NEWS OF THE GOLD BAT


Shoeblossom sat disconsolately on the table in the senior day-room. He
was not happy in exile. Brewing in the senior day-room was a mere
vulgar brawl, lacking all the refining influences of the study. You had
to fight for a place at the fire, and when you had got it 'twas not
always easy to keep it, and there was no privacy, and the fellows were
always bear-fighting, so that it was impossible to read a book quietly
for ten consecutive minutes without some ass heaving a cushion at you
or turning out the gas. Altogether Shoeblossom yearned for the peace of
his study, and wished earnestly that Mr Seymour would withdraw the
order of banishment. It was the not being able to read that he objected
to chiefly. In place of brewing, the ex-proprietors of studies five,
six, and seven now made a practice of going to the school shop. It was
more expensive and not nearly so comfortable--there is a romance about
a study brew which you can never get anywhere else--but it served, and
it was not on this score that he grumbled most. What he hated was
having to live in a bear-garden. For Shoeblossom was a man of moods.
Give him two or three congenial spirits to back him up, and he would
lead the revels with the _abandon_ of a Mr Bultitude (after his
return to his original form). But he liked to choose his accomplices,
and the gay sparks of the senior day-room did not appeal to him. They
were not intellectual enough. In his lucid intervals, he was accustomed
to be almost abnormally solemn and respectable. When not promoting some
unholy rag, Shoeblossom resembled an elderly gentleman of studious
habits. He liked to sit in a comfortable chair and read a book. It was
the impossibility of doing this in the senior day-room that led him to
try and think of some other haven where he might rest. Had it been