out him in the darkness, wished
he could be a member of Convocation and make a flaming speech in defense
of compulsory Greek. That happened to be the proposed surrender to
modern conditions which at the moment was agitating his conservative
passion.

"Thank heaven I live when I do," he said to himself. "If it were 2000
A.D., how much more miserable I should be."

He went down to dinner and, propping The Anatomy of Melancholy against
the cruet, deplored the twentieth century, but found the chicken rather
particularly good.

CHAPTER XV

THE LAST TERM

Michael meant to attend the celebration of May Morning on St. Mary's
tower, but when the moment came it was so difficult to get out of bed
that he was not seen in the sun's eye. This lapse of enthusiasm saddened
him rather. It seemed to conjure a little cruelly the vision of speeding
youth.

The last summer-term was a period of tension. Michael found that
notwithstanding his vow of idleness the sight of the diligence of the
other men in view of Schools impelled him also to labor feverishly. He
was angry with himself for his weakness, and indeed tried once or twice
to join on the river the careless parties of juniors, but it was no
good. The insistent Schools forbade all pleasure, and these leafy days
were spent hour after hour of them at his table. Eights Week came round,
and though the college went head of the river, for Michael the
achievement was merely a stroke of irony. For three years he and his
friends, most of whom were now fled, had waited for this moment, had
counted upon this bump-supper, had planned a hundred diversions for this
happy date. Michael now must attend without the majority of them, and he
went in rather a critical frame of mind, for though to be sure Tommy
Grainger was drunk in honor of his glorious captaincy, it was not the
bump-supper of his dreams. Victory had come too late.

Tired of the howling and the horse-play, tired of the fretful
fireworks, he turned into Venner's just before ten o'clock.

"Why aren't you with your friends, making a noise?" asked Venner.

"Ought to go home and work," Michael explained.

"But surely you can take one night off. You used always to be well to
the fore on these occasions."

"Don't feel like it, Venner."

"You mustn't work too hard, you know," said the old man, blinking kindly
at him.

"Oh, it's not work, Venner. It's age."

"Why, what a thing to say. Hark! They're having a rare time to-