Thorn, like many another college antiquity, might have been the occasion of a mutual feeling of constraint had he descended upon this undergraduate meal in the indefinite capacity of “an old graduate.” The ease with which he filled his place at the table, and the effortless civility that acknowledged his presence there, were largely due to his never having allowed his interest in the life of the club to wane during his years away from it. He knew the sort of men the place had gone in for, and, in many instances, their names as well. Some of his own classmates--glad, no doubt, of so congenial an item for their occasional European letters--had never failed to write him, in diverting detail, of the great Christmas and spring dinners. And they, in turn, had often read extracts from Thorn’s letters to them, when called on to speak at these festivities. More than once the graduate had sent, from the other side of the world, some doggerel verses, a sketch to be used as a dinner-card, or a trifling addition to the club’s library or dining-room. Haydock and Ellis and Wolcott and Wynne he had met at various times abroad. He had made a point of hunting them up and getting to know them, with the result that his interest had succeeded in preserving his identity; he was not unknown to the youngest member of the club. If they didn’t actually know him, they at least knew of him. Even this crust is sweet to the returned graduate whose age is just far enough removed from either end of life’s measure to make it intrinsically unimportant. “What courses do you give?” It was the big Prescott, sitting opposite, who asked this. The effort involved a change of colour. “You’d better look out, or you’ll have Pink in your class the first thing you know,” some one called, in a voice of warning, from the other end of the table. “Yes; he’s on the lookout for snaps,” said some one else. “Then he’d better stay away from my lectures,” answered Thorn, smiling across at Prescott, who blushed some more at this sudden convergence of attention on himself. “They say that new instructors always mark hard--just to show off.” “I had you on my list before I knew who you were,” announced another. “I thought the course looked interesting; you’ll have to let me through.” “Swipe! swipe!” came in a chorus from around the table. This bantering attitude toward his official position pleased Thorn, perhaps, more than anything else. It flattered and reassured him as to the impression his personality made on younger--much younger--men. He almost saw in himself the solution of the perennial problem of “How to bring about a closer sympathy between instructor and student.”