It
was Prothero's wicked pictures that made him see the shrivelled
absurdity of the vulgar theology. But it was Benham who stood
between Prothero and that rather coarsely conceived epicureanism
that seemed his logical destiny. When quite early in their
Cambridge days Prothero's revolt against foppery reached a nadir of
personal neglect, and two philanthropists from the rooms below him,
goaded beyond the normal tolerance of Trinity, and assisted by two
sportsmen from Trinity Hall, burnt his misshapen straw hat (after
partly filling it with gunpowder and iron filings) and sought to
duck him in the fountain in the court, it was Benham, in a state
between distress and madness, and armed with a horn-handled cane of
exceptional size, who intervened, turned the business into a blend
of wrangle and scuffle, introduced the degrading topic of duelling
into a simple wholesome rag of four against one, carried him off
under the cloud of horror created by this impropriety and so saved
him, still only slightly wetted, not only from this indignity but
from the experiment in rationalism that had provoked it.
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