handkerchief,
Wilberforce his name was, became a regular nuisance, because for ever
afterward, whenever he got drunk, he used to go looking for this old
handkerchief. There you see, that's what comes of going to the
Bullingdon wine. Are you a member of the Bullingdon?"

"He's a cricketer, Venner," Michael explained.

"So was this fellow Wilberforce who lost his handkerchief, and what do
you think? One day when we were playing Winchester--you're not a
Wykehamist, are you?--he came out to bat so drunk that the first ball he
hit, he went and ran after it himself. It caused quite a scandal. But
you don't look one of that sort. Will you have a squash and a biscuit?
The men like these biscuits very much. There's been quite a run on
them."

Michael was anxious to know how deep an impression Venner had made on
Alan.

"You've got nobody like him at the House?" he asked.

Alan was bound to admit there was indeed nobody.

"He's an extraordinary chap," said Michael. "He's always different, and
yet he's always absolutely the same. For me he represents Oxford. When
one's in his company, one feels one's with him for ever, and yet one
knows that people who have gone down can feel just the same, and that
people who haven't yet come up will feel just the same. You know, I do
really think that what it sets out to do St. Mary's does better than any
other college. And the reason of that is Venner's. It's the only
successful democracy in the world."

"I shouldn't have called it a democracy," said Alan. "Everybody doesn't
go there."

"But everybody can go there. It depends entirely on themselves."

"What about that fellow Smithers you were talking about?" Alan asked.
"He seems barred."

"But he won't be," Michael urged hopefully.

"He'd be happier at the House all the same," Alan said. "He'd find his
own set there."

"But so he can at St. Mary's."

"Then it isn't a democracy," Alan stoutly maintained.

"I say, Alan," exclaimed Michael, in surprise. "You're getting quite a
logician."

"Well, you always persist in treating me like an idiot," said Alan. "But
I _am_ reading Honor Mods. It's a swat, but I've got to get some sort of
a class."

"You'll probably get a first," said Michael.

Yet how curious it was to think of Alan, whom he still regarded as
chiefly a good-looking and capable athlete, taking a first class in a
school he himself had indolently passed over. Of course he would never
take a first. He was too much o