The Time Traveller

2

But it was much, much worse than that. Dr Wieland wasn't an actor; he was a magician.

As the third trimester dawned, the number of students registered in the history faculty had quadrupled. Dozens of times a day, the autumn-leaf coloured, utilitarian door of the department was thrown open and Mrs Padmore, the faculty secretary, given a fright by the appearance of all manner of scruffy young pieces of work, with day-glo hair and threadbare cord trousers, scuffing the floor with their Doc Marten's as they came in to ask after the requirements of the department.

"This simply MUST stop," she said as stiffly as she could to Dr Mitchell. "I have not been able to enjoy my tea in peace for positively weeks now. It. Is. An. Outrage!"

But Dr Mitchell wasn't really listening. He had the rector of the college on the phone and had never been able to concentrate on two things at once very well.

"What I'm saying, Harvey," continued the rector, oblivious to Mitchell's view of Mrs Padmore's clenched jaw, "is that the other departments are not happy about losing their students. A certain number drift from faculty to faculty, of course, that's to be expected. But not a mass exodus, Harvey! I don't have to tell you what that means. Less money, that's what that means, Harvey. Each student takes 220 pounds a course away from the department and who wants to part with 220 pounds a course? Thank Thatcher! Realpolitik, Harvey. Bottom-line economics, Harvey. This country has been going to the dogs for decades and now it's taking 220 pounds a course with it! How much are you taking in now, eh? Not fair, Harvey. Simply not fair. Not fair and not sporting. Un-English, Harvey, in a word."

"Yes, Rector."

"Harvey?"

"Yes, Rector?"

"Put a muzzle on your Moses."

"Piped Piper you mean," murmured Dr Mitchell into his desk blotter.

"What was that?"

"Nothing. I'll see what I can do."

But what was to be done? The number of history clubs on the Clubs Roster had jumped from two to fifteen. At bus stops and in the queue for the loo at discos, in discount supermarkets and on the campus green, people were talking about history in the most unlikely of places. Some of the more brassy students began actually wearing their academic robes around town. More even started hosting costumed "history dinners" in their own digs.

"Where are we?" stormed Dr. Laverton, "Oxbridge? Since when do the sons of gas meter inspectors wear academic robes about and dine as if they were lord heir of some 500-year-old pile in Devon? Or are they all trying to look like some medieval etching of an alchemist, as well?"

"I saw one student last week in an absolutely lovely medieval dress, green and red with black ribbon trimmings. Self-made, of course, but still quite a good effort. I admire the spirit the students are showing, actually. It just shows they're actually taking the subject seriously," replied Dr Keegen.

"Undignified, I agree," chimed in Dr Hemple, tapping his finger on the coffee table. "What's wrong with tweed? Historians, academics, have proudly been wearing tweed since 1836."

"If ANYONE shows up to one of my lectures in anything that even remotely RESEMBLES a suit of armour, I'll throw him out! It's bad enough I have to look at those revolting piercings every second student today seems to have, but even my tolerance has limits!" thundered Dr Colburn.

"Here, here," added Laventon. "We don't want this campus degenerating into a living history experiment. You know what I'm referring to, Colburn. Not here. Not with us!"

"This is all Wieland's fault," grumped Dr Thorpe. "They're all following his example. They're all trying to be him. The man doesn't have students; he has groupies."

And the sunbeams played in the nervous quiet that fell in the history faculty lounge.