And certainly all felt that, for one who had easily borne off the palm in all his university contests, this examination could be no more than a quaint scholastic formality. Else indeed it had been an insult for the winner of Craven and Brackenbury to be cross-examined in the lamentably late Greek of Peter and Paul. And everyone looked forward to the party which was to follow the ordeal. Breakfast was hardly over, but already they could hear Mrs. Grimaldi, eager to show her mettle, cluttering busily about her tiny Carolean scullery, and already the most seductive odours of mayonnaise and cucumber salad were floating gradually upwards.
Six o’clock came, and before the eyes of friends and family and many unknown admirers, Gaveston faced his examiners.
“Your papers on the Gospels were excellent, Mr. ffoulis,” said their spokesman, a former Bishop of Tristan da Cunha obliged to retire for his toleration of ritualistic practices in Outer Polynesia. “And on the Acts also. But there is one little point which--hm--I should like you to elucidate for us. That is--hm--what is your, shall I say?--authority for the statement that Festus and Felix are the same person?”
For a moment Gaveston paused, as if thoroughly weighing the significance of his answer.
“Renan,” he replied firmly. “Ernest Renan. Good afternoon, gentlemen.”
And lo! he was gone before the bewildered examiners had recovered from the appalling shock. Only the ex-Bishop of Tristan da Cunha, long inured to the wildest heresies, kept his head. Over the confused sound of protesting voices his stern tones were only too audible.
“You have failed to satisfy the examiners, Mr. ffoulis.”
[Illustration: “RENAN,” HE REPLIED FIRMLY]
Gaveston ffoulis had failed in Divvers! Was it possible? There was an uproar. Mongo, seated with the privileged spectators, had difficulty in preventing Lady Julia from making a personal appeal to the examiners, and David was similarly engaged with Lady Blandula.
But, meanwhile, Gaveston himself was strolling back to Malmaison Lodge, with the glow of conscious triumph all over his distinguished features.…
Seven o’clock also came. But it was a desolate company that sate them down to the toothsome viands and victuals which Mrs. Grimaldi, all unwitting of the catastrophe, had prepared. Conversation was faltering in the extreme, and all Mongo’s talk of the successes of Newdigate and Postlethwaite fell on empty air--who could forget that these triumphs were all obfuscated by the disaster of that evening. The party, so long anticipated as the social event of the Oxford year, limped along until at last the iced melon was removed.