, as the vapors curled around them. The wine humming
in his head: the echoing shouts of his companions: the decorative effect
of the gowns: the chiming high above of the bells in the tower: all
combined to create for Michael a nightmare of exultation. He was aware
of a tremendous zest in doing nothing, and there flowed over him a
consciousness that this existence of shout and dance along these
cloisters was really existence lived in a perpetual expression of the
finest energy. The world seemed to be going round so much faster than
usual that in order to keep up with this new pace, it was necessary for
the individual like himself to walk faster, to talk faster, to think
faster, and finally to raise to incoherent speed every coherent faculty.
Another curious effect of the wine, for after all Michael admitted to
himself that his mental exhilaration must be due to burgundy, was the
way in which he found himself at every moment walking beside a different
person. He would scarcely have finished an excited acceptance of
Wedderburn's offer to go to-morrow and look at some Durer woodcuts, when
he would suddenly find himself discussing sympathetically with Lonsdale
the iniquity of the dons in refusing to let him keep his new dog in one
of the scouts' pigeon-holes in the lodge.

"After all," Lonsdale pointed out earnestly, "they're never really full,
and the dog isn't large--of course I don't expect to keep him in a
pigeon-hole when he's full grown, but he's a puppy."

"It's absurd," Michael agreed.

"That's the word I've been looking for," Lonsdale exclaimed. "What was
it again? Absurd! You see what I say is, when one scout's box is full,
move the poor little beast into another. It isn't likely they'd all be
full at the same time. What was that word you found just now? Absurd!
That's it. It is absurd. It's absurd!"

"And anyway," Michael pointed out, "if they were all full they could
chain him to the leg of the porter's desk."

"Of course they could. I say, Fane, you're a damned good sort," said
Lonsdale. "I wish you'd come and have lunch with me to-morrow. I don't
think I've asked very many chaps: I want to show you that dog. He's in a
stable off Holywell at present. Beastly shame! I'm not complaining, of
course, but what I want to ask our dons is how would they like to be
bought by me and shut up in Holywell?"

And just when Michael had a very good answer ready, he found himself
arm-in-arm with Wedderburn again, who was s