e to sit and slowly mature in
Venner's, and sometimes about half-past nine the old man would be alone,
the fire would be dying down and during the half-hour that remained of
his duty, it would be possible to peel a large apple very slowly and
extract from him more of the essence of social history than could be
gained from a term's reading of great historians even with all the extra
lucidity imparted by a course of Mr. So-and-So's lectures.

Michael found that Venner summed up clearly for him all his own
tentative essays to grasp the meaning of life. He perceived in him the
finest reaction to the prejudice and nobility, the efficiency and folly
of aristocratic thought. He found in him the ideal realization of his
own most cherished opinions. England, and all that was most inexplicable
in the spirit of England, was expressed by Venner. He was a landscape, a
piece of architecture, a simple poem of England. One of Venner's
applauded tricks was to attach a piece of string to the tongs for a
listener to hold to his ears, while Venner struck the tongs with the
poker and evoked the sound of St. Mary's chimes. But the poker and tongs
were unnecessary, for in Venner's own voice was the sound of all the
bells in England. Communion with this gracious, this tranquil, this
mellow presence affected Michael with a sense of the calm certainty of
his own life. It lulled all the discontent and all the unrest. It
indicated for the remainder of his Oxford time a path which, if it did
not lead to any outburst of existence, was at least a straight path,
green bordered and gay with birdsong, with here and there a sight of
ancient towers and faiths, and here and there an arbor in which he and
his friends could sit and talk of their hopes.

"Venner," said Lonsdale one evening, "do you remember the Bishop of
Cirencester when he was up? Stebbing his name was. My mother roped him
in for a teetotal riot she was inciting this vac."

"Oh, yes, I think he was rather a wild fellow," Venner began, full of
reminiscence. "But we'll look him up."

Down came some account-book of the later seventies, and all the festive
evenings of the Bishop, spent in the period when undergraduates were
photographed with mutton-chop whiskers and bowler hats, lay revealed for
the criticism of his irreverent successors.

"There you are," chuckled Venner triumphantly. "What did I say? One
dozen champagne. Three bottles of brandy. All drunk in one night, for
there's another