, and we are always very kind; but, look here, father, there"s not the slightest chance of your belonging to the "Pitt" or the A.D.C. either if you don"t keep yourself in the background at first. And whatever made you knock the stuffing out of your cap like that? It"s only the rowdies whom n.o.body respectable has anything to do with who go in for that sort of thing."
"Minshull told me that if you wore a new cap and gown everybody took you for a smug," said Mr. Binney.
"Minshull"s a fool," said Lucius, with withering scorn. "You"d better take my advice about things like that, not his. And I should buy myself a new cap if I were you."
A few days after, Dizzy gave a dinner. Most of his guests had arrived and were discussing the vagaries of Mr. Binney, who by this time had become a public character, when Blathgowrie arrived in a state of some perturbation.
"I say, you fellows," he said, as he came in. "This business will have to be stopped. I"ve had that little bantam in my rooms since seven o"clock. I"m not going to stand it."
"What did he want?"
"Said he hadn"t seen me in hall, and wondered what had become of me--thought he"d pay me a friendly call."
"What did you do?"
"Well, I was civil for the sake of poor old Lucy. But I didn"t get him out of the room for an hour, and he said he was coming again. Hang me if I ever saw such a pushing little scug."
"Lucy ought to tell him to keep to himself."
"Bless you, _he_ can"t help it," said Dizzy. "He gets his screw docked every time he suggests such a thing."
"Well, I call it a beastly shame. But if Lucius can"t do it, somebody else must."
"I"ll do it," said Blathgowrie. "I"m not shy. He"s bound to turn up again soon; said we were fellow freshmen, or some such rot, and ought to know one another better. He"ll know _me_ better before I"ve done with him. Hush, here"s Lucy."
Mr. Binney was not elected to the "Pitt" Club, and Lucius had not been able to bring himself to propose his name for membership of the A.D.C., preferring to lose the 10 of income which his father knocked off for each rebuff, than to put his colleagues to the awkward necessity of either rejecting his nomination, or of electing his father to clubs where he was not wanted. Nor did his dinner bring about that measure of popularity which Mr. Binney had hoped for. Lucius asked four of his tried friends, who were very polite, very much bored, and retired early. Dizzy might have saved the situation, but Dizzy had gone up to town with an _exeat_. Mr. Binney had by this time joined the Union and spoken twice. He could talk of nothing else and looked forward with confidence to filling the President"s chair.
A few nights afterwards he again invaded Blathgowrie. It was about half-past nine, and that estimable n.o.bleman had a select party of about twelve playing the unallowable game.
There was an abashed silence when little Mr. Binney entered and flung his cap and gown on a chair.
"Good evening, Mr. Binney," said Blathgowrie. "We are engaged in a quiet game of whist. Could you make it convenient to call on another occasion?"
"Don"t mention it, my lord; don"t mention it," said Mr. Binney. "I"ll make myself comfortable and look on. I should like to see whist played. It is a game I am unacquainted with, although I recollect when I was a young fellow Snap and Old Maid used to be favourite games in the family circle."
"They"re favourite games up here," said Blathgowrie, "and so are Hunt the Slipper and Puss in the Corner. We"ll play Puss in the Corner when we"ve finished this, and you shall be poor p.u.s.s.y. What, not going yet, Astley!"
But first one and then another of Blathgowrie"s friends was afraid he must be going, and in ten minutes he was alone with Mr. Binney, putting up the cards with unimpaired cheerfulness.
"I"m very sorry I"ve disturbed your game," said Mr. Binney, whom this wholesale exodus had considerably amazed.
"Not at all, Mr. Binney, not at all. My friends are in the habit of retiring to rest early. They"re all anxious to catch the worm to-morrow, you know."
"Don"t call me Mr. Binney," said Peter; "call me Binney. We"re of the same standing, you know."
"So we are, Binney," acquiesced Blathgowrie. "Well, Binney, how do you find yourself? Pretty well, thank you?"
Mr. Binney began to grow suspicious.
"I hope, sir, I"m not intruding on you," he began.
"Well, Binney," said Blathgowrie, "to tell you the plain truth, you do intrude confoundedly."
Mr. Binney started up out of his chair.
"Pray sit down, Binney," said Blathgowrie. "I am commissioned by my friends and your son"s--Lucy"s, you know--to tell you we consider you"re behaving in a devilish mean and shabby manner to him. He"s done his best for you, you know, but to tell you the truth we don"t care for you, Binney. You"re not quite our sort, you know---a year or two older perhaps--and we really can"t have you poking in your nose where you"re not wanted. There are plenty of nice quiet Johnnies about who"ll be very pleased to make your acquaintance, especially if you feed them well, but speaking for the unworthy people whom you honour with your attentions at present, I beg to inform you that they are declined with thanks."
Mr. Binney arose in his wrath. He was somewhat violent and altogether incoherent. Blathgowrie handed him his cap and gown and opened the door for him.
"Good-night, Binney," he said, "mind the step;" and Mr. Binney disappeared down the staircase.
CHAPTER VII
MR. BINNEY SPEAKS AT THE UNION AND MAKES A DISTINGUISHED ACQUAINTANCE
Mr. Binney went out of Blathgowrie"s lodgings and into the street in a white heat of indignation. His blood boiled within him at the indignity to which he had been subjected. Was it possible that he, Peter Binney, the founder of a great commercial house, the Bloomsbury ratepayer, the almost successful candidate for the London County Council, had been told in so many words by a mere slip of an impudent boy that his society was not wanted by him and his callow friends?
What next! he wondered. As if he cared for their contemptible society!
Pshaw! It was the other way about. If they had had the slightest idea how his name was respected in the City, they would have sung a _very_ different tune. He wouldn"t have their acquaintance now, or join their precious clubs if the committee went down on their bended knees and begged him to do so. He flung into his rooms burning with anger against the whole insolent crew of them, and most of all against his son, Lucius, whom he unjustly accused of being the disloyal cause of his late reverse.
"Ah, Binney, I thocht ye wouldn"t be long, and I"d just wait for ye,"
said a voice with a strong Scotch accent, from the depths of Mr.
Binney"s armchair.
"Oh, that you, M"Gee!" said Mr. Binney. "I"m pleased to see you. But you"ll excuse me for being a little upset. I"ve just undergone a piece of monstrous impertinence from my Lord Blathgowrie, and I scarcely know how to contain my anger."
"Toch!" exclaimed M"Gee. "What for do ye want to mix yourself up with such trash? I"ve come to talk to you about the Union. Sit down, man, and listen."
M"Gee, like Mr. Binney, was a freshman, and like Mr. Binney again, had come up to Cambridge many years later than the average young man enters upon his University course. He was the son of a Highland gillie, and had succeeded with incredible difficulty, as far as money was concerned, in gaining a degree at a Scotch University. But that had not sufficed for him. He was ambitious, and extremely tenacious of ideas. He had early made up his mind to bring his brains to the market of Cambridge, and at Cambridge he accordingly found himself at the age of thirty-seven, with a scholarship at St. John"s College, and nothing else upon which to support himself except his determination to succeed to the highest honours that Cambridge could afford. He had joined the Union with a shrewd and resolute eye to the President"s chair, but the lighter social success which held such a charm from Mr. Binney"s point of view he regarded with the most lofty scorn. Self-contained and self-reliant as he was, however, he was not entirely without a human weakness for sympathy and encouragement in his aims, and had fixed upon Mr. Binney, as one who shared with him some of the accidents of his position, with whom to indulge in the occasional luxury of discussing his ambitions.
"I wouldn"t give a thought to these young "bloods," as they call them,"
said M"Gee. "They"ll be of no use to ye. They make a big splash while they are up here, but when they go down they"re no better than dirt."
Here M"Gee snapped a bony finger and thumb. "I"m no saying that I"d like to be nothing but a worker in Cambridge," he went on. "You keep to yourself for three years and you come out Senior Wrangler at the end of it, and they put your picture in the papers. And then you go down, and what glory do you get from it? There"s aye one way of getting yourself known here, if you"re a man of brains, and that"s at the Union. Go round the rooms and look at the pictures of the Presidents from the beginning. Why, man, there"s not a dozen of them that isn"t known to the world at large. That"s fame. And it"s the sort of fame that"s worth having. Colloguing wi" lords an" that is a puir thing to it."
"You"re right, M"Gee," cried Mr. Binney, springing up, "You"re right.
A lord! What"s a lord and all his hangers-on? Froth! Dregs! Dirt!
as you rightly remark. I won"t have my boy a.s.sociating with such."
"Leave your boy alone," said M"Gee. "He is a boy, and does very well as he is. You and I are men, and we"ll make use of this place which most of them don"t know the value of. Study the questions of the day, give a lot of preparation to your speeches, and speak every time the house sits. Force "em to take account of you and you"ll come out top."
"I will," said Mr. Binney, now greatly excited. "I _can_ come out top if I want to. I know I can. You and I will be carried down to posterity, M"Gee, as two of the greatest Presidents the Union has ever had. To-day"s Monday. To-morrow I speak on the vaccination question.
I don"t take any interest in it, but I"ll get the subject up thoroughly in the meantime, and my speech will surprise them."