Ah me! As the others laughed, I saw the old Hall, now used as a library, the three black-gowned figures at High Table, the empty Hall half-lighted, and at the far end two or three scouts who were clearing away dishes, turning stupidly to stare at the short square don with firm-set chin and gleaming eyes; while John de Baliol, Dervorguilla, his wife, “and others, benefactors of this college,” in their gilt-framed pictures, looked on with the cold impartiality of Gallio. “Topers was a brilliant man,” said Miller, free from his Archdeacon: “he had the marvellous gift of concentration which so few possess.” “Would you call it _absorption_, Canon?” murmured Johnson: and there was a stifled laugh, which annoyed Miller: Topers’ weakness was notorious. “Concentration, I prefer. Day after day he used to go to Parker’s, the bookseller’s in the Broad, and take up the new book of the day. As he stood there, he read in spite of all distractions, and picked the entire marrow of it before he came away. What a faculty for a barrister, a judge, a statesman to possess! Yet he did nothing but make epigrammatical remarks which are mostly forgotten. I never meet a man called Littler without thinking of Topers. Littler came up for _vivâ voce_ in Collections: ‘Mr. Littler,’ said Topers with venomous looks, ‘your Greek prose is disgusting, your Latin prose is disgusting, your translation is disgusting, and your name is ungrammatical.’” “What was his name?” asked Goodfellow, whose mind travels slowly. “Topers,” said the narrator hastily, determined that there should be no more post mortems; and went on, while Goodfellow pondered on the grammatical defects of this proper noun: “It was severe; but a more caustic address is recorded of the great Dean Mansel. That eminent philosopher was examining a raw Cockney in Greek. The lad came to the word ‘hippos,’ which he pronounced ‘ippos,’ and translated ‘orse.’ ‘I can understand your calling it ORSE,’ drawled Mansel, ‘for I suppose your father and mother called it ORSE, and you never heard it called anything else: but I can’t conceive why you should call it IPPOS, because I don’t suppose they ever heard the expression.’” “Mansel was great,” Oldbury remarked: “Tommy Short was brilliant: greatest and most brilliant was Henry Smith of Balliol. Did you ever hear his comment on the mathematical papers of two of his friends? Brown and Jones were in for what is called ‘Second Schools,’ that is to say, a pass in Mathematical Greats after the Classical Honours examination. ‘How did you get on to-day, Mr. Brown?’ he asked. “Brown produced the paper of Questions: ‘In the Euclid I did that, and that, and that; I left out those, and I had a shot at those. In the Algebra I did those, and left out those.’ “‘Oh yes,’ said Smith, without faintest comment: ‘and Mr. Jones, what did he do?’ “‘In the Euclid he did those, and left out those; in the Algebra he did those and left out those.’