s tone would somehow rest the
implication that Michael should know better than to expect him to be
aware of each individual in this very much subdivided college.

"Did you hear the hockey push broke the windows of the socker push in
Peck?" asked one of the Christ Church hosts.

"No, really?" answered Alan indifferently.

After hall as they walked back to Meadows', Michael tried to point out
to him that the St. Mary's method of dining in hall was superior to that
of the House.

"The dinner itself is better," Alan admitted. "But I hate your system of
all getting up from table at the same time. It's like school."

"But if a guest comes to St. Mary's he sits at his host's regular table.
He's introduced to everybody. Why, Alan, I believe if you'd had another
guest to-night, you wouldn't even have introduced me to him. He and I
would have had to drink coffee in your rooms like a couple of dummies."

"Rot!" said Alan. "And whom could you have wanted to meet this evening?
All the men at the guests' table were absolute ticks."

"I've never met a House man who didn't think every other House man
impossible outside the four people in his own set," retorted Michael.
"And yet, I suppose, you'll say it's the best college?"

"Of course," Alan agreed.

Up in his rooms they pondered the long May day's reluctant death, while
the coffee-machine bubbled and fizzed and The Soul's Awakening faintly
kindled by the twilight was appropriately sentimental.

"Will you have a meringue?" Alan asked. "I expect there's one in the
cupboard."

"I'm sure there is," said Michael. "It's very unlikely that there is a
single cupboard in the House without a meringue. But no, thanks, all the
same."

They forsook the window-seat and pulled wicker-chairs very near to the
tobacco-jar squatting upon the floor between them: they lit their pipes
and sipped their coffee. For Alan the glories of the day floated before
him in the smoke.

"It's a pity," he said, "Sterne missed that catch in the slips. Though
of course I wasn't bowling for the slips. Five for forty-eight would
have looked pretty well. Still four for forty-eight isn't so bad in an
innings of 287. The point is whether they can afford to give a place to
another bowler who's no earthly use as a bat. It seems a bit of a tail.
I went in eighth wicket both innings. Two--first knock. Blob--second.
Still four for forty-eight was certainly the best. I ought to play in
the first trial match." So Ala