Porterhouse Blue Read Free

asserted himself. There was nothing they could do now. He had risked the stamping feet and the hisses and they had not come but now, with the snow falling round him on the Fellows’ lawn, he was suddenly afraid. He hurried on and closed the door of the Master’s Lodge with a sigh of relief.
    As the hall emptied and as even the Fellows drifted through the door of the Combination Room, the Chaplain rose to say Grace. Deaf to the world and the blasphemies of Sir Godber, the Chaplain gave thanks. Only Skullion, standing alone in the Musicians’ Gallery, heard him and his face was dark with anger.

2
    In the Combination Room the Fellows digested the Feast dyspeptically. Sitting in their high-backed chairs, each with an occasional table on which stood coffee cups and glasses of brandy, they stared belligerently into the fire. Gusts of wind in the chimney blew eddies of smoke into the room to mingle with the blue cirrus of their cigars. Above their heads grotesque animals pursued in plaster evidently plastered nymphs across a pastoral landscape strangely formal, in which flowers and the College crest, a Bull Rampant, alternated, while from the panelled walls glowered the gross portraits of Thomas Wilkins, Master 1618–39, and Dr Cox, 1702–40. Even the fireplace, itself surrounded by an arabesque of astonishing grapes and well-endowed bananas, suggested excess and added an extra touch of flatulence to the scene. But if the Fellows found difficulty in coming to terms with the contents of their stomachs, the contents of Sir Godber’s speech were wholly indigestible.
    ‘Outrageous,’ said the Dean, discreetly combining protest with eructation. ‘One might have imagined he was addressing an electoral meeting.’
    ‘It was certainly a very inauspicious start,’ said theSenior Tutor. ‘One would have expected a greater regard for tradition. When all is said and done we are an old college.’
    ‘All may have been said, though I doubt your optimism,’ said the Dean, ‘but it has certainly not been done. The Master’s infatuation with contemporary fashions of opinion may lead him to suppose that we are flattered by his presence. It is an illusion the scourings of party politics too naturally assume. I for one am unimpressed.’
    ‘I must admit that I find his nomination most curious,’ said the Praelector. ‘One wonders what the Prime Minister had in mind.’
    ‘The Government’s majority is not a substantial one,’ said the Senior Tutor. ‘I should imagine he was ridding himself of a liability. If this evening’s lamentable speech was anything to go by, Sir Godber’s statements in the Commons must have raised a good many hackles on the back benches. Besides, his record of achievement is not an enviable one.’
    ‘It still seems odd to me,’ said the Praelector, ‘that we should have been chosen for his retirement.’
    ‘Perhaps his bark is worse than his bite,’ said the Bursar hopefully.
    ‘Bite?’ shouted the Chaplain. ‘But I’ve only just finished dinner. Not another morsel, thank you all the same.’
    ‘One must assume that it was a case of any port in a storm,’ said the Dean.
    The Chaplain looked appalled.
    ‘Port?’ he screamed. ‘After brandy? I can’t think what this place is coming to.’ He shuddered and promptly fell asleep again.
    ‘I can’t think what the Chaplain is coming to, come to that,’ said the Praelector sadly. ‘He gets worse by the day.’
    ‘Anno domini,’ said the Dean, ‘anno domini, I’m afraid.’
    ‘Not a particularly happy expression, Dean,’ said the Senior Tutor, who still retained some vestiges of a classical education, ‘in the circumstances.’
    The Dean looked at him lividly. He disliked the Senior Tutor and found his allusions distinctly trying.
    ‘The year of our Lord,’ the Senior Tutor explained. ‘I have the notion that our Master sees himself in the role of the creator. We shall have our work cut out preventing him from overexerting himself. We