aying in his gravest voice
that over a genuine woodcut by Durer it was well worth taking trouble.
But before Michael could disengage Wedderburn's Durer from Lonsdale's
dog, he found himself running very fast beside Tommy Grainger who was
shouting:

"Five's late again! Six, you're bucketing! Bow, you're late! Two, _will_
you get your belly down!"

Then Grainger stopped suddenly and asked Michael in a very solemn tone
whether he knew what was the matter with the crew. Michael shook his
head and watched the others steer their devious course toward him and
Grainger.

"They're too drunk to row," said Grainger.

"Much too drunk," Michael agreed.

When he had pondered for a moment or two his last remark, he discovered
it was extraordinarily funny. So he was seized with a paroxysm of
laughter, and the more he laughed, the more he wanted to laugh. When
somebody asked him what he was laughing at, he replied it was because he
had left the electric light burning in his room. Several people seemed
to think this just as funny as Michael thought it, and they joined him
in his mirth, laughing unquenchably until Wedderburn observed severely
in his deepest voice:

"Buck up, you're all drunk, and they're coming out of Venner's."

Then like some patient profound countryman he shepherded them all up to
the large room on a corner staircase of Cloisters, where the "after" was
going to be held. The freshmen squeezed themselves together in a corner
and were immensely entertained by the various performers, applauding
with equal rapture a light comedian from Pembroke, a tenor from Corpus,
a comic singer from Oriel and a mimic from professional London. They
drank lemon squashes to steady themselves: they joined in choruses: they
cheered and smoked cigars and grew more and more conscious as the
evening progressed that they belonged to a great college called St.
Mary's. Their enthusiasm reached its zenith, when the captain of the
Varsity Eleven (a St. Mary's man even as they were St. Mary's men) sang
the St. Mary's song in a voice whose gentleness of utterance and sighing
modesty in no way abashed the noisy appreciation of the audience. It was
a wonderful song, all about the triumphs of the college on river and
cricket-field, in the Schools, in Parliament and indeed everywhere else.
It had a fine rollicking chorus which was repeated twice after each
verse. And as there were about seventeen verses, by the time the song
was half over the fres