half dozen put down for the next day. Ah, but the men
are much quieter nowadays. Not nearly so much drinking done in college
as there used to be. Oh, I remember the Bishop--Stebbing he was then. He
put a cod-fish in the Dean's bed. Oh, there was a dreadful row about it!
The old Warden kicked up such a fuss."

And, as easily as one Arabian night glides into another, Venner glided
from anecdote to anecdote of episcopal youth.

"I thought the old boy liked the governor's port," laughed Lonsdale.
"'What a pity everybody can't drink in moderation,' said Gaiters. Next
time he cocks his wicked old eye at me, I shall ask him about that
cod-fish."

"What's this they tell me about your bringing out a magazine?" Venner
inquired, turning to Maurice Avery.

"Out next week, Venner," Maurice announced importantly.

"Why, whatever do you find to write about?" asked Venner. "But I suppose
it's amusing. I've often been asked to write my own life. What an idea!
As if I had any time. I'm glad enough to go to bed when I get home,
though I always smoke a pipe first. We had two men here once who brought
out a paper. Chalfont and Weymouth. I used to have some copies of it
somewhere. They put in a lot of skits of the college dons. The Warden
was quite annoyed. 'Most scurrilous, Venables,' he said to me, I
remember. 'Most scurrilous.'" Venner chuckled at the remembrance of the
Warden's indignation.

"This is going to be a very serious affair, Venner," explained somebody.
"It's going to put the world quite straight again."

"Ho-ho, I suppose you're one of these Radicals," said Venner to the
editor. "Dear me, how anyone can be a Radical I can't understand. I've
always been a Conservative. We had a Socialist come up here to lecture
once in a man's rooms--a great Radical this man was--Sir Hugh Gaston--a
baronet--there's a funny thing, fancy a Radical baronet. Well, the men
got to hear of this Socialist coming up and what do you think they did?"
Venner chuckled in anticipatory relish. "Why, they cropped his hair down
to nothing. Sir Hugh Gaston was quite upset about it, and when he made a
fuss, they cut his hair too, though it was quite short already. There
was a terrible rowdy set up then. The men are very much quieter
nowadays."

The door opened as Venables finished his story, and Smithers came in to
order rather nervously a tin of biscuits. The familiar frequenters of
Venner's eyed in cold silence his entrance, his blushful wait and his