The lounging students started a little at this sudden interruption, and stirred as young men do on finding themselves suddenly in the presence of an older one. Rattleton took his long legs down from their supporting chair, Hudson pushed his hat back from his nose to its proper place, Dixey took his hands out of his pockets and sat up straight, while Dick Stoughton paused in the act of relighting Mary Jane, and when the match burnt his fingers forbore to swear. As the cause of the disturbance rose and came towards them they stood up. Hollis Holworthy showed signs of positive uneasiness. He turned bright red in the face, as he recognized the man whom he had just described as "an interesting old cock." "I--I beg your pardon, sir," he began, "I had no idea----" "That the old cock was present?" laughed the older man. "I assure you, my boy, that I was not in the least offended, and even had I cause for offence, I deserved it. Your remark was a retribution, a striking repetition of history. I remember once asking Holworthy of '61 who the bully old boy in the beaver hat was, and the bully old boy proved to be Holworthy '32. Thirty years are like a spy-glass--your views depend upon the end through which you look." The thirty years melted at once beneath the laugh that followed this introduction, and, as the stranger took a chair among the group, the smoke went up again from Mary Jane and other pipes. "Then you were in college with my father?" asked Holworthy. "You must have been here just in the time of which we were speaking." "That is the reason why I took the liberty of joining so abruptly in your conversation," said the graduate. "I want to tell you young men a story. I have never told it before, and would not tell it to any other audience, but I know that it can be fully appreciated by you, and it belongs to your traditions. So I am going to give it to you, if you do not mind being bored for a while by an old grad." "I don't think any of us will raise any serious objections," said Stoughton, as he paused. The graduate smiled and then began: "As I said when I just now interrupted your discussion, there was another side to the glory of the war times in the old college. To the war itself there was, of course, another side, and I was on it. Up to the breaking of the storm we boys had not troubled ourselves much about the out-look. Most of us took politics lightly, and though burning then, still, among us at least, they were, as now I suppose, more the subject of good-natured chaff than of bitter feelings. However deeply the more thoughtful of us may have felt, they never allowed their convictions to interfere with their friendships. Of course, there were a few loud-mouthed zealots who made themselves disagreeable, but they were as much so to men of their own opinions as to those of the opposite.