all your grumbles,", said Maurice, "ours is the only serious
paper that has had any sort of a run of late years."

"But it lacks individuality," Michael complained. "It's so damned
inclusive. It's like The Daily Telegraph. It's voluminous and
undistinguished. It shows the same tepid cordiality toward everything,
from a man who's going to be hanged for murder to a new record at
cricket. Why can't you infect it with some of the deplorable but rather
delightfully juvenile indiscretion of The Daily Mail?"

"The Daily Mail," Maurice scoffed. "That rag!"

"A man once said to me," Michael meditatively continued, "that whenever
he saw a man in an empty railway compartment reading The Daily
Telegraph, he always avoided it. You see, he knew that man. He knew how
terrible it would be to listen to him when he had finished his
Telegraph. I feel rather like that about the O.L.G. But after all," he
added cheerfully, "nobody does read the O.L.G. The circulation depends
on the pledges of their pen sent round to their friends and relations by
the casual contributors. And nobody ever meets a casual contributor. Is
it true, by the way, that the fossilized remains of one were found
in-that great terra incognita--Queen's College?"

But Maurice had left him, and Michael strolled down to the lodge to see
if there were any letters. Shadbolt handed him an invitation to dinner
from the Warden. As he opened it, Lonsdale came up with a torn replica
of his own.

"I say, Michael, this is a rum sort of binge for the Wagger to give. I
spotted all the notes laid out in a row by old Pumpkin-head's butler.
You. Me. Tommy Grainger. Fitzroy. That ass Appleby. That worm Carben.
And Smithers. There may have been some others too. I hope I don't get
planted next the Pumpkinette."

"Miss Wagger may not be there," said Michael hopefully. "But if she is,
you're bound to be next her."

"I say, Shadbolt," Lonsdale demanded, "is this going to be a big squash
at the Wagger's?"

"The Warden has given me no instruction, sir, about carriages. And so I
think we may take it for granted as it will be mostly confined to
members of the college, sir. His servant tells me as the Dean is going
and the Senior Tutor."

"And there won't be any does?"

"Any what, sir?"

"Any ladies?"

"I expect as Miss Crackanthorpe will be present. She very rarely
absconds from such proceedings," said Shadbolt, drawing every word with
the sound of popping corks from the depths of hi