The Spike: or, Victoria University College Review, June 1923
IV.—The President of the Stud. Ass
IV.—The President of the Stud. Ass.
I could hear him running up and down the scale in a robust tenor as I approached the door. I stalked the portal warily, and leapt forward to inflict a short rat-tat on the panel in an interval between the fulsome oo-aa-ee's.
Silence reigned.
Then: "Come in," he bellowed, "or stay outside if you'd rather. I'm having a bath."
Vigorous splashing bore testimony to the fact. I applied my mouth to the keyhole and shouted.
"'Spike,'" he answered. "Oh, yes, I've been expecting you all the week. What do you want to know—my opinion of the Arts course or the form of the Sydney football team? Of course, you know, I'm a modest man; I never bath in public, and I haven't led a Community Sing in my life. Yes, it was an unexpected honour they did me, but perhaps not altogether unexpected. I always was a few seconds slow in getting up to decline nomination, something happened to my joints when I was young. But I'll bear up under it, and be absent from Wellington as often as possible. I expect to tour with the "B" rep. team, anyway.
"No, I didn't form any attachments in Australia; or, at least, not more than usual. I delivered no addresses, was sober most of the time, and only once present at a party which didn't disrupt till two in the morning. Naturally, I shan't keep the same hours here; the Wentworth is too far away."
He gave an emphatic denial to the statement that Sydney 'Varsity girls are prettier than those at V.U.C.
"I ask you," he said, "can you expect a man like me, who has always been worshipped by the women, to endanger his reputation by agreeing with a statement like that?"
"I'll tell you this, though," he added brightly, "more of them wear silk stockings."
On the matter of College politics he refused to commit himself.
"I occupy a responsible position now, and have to be careful how I express my views. I can't cling to my old radical opinions and maintain this post with the dignity which is consistent with it. So it' you want my opinion on the Ruhr or the Treaty of Versailles or the Welfare League or any other evils, let me know professionally, and I'll give you a considered one. That will cost you five guineas. Might as well make something out of my LL.B"
We had reached an impasse, for my next question was to have dealt with one of these very things. I shouted a query which was drowned in an uproar from the bathroom. He was practising again.
"Aw-oh-oo!" he bellowed as he pulled the plug and through the mighty roar of released bath-water his voiced soared strong and free. He had just remembered the approaching hour of a singing lesson, and I gave the matter best.