ut some more about sport into it--our
fellows are all so dreadfully wild about sport. They'd be sure to buy it
then. Going to work this morning? That's right. I'm always advising the
men to work in the morning. But bless you, they don't pay any attention
to me. They only laugh and say, 'what's old Venner know about it?'"

Michael, sitting snugly in the morning quiet of his room, leaned over to
poke the fire into a blaze, eyed with satisfaction November's sodden
mists against his window, and settled himself back in the deep chair to
The Oxford Looking-Glass.

_Oxford Liberalism. By Vernon Townsend._
_A Restatement of Tory Ideals. By William Mowbray._

These two articles Michael decided to take on trust. From their perusal
he would only work himself up into a condition of irritated neutrality.
Indeed, he felt inclined to take all the rest of the magazine on trust.
The tranquillity of his own room was too seductive. Dreaming became a
duty here. It was so delightful to count from where he sat the books on
the shelves and to arrive each time at a different estimate of their
number. It was so restful to stare up at Mona Lisa and traverse without
fatigue that labyrinth of rocks and streams. His desk not yet deranged
by work or correspondence possessed a monumental stability of neatness
that was most soothing to contemplate. It had the restfulness of a
well-composed landscape where every contour took the eye easily onward
and where every tree grew just where it was needed for a moment's halt.
The olive-green magazine dropped unregarded onto the floor, and there
was no other book within reach. The dancing fire danced on. Far away
sounded the cries of daily life. The chimes in St. Mary's tower struck
without proclaiming any suggestion of time. How long these roll-call
mornings were and how rapidly dream on dream piled its drowsy outline.
Was there not somewhere at the other end of Oxford a lecture at eleven
o'clock? This raw morning was not suitable for lectures out of college.
Was not Maurice coming to lunch? How deliciously far off was the time
for ordering lunch. He really must get out of the habit of sitting in
this deep wicker-chair, until evening licensed such repose.

Some people had foolishly attended a ten-o'clock lecture at St. John's.
What a ludicrous idea! They had ridden miserably through the cold on
their bicycles and with numb fingers were now trying to record scraps of
generalization in a notebook that