CHAPTER XX 



The Distraction of Madame Angot Patty Laverne Final 

 Schools The Class List A Fellow of All Souls Divinity 

 Examination Late Degrees Vicars and his Class List 

 Sir Charles Dodsworth King Lud's Race for the Alexandra 

 Plate End of the Oxford Period Why moralise about it ? 



MOST of us remember early days better than the 

 later ones, and, be that as it may, I must begin 

 to cut short the last stages of the Oxford time 

 that was the first two terms of 1874, when, partly because 

 I liked my tutor, Dendy, and partly because I had cut 

 adrift from the Balliol dons, I wished to make a final 

 flare-up in jurisprudence. 



Thus it was that serious reading was done, but never 

 after n P.M. At that hour precisely the drinks would be 

 brought up, and even in the middle of a sentence books 

 would be closed I write only of myself. 



Justinian, Hallam, Austin, Grote and goodness knows 

 how many other authorities one dealt with : but Dendy's 

 lectures were a masterpiece, and a real bogey to all 

 examiners. 



The Easter vacation came on, and some of us in 77 George 

 Street, being virtuously resolved to do our best, decided 

 to stay up and read, without going down at all. This was 

 our proposal, and we proceeded to carry it out, but it 

 should be explained that in my time theatrical perform- 

 ances were not allowed at Oxford, except, of course, in 

 vacation, when the sway of the proctors had ceased. 



It happened that in this particular Easter vacation 

 Mrs Liston brought down a very good company to play 

 Madame Angot at the Old Vic., with Patty Laverne as 

 Clairette. We endured this for the first night, but heard 

 so much of the performance the following day that we 

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