e I could not wonder at that, I begged to be
allowed to take her wherever she wished to go.

We strolled about Oxford until lunch-time, and I answered every
question asked me, and most of my answers were accurate. For I had
been careful enough to take an Oxford guide-book to bed with me, and
had not entirely wasted the early morning. In fact Mrs. Faulkner's
visit forced me to see that I knew very little about Oxford. My
guide-book knowledge was so condensed that it was more satisfying than
satisfactory, and if I had been asked what I charged per hour, I should
have had no right to be angry.

However, I did march Mrs. Faulkner and Nina round some of the sights of
the place. I showed them the Bodleian, All Souls, Shelley's memorial,
and finally brought them to a shady seat in Addison's Walk. I had been
compelled to hurry for two reasons; in the first place we had not very
much time, and secondly, my knowledge was not proof against the string
of questions which only want of breath could stop Mrs. Faulkner from
asking. I should imagine that a large number of men never find out how
great their ignorance of Oxford is until they have to show people round
it, and I candidly confess that on this day I was ashamed of myself. I
was more at home in Addison's Walk than in any other place to which I
had taken them, for it was in the open air, and also there was
something about Addison and Steele and Gay which made me like them.
The coffee-houses at which they met must have had some mysterious
attraction for me, I think, and led me on to read what they had
written. I should have liked to have Sir Roger de Coverley for my
uncle, and I cannot imagine a nicer man to have a day's fishing with
than Will Wimble. I hated Pope as much as I liked Addison, and though
Mrs. Faulkner said he was a great satirist, I thought of him only as a
man who wrote most disagreeable things about his friends.

"It is necessary to separate the man from his work, if you are to be a
good critic," Mrs. Faulkner said, and though this remark may be true
enough I did not answer it, for Nina was looking extremely bored by the
conversation we had been having about Addison.

"We may as well go to Oriel and find Fred," I suggested, and Nina got
up at once.

"Unfortunately the art of satire is dead, drowned by exaggeration,"
Mrs. Faulkner said as we went through the cloisters.

"I think it's a better death than it deserves, don't you, Nina?" I
replied.