iny
her proper homage of tuneful testimonial. So be it ever!

One who inhabited college quadrangles not so immeasurably long ago, and
remembers with secret pain how massively old, experienced, and worldly
wise he then thought himself, can never resist a throb of amazement at
the entertaining youthfulness of these young monks. How quaintly
juvenile they are, and how oddly that assumption of grave superiority
sits upon their golden brows! With what an inimitable air of wisdom,
cynicism, ancientry, learned aloofness and desire to be observed do they
stroll to and fro across the quads, so keenly aware in their inmost
bosoms of the presence of visitors and determined to grant an appearance
of mingled wisdom, great age, and sad doggishness! What a devil-may-care
swing to the stride, what a nonchalance in the perpetual wreath of
cigarette smoke, what a carefully assumed bearing of one carrying great
wisdom lightly and easily casting it aside for the moment in the pursuit
of some waggish trifle. "Here," those very self-conscious young visages
seem to betray, "is one who might tell you all about the Holy Roman
Empire, and yet is, for the moment, diverting himself with a mere
mandolin." And yet, as the Lady of Destiny shrewdly observed, it is a
pity they should mar their beautiful quadrangles with orange peel and
scraps of paper.

We walked for some time through those stately courts of Tudor brick and
then passed down the little inclined path to the botanic garden, where
irises and fresh green spikes are already pushing up through the damp
earth. A pale mellow sunlight lay upon the gravel walks and the Urchin
resumed his customary zeal. He ran here and there along the byways,
examined the rock borders with an air of scientific questioning, and
watched the other children playing by the muddy pond. We found shrubbery
swelling with buds, also flappers walking hatless and blanched with
talcum, accompanied by Urchins of a larger growth. Both these phenomena
we took to be a sign of the coming equinox.

Returning to the dormitory quadrangles, we sat down on a wooden bench to
rest, while the Urchin, now convinced that a university is nothing to be
awed by, scampered about on the turf. His eye was a bright jewel of
roguishness, for he thought that in trotting about the grass he was
doing something supremely wicked. He has been carefully trained not to
err on the grass of the city square to which he is best accustomed, so
this surprisin