CHAPTER XVIII 



Vicars and the Syrup of Ginger The Sacred Barge Pole A Bread 

 Riot The Master objects I select the Jurisprudence 

 Schools Dr Ryott supports my Choice Dendy's Lectures 

 Hunting from Chipping Norton Stuart Wortley and the 

 Large Horse C. C. Rhys and my Grey Mare Silver-tongued 

 Tom Duffield Entertainments in College Slapp's Band 

 Life out of College Dudley Milner Vixen, a Dog Story 



THERE is no need to write much more about this 

 Oxford life, delightful as it was while it lasted. I 

 never gave up boating altogether, and throughout 

 each summer we were constantly going to Sandford and 

 elsewhere. Thus, in an 1871 letter : 



We have been rowing and canoeing all last week from 2 to 7.30 

 P.M., long before which time Vicars had, of course, succumbed 

 to fatigue, and had to be put in a corner of the river and left till 

 we returned. 



Vicars, it must be explained, though of gigantic height, 

 was very fragile and delicate, and it was through him 

 that I discovered how to brew punch that would do no 

 one any harm. Vicars, by advice of his doctor, used to 

 take syrup of ginger after every meal as an aid to diges- 

 tion ; and it happened in those days we used occasionally 

 to brew punch after n P.M. Now this beverage had a 

 disastrous effect on Vicars on each successive morning, 

 and it once occurred to me that syrup of ginger might 

 make it all right for him. The experiment was tried with 

 the most successful result, and to make sure there was 

 no mistake we changed about for several nights. Every 

 morning after punch with syrup of ginger in it he was 

 well, but without the syrup of ginger he felt like death. 

 It was a curious discovery, but I have found it work with 

 187 



