"He ith always very thivil," said the little lord, "but I had every reathon to expect a row. Peterth made me a thign to cut and run – but why thould I cut and run? The Bruither is a perthonage in his way – and Thortles loves a perthonage. I was very punctual after Hall – likes you to be punctual, Thortles doth. Thaid he was very thorry to thee me in thuch company. 'Why, thir?' I thaid. Thortles taken aback by that. 'Why thir! do I need to thay why?' 'Yeth thir, pleath,' thaid I, and I waited for an answer. Never thaw a man more done in my life."
"Chortles like a nettle, soft as silk," cried another, losing the thread of his metaphor, "when you face him out."
"It wathn't that," said Scarfield; "it wath theething the kid in his mother'th milk – that's what it was. Very fond of talking to me about my influence and tho forth. 'You tell me, thir,' thaid I, 'to exercise a good influence. Can't do that without knowing men of all thorts, thir, don't you know? Bruither's a very thelect thort. Had a very improving conversation – lotth of information in it. Know his thort quite well now. Able to exercise influence. Just your own line, thir; what you've always thaid – "
"Bravo, Scarfield!" said his intimates, in chorus. "Nobody can manage Chortles like old Scar."
"Laughed and stared a bit, and then thays he, 'If it's from tho high a principle, Scarfield!' – and let me off. Poor old Peterth got it hot after me. You're bound to put it out on thome one when you are a Don."
"I say," said an eager youth, "where can one get anything like that jolly little statue there? I'd give a lot of money for one. I suppose it costs the eyes out of your head."
"It costs personal research and knowledge," said another, "which are more expensive still. There are imitations, however, which I daresay you'd find do just as well."
"Where could one get it, Rushton?" said the young man. "You're not so high and mighty as these other fellows – you'll give a man an answer. I've got rooms as bare as a post, and I must get them fit for a Christian to live in."
"Christian!" said the man at the other side. "Don't go in for that bastard incongruity called Christian art, for goodness' sake: and don't put questions of that sort in Scarfield's rooms. He's what they call an eclectic, don't you know – mixes up styles and things in a way that makes you shudder. A priceless Tanagra there and a heavy-jowelled Botticelli over it – saints and angels, what a mixture! I could show you – "
"A lot of sweepings of the excavations," said John, in the boy's ear.
"Oh, will you, please?" said the lad. He was eager to follow wherever the learned might lead.
"Influence is the great thing," said another, whose name was Sutton. "Give us only a little time and we'll move the world. But nobody half owns the power of it yet. I was speaking to some of those fellows by the river the other day. I told them they didn't see their power. Why, they've got the lever in their hands to upset everything, if they choose! Talk of a House of Lords! I told them they're all hereditary legislators by right of their knotty fists and the sweat of their brows!"
"Let 'em wath it off first," said Scarfield, solemnly, from his chair.
"Why should they wash it off? We must meet the people on their own ground. Would you let a little squeamish prejudice or nicety come between you and the masters of the world?"
"I take a little exception to that," said another. "Why shouldn't they all learn to be gentlemen in their habits? Oxford fellows scattered here and there in every workshop and trades union, and so forth – that is what would do good. I said so to Bristowe up at the People's Palace, as they call it. I said, 'Get a few Oxford men to sit in the reading-room and mix with those fellows.' You would see a transformation in no time."
"We took a lot to Florence, don't you remember, Bailey?" said a third young man; "all excited with what they were going to see: but they were rather puzzled, though, when we got there. We had to talk ourselves hoarse explaining – and I doubt if they were much the wiser."
"Don't say so, Harry! Lady Betty had them out to her villa to tea, and how they did stare and gaze at the landscape – don't you remember? – and then at her, in her shimmering silks, like a lady of King Arthur's court – her face full of expression, and that reminiscent expressiveness in particular, which is the special portion of – "
"Woman is the great mystery after all," said a thoughtful young man.
"The ladies did their best, I must say, out there," said Harry, neglecting this challenge. "But then those fellows expected, don't you know, that it was to be the same in town. We told them it couldn't be just the same, with all a woman's engagements. Nothing much to do in Florence, but a whirl in London – but some of them didn't see it. We told them to come to our rooms and welcome; but after a while they didn't seem to care so much for our rooms. They want social advancement, don't you see – and to make friends there will be of use."
"The Bruither, tho far as I could make out," said Scarfield, "wanths a public-house – thays they all come to public-houthes in the course of time. And that's his ambition – if you like to call it thocial advancement, you can."
"The Bruiser is abnormal," said Bailey. "He's a creation of false needs and false interests, so far as Oxford is concerned. Curiosity to know what such a being is like must have been your motive, Scarfield: for I ask what would the highest illumination and the purest influence do for a man like that – all physical force and brute strength – with an ambition for a public-house: a public-house!"
"I shouldn't mind starting a public-house myself," said Sutton; "fine sphere, if you approach it rightly. Why, you might get the very lives of all these fellows in your hands, and play upon them like an instrument. Get them to drop their beer, don't you know, little by little. I once offered to take the pledge myself if one of them would. And he did – or rather she did, for it was a woman, as it happened. Oh, they're very open to influence! You can get them to do almost anything – for a time."
"Now it is fully established what an Oxford Settlement can do in a poor neighbourhood, we have the game in our own hands," said another. "Give them refined pleasures – that's the thing – and you see how it answers. In Bethnal Green they respond to Brahms and Rubinstein, as none of your smart people do. You see it is virgin soil – they never knew till now what beautiful things were."