the church to an unconsecrated edifice, political and social themes, still treated in scholastic Latin, were added, but even so the entertainment was of the dullest. Professional fun-makers, successors of the mediæval minstrels, had to be called in to enliven the occasion with a peppering of jests, but these became so scurrilous that the use of hired buffoons was forbidden by Convocation. Then the resourceful undergraduates magnanimously came forward, volunteering to take this delicate duty upon themselves, and manfully have they discharged it to this day. These young Oxonians have developed the normal undergraduate gift for sauce into an art that even knows the laws of proportion and restraint. The limits allowed them are of the broadest, but only twice in living memory has their mischief gone so far as to break up the assemblage. The threefold business of the annual _Encaenia_ is to confer honorary degrees, to listen to the prize compositions, and to hear an address delivered by the Public Orator in commemoration of Founders and Benefactors, with comment on current events. On the one occasion when I was privileged to be present, the hour preceding the entrance of the academic procession was the liveliest of all. The lower galleries were reserved for guests, but the upper, the Undergraduates' Gallery, was packed with students in cap and gown, who promptly began to badger individuals chosen at whim from the throng of men standing on the floor. "I don't like your bouquet, sir. It's too big for your buttonhole. If the lady wouldn't mind--" The offending roses disappeared in a general acclaim of "Thank you, sir," and the cherubs aloft pounced on another victim. The unfortunates so thrust into universal notice usually complied with the request, whatever it might be, as quickly as possible, eager to escape into obscurity, but a certain square-jawed Saxon wearing a red tie put up a stubborn resistance until all the topmost gallery was shouting at him, and laughing faces were turned upon him from every quarter of the house. "Take off that red tie, sir." "Indeed, sir, you don't look pretty in it." "It doesn't go well with your blushes." "_Will_ you take off that tie, sir?" "It's not to our cultured taste, sir." "It's the only one he's got." "Dear sir, _please_ take it off." "It gives me the eye-ache, sir." "Have you paid for it yet?" "Was there anybody in the shop when you bought it?" "Are you wearing it for an advertisement?" "Hush-h! _She_ gave it to him." "Oh, SHE put it on for him." "You're quite right, sir. Don't take it off." "We can sympathize with young romance, sir." "Be careful of it, sir." "Wear it till your dying day." "It's the colour of her hair." But by this time the poor fellow's face was flaming, and he jerked off the tie and flung it to the floor amid thunders of derisive applause.