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 inEngland, and I should be unwilling to offer it to my American readersat this time of day without some plea for leniency towards a youngman's book, which contains perhaps more than the average number ofcrudities to be found in such beginnings. A few of the crudities Ihave been able to soften, but if you begin tampering with early work inthe light of maturer knowledge, you are very apt to rub off the bloomthat attaches to it just because it is early work, written with spiritand 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 trustsome compensating merits.
One merit I know it to possess. It presents a picture of the lighterside of undergraduate life as it was in Oxford and Cambridge, and as itstill exists, in spite of superficial changes; and that is somethingthat 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 ofa 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"
"I'll do it to-day," said Peter Binney.
He had been sitting deep in thought ever since he had climbed on to theomnibus outside his place of business in the Whitechapel Road. As thevehicle pursued its ponderous way through the crowded streets of theCity, stopping now and again to add to its load of homeward-boundbusiness men, Mr. Binne