know what a servitor is."
"Why should I? Do you mean one of our college servitors?"
"Yes?"
"Oh, something in the upper-servant line. I should put him above the porter, and below the cook, and butler. He does the don's dirty work, and gets their broken victuals, and I believe he pays no college fees."
Tom rather drew into himself at this insolent and offhand definition. He was astonished and hurt at the tone of his friend. However, presently, he resolved to go through with it, and began again.
"But servitors are gentlemen, I suppose?"
"A good deal of the cock-tail about them, I should think. But I have not the honor of any acquaintance amongst them."
"At any rate, they are undergraduates, are not they?"
"Yes."
"And may take degrees, just like you or me?"
"They may have all the degrees to themselves, for anything I care. I wish they would let one pay a servitor for passing little-go for one. It would be deuced comfortable. I wonder it don't strike the dons, now; they might get clever beggars for servitors, and farm them, and so make loads of tin."
"But, Drysdale, seriously, why should you talk like that? If they can take all the degrees we can, and are, in fact, just what we are, undergraduates, I can't see why they're not as likely to be gentlemen as we. It can surely make no difference, their being poor men?"
"It must make them devilish uncomfortable," said the incorrigible payer of double fees, getting up to light his cigar.
"The name ought to carry respect here, at any rate. The Black Prince was an Oxford man, and he thought the noblest motto he could take was, 'Ich dien,' I serve."
"If he were here now, he would change it for 'Je paye.'"
"I often wish you would tell me what you really and truly think, Drysdale."
"My dear fellow I am telling you what I do really think. Whatever the Black Prince might be pleased to observe if he were here, I stick to my motto. I tell you the thing to be able to do here at Oxford is – to pay."
"I don't believe it."
"I knew you wouldn't."
"I don't believe you do either."
"I do, though. But what makes you so curious about servitors?"
"Why, I made friends with Hardy, one of our servitors. He is such a fine fellow!"
I am sorry to relate that it cost Tom an effort to say this to Drysdale, but he despised himself that it was so.
"You should have told me so, before you began to pump me," said Drysdale. "However, I partly suspected something of the sort. You've a good bit of a Quixote in you. But really, Brown," he added, seeing Tom redden and look angry, "I'm sorry if what I said pained you. I daresay this friend of yours is a gentleman, and all you say."
"He is more of a gentleman by a long way than most of the-"
"Gentlemen commoners, you were going to say. Don't crane at such a small fence on my account. I will put it in another way for you. He can't be a greater snob than many of them."
"Well, but why do you live with them so much, then?"
"Why? because they happen to do the things I like doing, and live up here as I like to live. I like hunting and driving, and drawing badgers, and playing cards, and good wine and cigars. They hunt and drive, and keep dogs and good cellars, and will play unlimited loo or Van John as long as I please."
"But I know you get very sick of all that often, for I've heard you say as much half-a-dozen times in the little time I've been here."
"Why, you don't want to deny me the Briton's privilege of grumbling, do you?" said Drysdale, as he flung his legs up on the sofa, crossing one over the other as he lounged on his back – his favorite attitude; "but suppose I am getting tired of it all – which I am not – what do you purpose as a substitute?"
"Take to boating. I know you could be in the first boat if you liked; I heard them say so at Smith's wine the other night."
"But what's to prevent my getting just as tired of that? Besides, it's such a grind. And then there's the bore of changing all one's habits."
"Yes, but it's such splendid hard work," said Tom, who was bent on making a convert of his friend.
"Just so; and that's just what I don't want; the 'books and work and healthful play' line don't suit my complaint. No, as my uncle says, 'a young fellow must sow his wild oats,' and Oxford seems a place especially set apart by Providence for that operation."
In all the wild range of accepted British maxims there is none, take it for all in all, more thoroughly abominable than this one, as to the sowing of wild oats. Look at it on what side you will, and you can make nothing but a devil's maxim of it. What a man – be he young, old, or middle-aged – sows, that, and nothing else shall he reap. The one only thing to do with wild oats, is to put them carefully into the hottest part of the fire, and get them burnt to dust, every seed of them. If you sow them no matter in what ground, up they will come, with long tough roots like couch grass, and luxuriant stalks and leaves, as sure as there is a sun in heaven – a crop which it turns one's heart cold to think of. The devil, too, whose special crop they are, will see that they thrive, and you, and nobody else, will have to reap them; and no common reaping will get them out of the soil, which must be dug down deep again and again. Well for you if with all your care you can make the ground sweet again by your dying day. "Boys will be boys" is not much better, but that has a true side to it; but this encouragement to the sowing of wild oats, is simply devilish, for it means that a young man is to give way to the temptations and follow the lusts of his age. What are we to do with the wild oats of manhood and old age – with ambition, over-reaching the false weights, hardness, suspicion, avarice – if the wild oats of youth are to be sown, and not burnt? What possible distinction can be drawn between them? If we may sow the one, why not the other?
But to get back to our story. Tom went away from Drysdale's rooms that night (after they had sorted all the tackle, which was to accompany the fishing expedition, to their satisfaction) in a disturbed state of mind. He was very much annoyed at Drysdale's way of talking, because he was getting to like the man. He was surprised and angry at being driven more and more to the conclusion that the worship of the golden calf was verily and indeed rampant in Oxford – side by side, no doubt, with much that was manly and noble, but tainting more or less the whole life of the place. In fact, what annoyed him most was, the consciousness that he himself was becoming an idolater. For he couldn't help admitting that he felt much more comfortable when standing in the quadrangles or strolling in the High Street with Drysdale in his velvet cap, and silk gown, and faultless get-up, than when doing the same things with Hardy in his faded old gown, shabby loose overcoat, and well-worn trousers. He wouldn't have had Hardy suspect the fact for all he was worth, and hoped to get over the feeling soon; but there it was unmistakably. He wondered whether Hardy had ever felt anything of the kind himself.
Nevertheless, these thoughts did not hinder him from sleeping soundly, or from getting up an hour earlier than usual to go and see Drysdale start on his expedition.
Accordingly, he was in Drysdale's rooms next morning betimes, and assisted at the early breakfast which was going on there. Blake was the only other man present. He was going with Drysdale, and entrusted Tom with a message to Miller and the Captain, that he could not
