i88 " MY KINGDOM FOR A HORSE ! " 



equal success in every other case, and I have utilised it 

 on New Year's Eve ever since. 



Dear old Vicars ! It is wonderful what rage would seize 

 on him if anyone in his rooms attempted to take hold of 

 what we called the barge pole in other words, the pole 

 for closing up his windows or if any other took up one 

 of the round tin covers which used to be brought up after 

 dinner with hot anchovy toast under them, and set the 

 tin rolling down his spiral staircase. These and similar 

 trifles used to lead to awful slaughter of ourselves, and it 

 was always honourably understood that no one should 

 dream of retaliating on Vicars, There is an account in 

 the book Angram* which sufficiently illustrates this : 



Vicars had, as usual, been distinguishing himself. He had made 

 an attack on some visitors to his room by whom he imagined 

 himself affronted, and not content with the usual missiles dis- 

 charged at them as they ran downstairs, he seized bread from 

 off his table where they had been lunching, and pelted them 

 with it as they emerged into the quadrangle below. 



There were many large pieces of this bread, so he was able to 

 discharge a goodly shower. The party below, finding that soda- 

 water bottles were not forthcoming, took heart of grace, picked 

 up the scattered bread and hurled it up again at Vicars in the 

 window. 



He vigorously continued his fire till, ammunition failing him, 

 he actually cast down upon his foe the remnants of a leg of lamb, 

 being struck in the face at the same moment by adroitly aimed 

 bread, now mopped in mud from below. 



Now there was a little window of the Master's House close by 

 Vicars', at right angles with it ; the two windows being in a 

 corner of the Quadrangle. 



Vicars then, in awful wrath, and with mud-bespattered face, 

 was wildly looking round for some more dreadful bolt to project 

 against the mocking throng below, when his raging eye fell upon 

 the Master's window, and, struck as by paralysis, he saw the placid 

 face of the Master, a quiet spectator of the whole proceeding. 



Vicars drew back into his room like one in a trance and 

 ruminated ; the battle raged no more. 



In due course the Messenger arrived. . . . Vicars had to go 



1 Sampson Bros., York. 



