"Make it in pie-crust," said Bertram, "and let Parker be the artist."
"Yes; and we'll celebrate the installation with champagne and _paté de foie gras_," said Twisleton.
"And afterwards devour the object of our idolatry, to show how short-lived is the fame for which we work so hard," said Madden.
"I should be delighted at such tokens of your regard, gentlemen. Harcourt, you haven't seen Wilkinson."
Harcourt turned round and shook hands warmly with his other friend. "Upon my word, I did not see you, Master Wilkinson. You have such a habit of hiding yourself under a bushel that one always misses you. Well; so the great day is over, and the great deed done. It's a bore out of the way, trampled under foot and got rid of; that's my idea of a degree."
Wilkinson merely smiled; but Harcourt saw at once that he was a deeply-disappointed man. The barrister, however, was too much a man of the world either to congratulate him or condole with him.
"There are fewer firsts this year than there have been for the last nine years," said Gerard, thinking to soften the asperity of Wilkinson's position.
"That may be because the examiners required more, or because the men had less to give," said Madden, forgetting all about Wilkinson.
"Why, what noodles you are," said Bertram, "not to know that it's all settled by chance at roulette the night before the lists come down! If it's not, it ought to be. The average result would be just as fair. Come, Harcourt, I know that you, with your Temple experiences, won't drink Oxford wine; but your good nature will condescend to see the children feeding. Wilkinson, sit opposite there and give Twisleton some of that pie that he was talking of." And so they sat down to their banquet; and Harcourt, in spite of the refinement which London had doubtless given to his taste, seemed perfectly able to appreciate the flavour of the University vintage.
"Gentlemen, silence for one moment," said Harcourt, when the graver work of eating began to lull, and men torpidly peeled their pears, and then cut them up into shapes instead of eating them. "It is always said at all the breakfasts I go to--"
"This is not a breakfast," said Bertram, "it's a lunch."
"Well, all the lunches, then; and God bless you. It's always said at these matutinal meals--which, by-the-by, would be the nicest things in the world, only one doesn't know what on earth to do when they're over."