“Ah, Bursar, so good of you to come,” said the Master, rising from his chair behind the large oak desk that stood in front of the fire. “Some madeira? Or would you prefer something a little more contemporary?” The Master chuckled. “A campari, for instance. Something to keep the cold out.” In the background the radiators gurgled gently. The Bursar considered the question.
“I think something contemporary would be fitting. Master,” he said at last.
“So do I, Bursar, so I do indeed,” said the Master, and poured the drinks.
“Now then,” he said when the Bursar had seated himself in an armchair, “to business.”
“To business,” said the Bursar raising his glass in the mistaken belief that a toast had been proposed. The Master eyed him cautiously.
“Yes. Well,” he said, “I’ve asked you here this morning to discuss the College finances. I understand from the Praelector that you and I share responsibility in this matter. Correct me if I am wrong?”
“Quite right. Master,” said the Bursar.
“But of course as Bursar you are the real power. I quite appreciate that,” the Master continued. “I have no desire to impinge upon your authority in these matters, let me assure you of that.” He smiled genially on the Bursar.
“My purpose in asking you here this morning was to reassure you that the changes I spoke of last night were of a purely general nature. I seek no alterations in the administration of the College.”
“Quite,” said the Bursar, nodding with approval. “I entirely agree.”
“So good of you to say so, Bursar,” said the Master. “I had the impression that my little sally had a not altogether unmixed reception from the less… er… contemporary Senior Fellows.”
“We are a very traditional college, Master,” said the Bursar.
“Yes, so we are, but some of us, I suspect, are rather less traditional than others, eh, Bursar?”
“I think it’s fair to say so. Master,” the Bursar assented.
Like two elderly dogs they circled warily in search of the odour of agreement, sniffing each hesitation for the nuance of complicity. Change was inevitable. Indeed, indeed. The old order. Quite so. Quite so. Those of us in authority. Ah yes. Ah yes. On the mantelpiece the alabaster clock ticked on. It was an hour before the preliminary skirmishes were done and with a second, larger campari Sir Godber relaxed the role of Master.
“It’s the sheer animality of so many of our undergraduates I object to,” he told the Bursar.
“We tend to attract the less sensitive, I must admit.” The Bursar puffed his cigar contentedly.
“Academically our results are deplorable. When did we last get a first?”
“In 1956,” said the Bursar.
The Master raised his eyes to heaven.
“In Geography,” said the Bursar, rubbing salt in the wound.
“In Geography. One might have guessed.” He got up and stood looking out of the french windows at the garden covered in snow. “It is time to change all that. We must return to the Founder’s intentions ‘studiously to engage in learning’. We must accept candidates who have good academic records instead of the herd of illiterates we seem to cater for at present.”
“There are one or two obstacles to that,” the Bursar sighed.
“Quite so. The Senior Tutor for one. He is in charge of admissions.”
“I was thinking rather of our, how shall I say, dependence on the endowment subscriptions,” said the Bursar.
“The endowment subscriptions? I’ve never heard of them.”
“Very few people have, Master, except of course the parents of our less academic undergraduates.”
Sir Godber frowned and stared at the Bursar. “Do you mean to say that we accept candidates without academic qualifications if their parents subscribe to an endowment fund?” he asked.
“I’m afraid so. Frankly, the College could hardly continue without their contributions,” the Bursar told him.
“But this is monstrous. Why, it’s tantamount to selling degrees.”
“Not tantamount, Master. Identical.”
“But what about the Tripos examinations?”
The Bursar shook his head. “Ah I’m afraid we don’t aspire to such heights. Specials are more our mark. Ordinary degrees. Just good plain old-fashioned BAs. We put up the names and they’re accepted without question.”
Sir Godber sat down dumbfounded.
“Good God, and you mean to tell me that without these… er… contributions… dammit, these bribes, the College couldn’t carry on?”
“In a nutshell. Master,” said the Bursar. “Porterhouse is broke.”
“But why? What do other colleges do?”
“Ah,” said the Bursar, “well that’s rather different. Most of them have enormous resources. Shrewd investments over the years. Trinity, for instance, is to the best of my knowledge the third largest landowner in the country. Only the Queen and the Church of England exceed Trinity’s holdings. King’s had Lord Keynes as Bursar. We unfortunately had Lord Fitzherbert. Where Keynes made a fortune, Fitzherbert lost one. You’ve heard of the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo?”
The Master nodded miserably.
“Lord Fitzherbert,” said the Bursar.
“But he must have made a fortune,” said the Master.
The Bursar shook his head. “It wasn’t the bank of Monte Carlo he broke. Master, but the bank at Monte Carlo, our bank, the Anglian Lowland Bank. Two million on the spin of the wheel. Never recovered from the blow.”
“I’m not in the least surprised,” said the Master, “I wonder he didn’t blow his brains out on the spot.”
“The bank. Master, not Lord Fitzherbert. He came back and eventually was elected Master,” said the Bursar.
“Elected Master? It seems an odd thing to elect a man who has bankrupted the place. I should have thought he’d have been lynched.”
“Frankly, the College had to depend on him for some time. The revenue from his estate saw us through bad times, I’m told.” The Bursar sighed. “So you see, Master, while I support you in principle, I’m afraid the… er… exigencies of our financial position do impose certain restraints in the way of effecting the changes you have in mind. A case of cutting our coats to suit our cloth.” The Bursar finished his campari and stood up. The Master sat staring out into the garden. It had started to snow again but the Master was not aware of it. His mind was on other things. Looking back over his long career, he was suddenly conscious that the situation he was now facing was a familiar one. The Bursar’s arguments had been those of the Treasury and the Bank of England. Sir Godber’s ideals had always foundered on the rocks of financial necessity. This time it would be different. The frustrations of a lifetime had come to a head. Sir Godber had nothing left to lose. Porterhouse would change or bust. Inspired by the example of Lord Fitzherbert. Sir Godber stood up and turned to the Bursar. But the Bursar was no longer there. He had tiptoed from the room and could be seen waddling gently across the Fellows’ Garden.