rt a day like that."

"How would you like to break stones," said I, "for seventy-nine years?"

Jonah let in the clutch.

"I perceive," said Berry, "that you are under the influence of drink. At
the present moment I am more interested in the breaking of backs. Have
you ever jacked up a car?"

"Often. You must stoop to conquer."

"Stoop? You must have a comic spine. My trunk kept getting in the way.
And my nether limbs were superfluous. To do it properly you should be
severed below the armpits."

"The correct way," said I, "is to face the jack, and then bend backwards
till you face it again. Then it's simplicity itself. You work, as it
were, between your own legs."

My brother-in-law sighed.

"I used to do my boots up like that, when an agent in Germany. In that
way no one could assault me from behind. Those detailed to stab me in
the back were nonplussed and in several cases shot for incompetence."

A quarter of an hour later we slid over Magdalen Bridge.

* * * * *

The venerable city was unchanged. That same peculiar dignity, which no
impertinence can scathe, that same abiding peace, the handiwork of
labouring centuries, that immemorial youth, which drains the cups of
Time and pays no reckoning--three wonders of the world, rose up to meet
us visitors.

Oxford has but two moods.

This day she was _allegro_. The Sunshine Holyday of Spring had won her
from her other soberer state, and Mirth was in all her ways. Her busy
streets were bright, her blistered walls glowed and gave back the warmth
vouchsafed them, her spires and towers were glancing, vivid against the
blue: the unexpected green, that sprawled ragged upon scaly parapets,
thrust boldly out between the reverend mansions and smothered up the
songs of architects, trembled to meet its patron: the blowing meadows
beamed, gates lifted up their heads, retired quadrangles smiled in their
sleep, the very streams were lazy, and gardens, walks, spaces and
alleyed lanes were all betimes a-Maying.

Perhaps because it was St. George's Day, ghosts that the grey old stones
can conjure up, at Fancy's whim came thronging. The state of Kings rode
by familiar, shrewd virgin Majesty swayed in a litter down the roaring
streets, and the unruly pomp of a proud cardinal wended its scarlet way
past kneeling citizens. Cavaliers ruffled it in the chequered walks,
prelates and sages loaded the patient air with discourse, and phantom
tuck of dr