I always rather thought myself that Rice might pull it off, being Irish and a great fighter by nature. Unfortunately, he didn’t know anything whatever about poetry; yet his fighting instinct made him enter, and though he wasn’t likely to rhyme very well, or look after the scanning and the feet and the spondees and dactyls, and all that mess, which, no doubt, would count, yet I hoped that, for simple warlike dash, Rice might bring it off. I asked him about it, and he said a good many things had gone wrong with it, but here and there were bits that might save it.
"I believe I shall either win the guinea right bang off, or get flogged." Which interested me fearfully, but didn’t surprise me, because it was rather the way with Rice to rush at a thing head-long and come out top--or bottom. He only really kept cool and patient and never ran risks when he was fighting; but at everything else, which he considered less important, he just dashed. He had dashed at the prize poem--very different from Tracey, who was always cool about everything, and wouldn’t have gone to the Front himself for a thousand pounds. Tracey was great at satire--in fact, satire was a natural gift with him--and though, of course, it didn’t always come off, owing to being so satirical that nobody saw it, still he often did get in a nasty one; and sometimes got licked for doing so.
He told me his prize poem was all pure satire, and I said:
"I doubt if the Doctor or Peacock will see it."
"I can’t help that. Poetry is art, and I can’t alter my great feeling for satire to please them. It will come out; and even though old Dunston and Peacock don’t see it, I know jolly well the Kaiser and the Crown Prince would, if they read it."
Well, there it was, and that was about the lot worth mentioning who had a shot at Mr. Peacock’s guinea. The calendar month passed, and one day, when classes began, the Doctor appeared, supported by Peacock, Fortescue, and Brown.
Everybody was summoned into the chapel, and the Doctor, who dearly likes a flare-up of this kind, told us that the prize poems had been judged and were going to be read.
"I may tell you," he said, "that the prize has been won, contrary to my fear that none would prove worthy of it. But we are agreed that there is a copy of verses on the solemn subject set for discussion that disgraces neither the writer nor Merivale. Indeed, I will go further than that, and declare that one poem reflects no small credit on the youthful poet responsible for it; and Mr. Peacock and Mr. Fortescue, than whom you shall find no more acute and critical judges, share my own pleasure at the effusion."