Mr Bhosh was profoundly moved: "College misters and friends," he said, "I welcome this invitation with a joyful and thankful heart, as an honour--not to this poor self, but to Young India. Nevertheless, I am compelled by _Dira Necessitas_ to return the polite negative. Gladly I would help you to inflict crushing defeat upon our presumptuous foe, but 'I see a hand you cannot see that beckons me away; I hear a voice you cannot hear that wheezes "Not to-day!"' In other words, gentlemen, I am now actively engaged in the Titanic struggle to floor Little-go. It is glorious to obtain a victory over Oxonian rivals, but, misters, there is an enemy it is still more glorious to pulverize, and that enemy is--one's self!" The deputation then withdrew with falling crests, though unable to refrain from admiring the firmness and fortitude which a mere Native student had nilled an invitation which to most European youths would have proved an irresistible attraction. Nor did they cherish any resentment against Mr Bhosh, even when, in the famous inter-collegiate race of that year from Hammersmith to Putney, Cambridge was ingloriously bumped, and Oxford won in a common canter. CHAPTER II HOW MR BHOSH DELIVERED A DAMSEL FROM A DEMENTED COW O Cow! in hours of mental ease Thou chewest cuds beneath the trees; But ah! when madness racks thy brow, An awkward customer art thou! _Nature Poem furnished (to order) by young English Friend._ Mr Bhosh's diligence at his books was rewarded by getting through his Little-go with such _éclat_ that he was admitted to become a baccalaureate, and further presented with the greatest distinction the Vice-Chancellor could bestow upon him, viz., the title of a Wooden Spoon! But here I must not omit to narrate a somewhat startling catastrophe in which Mr Bhosh figured as the god out of machinery. It was on an afternoon before he went up to pass his Little-go exam, and, since all work and no play is apt to render any Jack a dull, he was recreating himself by a solitary promenade in some fields in the vicinity of Cambridge, when suddenly his startled ears were dumbfounded to perceive the blood-curdling sound of loud female vociferations! On looking up from his reverie, he was horrified by the spectacle of a young and beauteous maiden being vehemently pursued by an irate cow, whose reasoning faculties were too obviously, in the words of Ophelia, "like sweet bells bangled," or, in other words, _non compos mentis_, and having rats in her upper story! The young lady, possessing the start and also the advantage of superior juvenility, had the precedence of the cow by several yards, and attained the umbrageous shelter of a tree stem, behind which she tremulously awaited the arrival of her blood-thirsty antagonist.