XV. DEPUTATIONS--WITH A DIFFERENCE 263 XVI. IN WHICH CHARITY SUFFERETH LONG, AND JOAN MISSES HER CUE 292 XVII. IN WHICH CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME, AND HUGHIE MISSES HIS TRAIN 320 XVIII. _EX MACHINA_ 339 XIX. IN WHICH LOVE FLIES OUT OF THE WINDOW 354 XX. SINFUL WASTE OF A PENNY STAMP 372 BOOK ONE DEALS WITH A STUFF THAT WILL NOT ENDURE A MAN'S MAN CHAPTER I NAVAL MANOEUVRES A University college varies its facial expression about as frequently as The Sphinx and about as violently as a treacle-well. This remark specially applies between the hours of breakfast and luncheon. The courts, with their monastic cloisters and inviolable grassplots, lie basking in a sunny obliviousness to the world outside. Their stately exclusiveness is accentuated rather than diminished by the glimpse of an occasional flying figure in a cap and gown, or the spectacle of a middle-aged female of a discreet and chastened appearance, who glides respectfully from one archway to another, carrying a broom and a tin pail, or--alas for the goings-on that a cloistered cell may conceal behind its art-muslin curtains!--a tankard containing some gentleman's morning ale. In one corner, close to the Buttery door, you may behold one of the college cats, which appears to be combining a searching morning toilet with a course of practical calisthenics; and inside the massive arch of the gateway stands a majestic figure in a tall hat, whom appreciative Americans usually mistake for the Master, but who in reality occupies the far more onerous and responsible post of Head Porter. Perhaps the greatest variation from the normal is to be observed on a Saturday morning. Then the scene is brightened by the vision of an occasional washerwoman, who totters bravely at one end of a heavy basket, what time her lord and master (who has temporarily abandoned his favourite street-corner and donned Sabbath attire for this, his weekly contribution to the work of the world) sulkily supports the other. Undergraduates, too, are more in evidence than on other days. On most mornings they either stay indoors, to work or sleep, or else go outside the college altogether. "Loitering" in the courts is not encouraged by the authorities. Not that the undergraduate minds that; but it will probably cost him half-a-crown every time he does so, not because he loiters but because he smokes.