That, from the male talker's standpoint, is the advantage
about woman; equally she can point the moral or adorn the tale.

Martin was enjoying his third year. He still had rooms in college and
had enough work to keep him contented while the shadow of exams was too
remote to cause apprehension. The Push had risen to fame and were
running the college: they had taken charge of its societies in a lordly
way and talked sense or nonsense as they chose. But the heavy hand of
Age was beginning to make them increasingly fond of sense. They were
none the less happy, however, for being less superficial, and secretly
they were pleased by the admiration of the advanced freshers and the
effort made to cultivate their society. Martin's third year was a time
of activity, free both from the boundless and discursive idling of his
"fresher" period and the anxious strain that pending examinations
cannot fail to produce.

Chard, however, was deserting them, for his career at the Union made
him a busy man. His triumph (he was Junior Librarian early in his
third year) had been mainly achieved by hard work. Office at the
Oxford Union can be won either by courting or despising the members:
there is no middle path. The latter method needs audacity and ability.
The man who never pulls strings, dashes in late to make his speech, and
dashes out again to seek reasonable company may win the votes of the
people whom he so treats, provided that he is either really witty, a
peer, or a Blue. A titled Blue could afford to do anything, but
fortunately neither peers nor Blues deign to have much business with so
common a place as the Union.

Chard had adopted the other method. He had pulled strings diligently.
He had got to know the right people: he had learned up the right
epigrams for the right speeches: asked the right questions of the
officers and, when himself an officer, had made the right retorts. He
had worked hard in search of votes and had addressed, carefully and
capably, nearly every debating society in Oxford. He was standing for
the Presidency at the end of the spring term and had every chance of
success. The Union loved him, because, not being a Balliol man, he had
beaten the Balliol people at their own game.

For the visitors' debate Bavin, K.C., M.P., was coming down, Bavin than
whom no fiercer lawyer flayed the Government on provincial platforms
and was photographed at country houses. His fees were unparalleled,
his wife,