PETER BINNEY
A NOVEL
BY
ARCHIBALD MARSHALL
NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1921
PUBLISHED 1921 IN U. S. A. BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC.
First Printing, September, 1921 Second Printing, October, 1921 Third Printing, December, 1921 Fourth Printing, January, 1922
PRINTED IN THE USA BY The Quinn & Boden Company BOOK MANUFACTURERS RAHWAY NEW JERSEY
TO E. F. BENSON
INTRODUCTION
It is over twenty years since "Peter Binney" was first published in England, and I should be unwilling to offer it to my American readers at this time of day without some plea for leniency towards a young man's book, which contains perhaps more than the average number of crudities to be found in such beginnings. A few of the crudities I have been able to soften, but if you begin tampering with early work in the light of maturer knowledge, you are very apt to rub off the bloom that attaches to it just because it is early work, written with spirit and freshness, though with little skill. So I have left "Peter Binney" much as it was, with most of its imperfections on its head, and I trust some compensating merits.
One merit I know it to possess. It presents a picture of the lighter side of undergraduate life as it was in Oxford and Cambridge, and as it still exists, in spite of superficial changes; and that is something that can only be done by a young man, whose memories are still fresh, and to whom that life is still important enough to make it the basis of a story.
New York, July, 1921
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I Mr. Binney Makes Up His Mind II Mr. Binney Interviews One Tutor, and Engages Another III Lucius Wins a Year's Respite IV No Help To Be Gained from Mrs. Higginbotham V Mr. Binney Arrives in Cambridge VI Lord Blathgowrie Has Something to Say VII Mr. Binney Speaks at the Union And Makes a Distinguished Acquaintance VIII The Newnham Girl IX Mr. Binney Gives a Dinner and Receives a Rebuff X "The New Court Chronicle" XI "Put Him in the Fountain" XII Lucius Makes One Discovery and Mrs. Toller Another XIII Mr. Binney Gets into Trouble XIV Nemesis XV Lucius Finds a Backwater XVI Third Trinity Makes a Bump XVII Mr. Binney Drinks the Health of a "Blue"
CHAPTER I
MR. BINNEY MAKES UP HIS MIND
"I'll do it to-day," said Peter Binney.
He had been sitting deep in thought ever since he had climbed on to the omnibus outside his place of business in the Whitechapel Road. As the vehicle pursued its ponderous way through the crowded streets of the City, stopping now and again to add to its load of homeward-bound business men, Mr. Binney sat in his seat, silent and preoccupied, his eyes on the ground and a thoughtful frown on his face. As it left the Post Office, full inside and out, and bowled smartly along the broad asphalted road towards the Viaduct, his face cleared, the light of determination shone in his eye, and looking up, he said aloud:—
"I'll do it to-day."
His fellow passengers gazed at him in surprise, and a young lady who sat by his side, heavily fringed and feathered, and laden with a huge cardboard box, laughed a coarse laugh, and said:
"That's right, guv'nor, don't you put it off no longer."
Mr. Binney had not intended to express his determination aloud, and the notice his remark had drawn annoyed him. As the young lady was apparently turning over in her mind further witticisms, he decided to leave the omnibus and walk the rest of the way to his house in Russell Square. He made his way slowly down the unsteady stairs, and the young lady said:
"A good cup o' beef tea's what you want, George, and don't forgit the 'ot-water bottle," and as the omnibus pursued its way, leaving him walking briskly along the pavement, she leant over the side and called out, "Git Mariar to put a mustard plaster on yer chest," which made the people on the omnibus laugh, although Mr. Binney could see no humour in the remark.
He had come, however, to such a momentous decision during the last half-hour that by the time he had gone a dozen steps he had ceased to feel any irritation at the young lady's pleasantries, and walked smartly along, his brain all on fire with his mighty purpose.
Peter Binney was a small man of about forty-five years of age. His hair was gingery, and his whiskers decidedly red. He looked rather like a little bantam-cock as he strutted along, and this was a curious coincidence, for he had made his fortune by selling poultry food.
Every one has heard of Binney's Food for Poultry. Indeed it would be quite impossible for anybody who is able to read to be unaware of its existence, for its fame is blazoned on every hoarding in the United Kingdom. It was Peter Binney who first conceived the idea of advancing the cause of art and advertising his wares at the same time. In the early days, when the future world-famed business was just emerging from its chrysalis state of a little cornchandler's shop in the neighbourhood of the East India Docks, he was content to publish a picture of a simpering young woman in a quilted satin petticoat and dancing shoes, feeding a number of plethoric hens in a very clean farmyard. But when the shop became a factory and Mr. Binney's keen business capacity began to tell, he issued his celebrated series of "Raphael's Cartoons for the Home," across the sky of each of which ran the inscription, "Binney's Food for Poultry." After a little time he published an edition of the "Plays of Shakespeare," in which all the passages that Mr. Bowdler would have omitted were ingeniously converted by Mr. Binney into eulogies on his Food for Poultry. Poultry and taste were alike fed by Mr. Binney, and his business flourished accordingly. At the age of forty-five he found himself a rich man, with a house in Russell Square, a family tomb in Kensal Green Cemetery (tenanted at present only by his wife), and a son who was being educated at Eton.
But to return to the present time and Mr. Binney's purpose. When he had let himself into the house in Russell Square, he rang the bell and inquired of the parlour-maid who answered it if Mr. Lucius was at home. Hearing that he was not, Mr. Binney seemed somewhat relieved, and went straight up into his dressing-room, where he put on the coat and trousers generally reserved for Sunday wear, and exchanged his dark tie for a brilliant red one. Then he looked at his boots, and hesitated. They were neat enough, but they had lost the sober brilliance of the morning. There was a row of similar boots freshly blacked under the dressing-table, but even these must have wanted something in Mr. Binney's eyes, for after looking at them thoughtfully he shook his head, and opening the door stole quietly out and upstairs into a room above his own. It was rather an untidy room and evidently occupied by a young man of athletic tastes, to judge by the dumb-bells and Indian clubs, cricket-bats, guncases and fishing-rods that littered the corners. There was a row of boots and shoes under the dressing-table here too, and among them a pair of shining patent leathers. Mr. Binney made his way across the room on tiptoe, and seizing the boots, trees and all, retreated with them hurriedly to his own room, where he sat down and put them on. They were a good deal too big, but an extra pair of winter socks set that right, and when Mr. Binney had buttoned them he stood up on a chair and surveyed himself in the glass with considerable satisfaction. "I must get a pair like that," he said. Then he went downstairs, and putting on his best hat and gloves, and taking his best umbrella out of the stand, he left the house.
Turning to the left, Mr. Binney made his way towards Woburn Square. If he had looked the other way as he came out of his house he would have seen his son Lucius coming towards him not fifty yards off. Lucius was very unlike his father. He was a good-looking boy of about eighteen, tall and slim, with blue eyes and a pleasant smiling mouth fringed with a few fair downy hairs, of which he always spoke collectively. He was very popular among his school-fellows, and was commonly known by the name of "Lucy."
"Halloa!" he said to himself as he caught sight of his father coming down the steps of the parental mansion. "Where's the governor off to, I wonder! Looks jolly smart, too. S'pose he's going to call on that old woman. Jove! he's got a pair of shiny boots on. I say, governor, you're going it! They're a bit too big for you though, my boy. Shall I give him a hail? Think I won't. He might want me to go and call on the old tabby with him."
