Red Paint at Oxford Sketches by Anonymous (AKA Pish

Author:Anonymous (AKA Pish [Pish, Anonymous (AKA]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-09-04T22:00:00+00:00

‘We are not ladies, but all the identical we cannot without female society be,’ he remarked in an injured tone and hustled us rapidly on to the passage at the further end of the promenade, where a uniformed official gave us tickets outside the big bar.

This was a scene of indescribable confusion, and as we entered two porters came forward leading between them a well-known member of the Cambridge team. He was very talkative, but his eloquence did not appear to move his captors in the least degree, possibly because none of his remarks were at all intelligible. After them there followed several more Cambridge blues and an elderly gentleman with a bucolic face who appeared to be very irate. The procession passed us with some speed, but we subsequently found the talkative Cantab singing a song on the floor of another bar, and discovered that this was due to the influence of the bucolic gentleman who was an old ’Varsity man and a legal luminary of very great brilliancy.

The front of the bar itself was hidden by two lines of ’Varsity men, nearly all asking for different things but all at the same time. However, I soon found a suitable inlet, and all was going well with us when one of the fair nymphs behind the bar unfortunately shot von Graussman in the nose with a lemonade or soda cork, producing an entirely unexpected effect.

The German fell into the lap of a lady sitting close behind exclaiming ‘Ach? I vos mortified.’ Her cloak covered his head for a moment, but extricating himself he tendered her his admission-ticket, and begged her in very broken English to let him out of the cloak-room. To his impassioned appeal she replied very volubly in German, and an affecting scene ensued when he fell upon her neck, and loudly claimed her as his long-lost mother. Within the space of two minutes a large and noisy crowd had gathered round, and were hoarsely cheering, so it was some time before Verimisti and I could push our way through. When we did get to the front, the lady was assuring von Graussman in a penetrating whisper, that though she was not his mother, she was willing to be his wife.

Von Graussman, whose impressionable heart was once captured in Buda Pesth and only redeemed at considerable expense, sheered off immediately, and confidentially informed us afterwards that ‘she vos a dam dangerous woman.’

Having made a vain attempt to approach the bar again, we fought our way back to the promenade, and discovered that ‘Mephisto’ was about to loop the loop. As everyone was anxious to see this, we regained our box, which we found crowded to suffocation, and by standing on chairs at the back got a view of the exciting item. Freddy, who having leant against the electric bell and ordered drinks round, had gone away and forgotten to pay, could not be found; so Verimisti shelled out, and after drinking his health, we moved out again.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.