# Little Mr Bouncer and His Friend Verdant Green/Chapter 14

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CHAPTER XIV.
LITTLE MR. BOUNCER HAS HIS ATTENTION DIRECTED TO COACHES AND COACHMEN.
HE two friends, Mr. Verdant Green and little Mr. Bouncer, had bidden each other farewell for a brief season; and the former, mounted on the top of the Warwickshire coach, was quickly lost to the view of the latter, as the horses clattered up the High. In another ten minutes, the spires and towers of the beautiful City of Colleges, shining brightly in the full sunshine of a lovely day in June, were barely visible to the short-sighted gentleman whom Mr. Bouncer had called "Giglamps," although he turned round on the top of the coach, and peeped from behind its mountain of luggage, to get one other glimpse of the spot where he had passed his first happy and eventful term as an Oxford Freshman.
​It was a very pleasant journey to Mr. Verdant Green. When they had got some distance on the road, the coachman gave up the reins to his box-seat passenger, who, from the workmanlike way in which he drove, showed that his sobriquet "Four-in-hand" Fosbrooke had been deservedly earned. When Mr. Fosbrooke had been put down at his destination, Verdant took his place on the box-seat, without, however, (as Mr. Bouncer had suggested), making any proposition to the coachman to allow him to "tool the tits," or "handle the 'ribbons;" which was quite as well, as the professional Jehu would have promptly, and, perhaps, curtly, refused his request. But Verdant made himself agreeable by supplying the coachman with cigars, and attending to his wants of "six of gin, hot," at the various inns where they stopped to change horses. Of course, Verdant smoked his weed as became an Oxford man and a box-seat passenger; and, although he could now perform this feat without a recurrence of those disagreeable sensations that he had experienced at his first wine-party at Mr. Smalls', yet it must be confessed that, on the present occasion, he somewhat exceeded his quantity even of the mildest Havannahs, and was not sorry when the coach pulled up at the cross-roads, where his father's carriage was in waiting to take him to the Manor Green. Having tipped the coachman, who had delighted him by observing that he "was a young gent as had much himproved hisself since he tooled him up to the 'Varsity with his guvnor," and having seen to the transference of his luggage (no longer encased in canvas after the manner of females) from the coach to the carriage, he saw the Warwickshire mail drive away along the dusty road towards Birmingham; and then, turning to the ​Manor Green servant, was on the verge of saying, "I hope my mamma and papa are quite well," when he stopped himself just in time, with the thought that he was now an Oxford man, and altered his query to "All well at home, Jenkins?" They were all well, and how heartily they received him has been recorded by the faithful historian in other pages than these.
Turn we now, for a season, to a record of the sayings and doings of Verdant Green's friend, little Mr. Bouncer.
After the Warwickshire coach, with its freight of Oxford men, had driven away from the Mitre, Mr. Bouncer lingered there some little time longer in company with Mr. Smalls, Charles Larkyns, Pewter Potter, and one or two others who were gathered together in that favourite haunt, the coffee-room. They had considered that bitter beer would be an acceptable refreshment on a hot June morning; and they had, therefore, ordered the waiter to bring them a due supply. It was that same waiter, whose face resembled the interior half of a sliced muffin, who had attended upon Verdant Green and his father when they made their first appearance in Oxford, and had stayed at the Mitre. As he brought in the bitter beer, Charles Larkyns said, "I am somewhat of a connoisseur in art; but, after all, there is nothing that I admire more than this Bass' relief."
"Oh, Charley!" said little Mr. Bouncer, with a groan of anguish; "we will hope that you will do better if you are to do bitters."
The muffin-faced waiter opened the bottles of Bass, emptied their liquid amber into the various glasses, brushed some imaginary crumbs from the table, and ​vanished. The conversation turned upon Mr. Four-in-hand Fosbrooke and his friend the coachman.
"Like Jack Adams, of the Royal Defiance, that man is a bit of a character," said Charles Larkyns, "as are many of his race; more especially those who have
driven University coaches: like, for example, Smith of the Blue Boar, Trinity Street, Cambridge, who drove the Newmarket and Bury St. Edmunds coach that went by the name of the Slow and Dirty. Then, there was the Oxford coachman who had acquired a parrot-like facility for spouting scraps out of the Latin Grammar, for the use, and abuse, of which specimens of the dead language he was known as the Classical Coachman. Many of these old fellows are quaint characters." ​"I was told, the other day," said Mr. Pewter Potter, "a story about old White, who used to drive the Oxford and Cambridge coach, and who, consequently, had many conversations with University men, who asked his opinions on a variety of subjects. He was once asked
by a Cambridge man whether he thought Oxford men more gentlemanly than Cambridge men; and he replied, 'Though you 're going to Cambridge, sir, I 'll tell you truly what I think. I drives an Oxford gent down, and, when he gets to the end of his journey, he says, "Mr. White," he says, "I shall be happy to see you to my ​rooms to wine this evening;" and then he hands me his card with his name printed upon it. Well, I goes at the proper time, and there I finds a many gents seated over various liquors; and Mr. So-and-so points to a chair, and says, "Here 's a seat for you, Mr. White, alongside o' me. Glad to see you, Mr. White. What wine do you take? here 's claret, if you prefer it." So then, perhaps, I has a glass or two o' claret, and helps myself to what I like; and Mr. So-and-so pushes towards me a box o' cigars and a jar o' baccy; and he says, "Take a weed, Mr. White; or, if you prefer it, have a pipe, Mr. White, and I 'll join you." So, then we smoke a pipe or two, and drink perhaps more than a glass or two; and then comes in supper—some hot game, and wiands warious. And Mr. So-and-so insists on helping me first, and says, "What part do you take, Mr. White?" And I says, "Thankee, sir, I'm in noways pertickler." "They 're all here," says he; so I fixes on the liver wing, and he sends it me. Then, after supper, we has a drop of grog, and smokes one or two more pipes; and then I gets up and makes my obeisance to them, and says, "I wish you all a very good night, gentlemen; and I 'm much obleeged to you for your civility." Well, sir, that 's Oxford. I drives a gent to Cambridge; and, perhaps, the gent asks me to look in at his rooms some time that evening, if I likes. So I goes, and I finds a many gents there, also with their liquors. And Mr. So-and-so says, "Well, old buck! I 'm glad to see you. Clap yourself into a cheer somewhere." So I sets myself down, where I can. Then the wine comes round, and I looks at the bottles to see which is which. "Oh, I daresay, old buck, you 'd rather have something hot!" says Mr. So-and-so, and he ​hands out the brandy. So, as I don't like to interfere with the arrangements, I says, "Thankee, sir;" and they has the wine, while I has the brandy. Then they ask me questions about the coaches that I have druv, and about the horses and passengers, and all that. Then says Mr. So-and-so, "You 'd like to smoke a pipe, old buck, I daresay." So I smokes a pipe. Then comes in supper, and hot game and wiands, also warious; and Mr. So-and-so helps 'em all round; and, when he has finished them he says, "Old buck, would you like to pick a bit of pheasant?" Well, sir, that's Cambridge—at least, according to my experience.' So," said Mr. Pewter Potter, as he ended his anecdote, "old White evidently gave the preference to Oxford."
"Old White was a wise man," said little Mr. Bouncer, with a pardonable preference for his own Alma Mater.
Here they were joined by some of the stragglers from the breakfast party that had been given in the room above by Messrs. Bulpit and Smirke; and then they dispersed to their various Colleges, from which, ere the evening had come, they would have gone forth in quest of the pleasures of the Long Vacation.