430 TOM RAFFLES. 



of pea-hens. Frequent and energetic were the doctor's attempts to 

 put down the annoyance. When he first remonstrated, Tom said it 

 was quite a casual thing, and laid all his guilt upon the milk-punch. 

 No amendment, however, taking place, he inflicted extra chapels 

 upon him ; Tom bore the penances with the patience of a recruit at. 

 drill. He confined him to hall Tom ate his dinner there every 

 day for a week with as much stoicism as a fox-hunting member at- 

 tends to his duties in parliament. He forbade him the gates Tom 

 endured the restraint with the resignation of a tethered bull. Tom 

 used to vow that the master would never beat him, inasmuch as he 

 had not discovered his weak point. f< If," said Tom, " he was to set 

 me a hundred lines of Homer, I believe I should be forced to com- 

 pound, by abandoning milk-punch for ever." But Tom was wrong 

 for a bright thought struck the master at last he went to the foun- 

 tain-head of the offence, and issued orders to the college butler that 

 Tom and milk-punch henceforth should be strangers. 



Tom did not hear of this dreadful edict until his next casualty, 

 when, on sending his gyp * to the buttery for the usual supply of the 

 nectar, that Monmouth-street-looking functionary returned with the 

 dismal intelligence that the butter was placed under an interdict ! 

 Long was the face which Tom pulled ; but it relaxed in a moment 

 into an expression of comical determination, which spoke at once of 

 frolic and revenge. He placed the liquor bottles on the table ; told 

 his friends to " go on/' and retired into his bed-room. In ten mi- 

 nutes he returned with the hand-basin and jug full of foaming new 

 milk. He had crept through his bed-room window (which was on 

 the ground-floor) into the master's paddock, and milked his cow! 

 The punch was soon made ; and great was the glee and glory of the 

 sinners over it. Tom insisted that he had found out the true alma 

 mater at last; and that, if ever he arrived at the dignity of vice- 

 chancellor, he would no longer permit the university to be indecently 

 symbolized by a young woman with bare and teeming breasts, * but 

 substitute for her the sober figure of the master's old cow. There 

 was the usual uproar and rattle of course ; and the master, in spite of 

 his having locked up the evil spirit in the buttery, was disturbed 

 that night by the same strange noises, as he had been many, many 

 nights before. 



Tom's triumph, however, was of short duration. The next morn- 

 ing, as he sat at breakfast, one of those gentle single taps was heard 

 at the door, which are given only by college menials and washer- 

 women. " Come in !" and enter the porter, with the master's com- 

 pliments for Mr. Raffle's attendance at the lodge. As such a sum- 

 mons was very common, for having been short at chapel, or cut gates 

 after twelve, and many other nothings of which Tom never kept any 

 personal account, he slipped on his gown, and proceeded to the lodge 

 with as much composure as if he was going to take his conge for the 

 term. On entering the library the master addressed him with what 



* A college drudge. 



-f- The official symbol of the university is a woman as here described, with 

 the fan in one hand, and a goblet in the other. 



