The Secret Chronicles of Henry Dashwood, Vol. 2

'My apologies, old boy, I am well rebuked,' said Charles. Then he chuckled and went on: 'But be a good chap, Henry, and ask her if she has any unattached friends!' I laughed and said: 'Your apology is accepted, my friend. And if you like, I will speak to Miranda and find out the answer to your query but I'm not sure whether you'll strike lucky. In my experience, pretty girls always seem to pair up with less attractive ones.' Charles nodded his agreement and said thoughtfully: 'Yes, I've noticed that too. At first I thought that perhaps the pretty girls did this deliberately to accentuate their beauty, but then one evening my brother Andrew and I were introduced to a brace of girls at a party, one of whom I thought was exquisite and the other, well, I know this will sound unkind but to my eyes she was frankly very plain. 'But Andrew thought the stunning girl rather ugly and found the plain one to be exquisite! And then it dawned on me that rarely will two chaps see the same girl in the same light, because it really is true that one man's meat is another man's – de gustibus non est disputandum.' 'No, there is no accounting for taste,' I agreed. Then we forgot about the other sex and joined in a fierce debate which was taking place between some other undergraduates at the table about the morality of the war in South Africa. 'I'll warrant that Kit Barnes is a pro-Boer,' drawled a tall, nattily-dressed youth with a spotty face. 'If I'm right, I shall let him know what I think of him this afternoon.' 'Quite right, Claude, in any case we all know that the man is an out and out cad,' agreed the fellow sitting next to him. But this only led to fresh outbursts of violent disagreement. Tempers became so hot that a free fight broke out between the spotty youth and his ally and a fair-haired burly chap. Thankfully, Charles cleverly prevented mayhem by smashing a plate on a table leg. The noise immediately distracted the attention of the combatants and Charles shouted: 'Gentlemen! Gentlemen! Remember where you are! This is a University not the public bar in a saloon.' I backed up my friend and called out: 'Free speech for all! For both those against, those who support and those who don't give a fuck about the Boers!' Although the Boer War is an important matter about which I would not normally speak so light-heartedly, I had hoped to cool the situation by making a serious point in a jocular fashion. Indeed, my words succeeded in dousing this over-heated argument, though from the manner in which the two groups snarled at each other whilst they filed out of the dining-hall it bodes ill for a peaceful settlement of this conflict.

Charles and I strode out of the hall and there parted company, he to his rooms to prepare for this afternoon's meeting with Dr Barnes and me to walk briskly back to the Randolph Hotel for my appointment with Miranda. She was waiting for me in the foyer. In the presence of strangers, she greeted me in a suitably chaste fashion by shaking my hand as she said: 'How nice to see you again, Mr. Dashwood.

Are you sure you have enough time to come sight-seeing with me this morning?' 'Of course, Miss Franklin,' I replied for the benefit of anyone else in the vicinity. 'I'm looking forward to our walk tremendously especially as I have yet to see much of the town myself.'

Oxford is an ideal city for the pedestrian and its centre is packed with memorable medieval buildings and other places of interest.

Our first stop was to make a brief visit to the Ashmolean Museum in Beaumont Street, the oldest museum in the country which was rehoused in its imposing building in 1845. Then we ambled down some of the town's prettiest streets past Merton, St Edmund Hall and Exeter colleges until we found ourselves approaching Magdalen, probably the most beautiful college of all, its tower a striking sight for visitors entering Oxford from the south. It is extremely pleasant to saunter through the cloisters, but the chief attraction is the deer park. We strolled through Addison's Walk and over the small bridge into the Fellows' garden where we admired the small ornamental lake.

The autumn sunshine was exceptionally bright and warm for the time of year which made our walk even more agreeable, but we decided that as our time was limited, we would take morning coffee in a nearby cafe and then finish the morning with a trip to see the famous Bodleian Library in Broad Street. We looked at the exquisitely vaulted fifteenth century divinity school which houses some of the library's greatest treasures. On the way out I left Miranda in the quadrangle whilst I went into the gentleman's washroom to relieve myself. I record this trifling fact because on the wall of the urinal some wicked undergraduate had penned the following erudite graffiti: