It watches over the apostate city, taller by many a yard than
anything within, and asserting, however wildly, that here is eternity,
stability, and bubbles unbreakable upon a windless sea.

A costly hymn tune announced five o'clock, and in the distance the more
lovable note of St. Mary's could be heard, speaking from the heart of
the town. Then the tram arrived--the slow stuffy tram that plies every
twenty minutes between the unknown and the marketplace--and took them
past the desecrated grounds of Downing, past Addenbrookes Hospital, girt
like a Venetian palace with a mantling canal, past the Fitz William,
towering upon immense substructions like any Roman temple, right up to
the gates of one's own college, which looked like nothing else in the
world. The porters were glad to see them, but wished it had been a
hansom. "Our luggage," explained Rickie, "comes in the hotel omnibus, if
you would kindly pay a shilling for mine." Ansell turned aside to some
large lighted windows, the abode of a hospitable don, and from other
windows there floated familiar voices and the familiar mistakes in a
Beethoven sonata. The college, though small, was civilized, and proud of
its civilization. It was not sufficient glory to be a Blue there, nor
an additional glory to get drunk. Many a maiden lady who had read
that Cambridge men were sad dogs, was surprised and perhaps a little
disappointed at the reasonable life which greeted her. Miss Appleblossom
in particular had had a tremendous shock. The sight of young fellows
making tea and drinking water had made her wonder whether this was
Cambridge College at all. "It is so," she exclaimed afterwards. "It is
just as I say; and what's more, I wouldn't have it otherwise; Stewart
says it's as easy as easy to get into the swim, and not at all
expensive." The direction of the swim was determined a little by the
genius of the place--for places have a genius, though the less we talk
about it the better--and a good deal by the tutors and resident fellows,
who treated with rare dexterity the products that came up yearly
from the public schools. They taught the perky boy that he was not
everything, and the limp boy that he might be something. They even
welcomed those boys who were neither limp nor perky, but odd--those boys
who had never been at a public school at all, and such do not find a
welcome everywhere. And they did everything with ease--one might almost
say with nonchalance, so that the boys not