Lang and Maude revelled in the change. For them the Bel-alp was too cold, too dull; but here they had the lake, the shops, the _cafés_, the band at night, and all those countless charms which no English town seems to possess. Here even Frank relaxed a little. They made excursions every day, for the most part in the comfortable little steamers. They went up the Rigi luxuriously in the train. Edwards, Royds, and Frank climbed Pilatus; the rest were content with the Rigi. They bought presents, useless as well as useful; they strummed on the _salon_ piano, and sang in broken German, to the intense delight of the waiters. They spent the evenings invariably in a little _café_ round the corner, where Gretchen’s merry black eyes flashed from one to another, hardly divining the relationship of the party; or, if not there, on the _boulevard_, listening to the band; and sometimes on the lake; and it was on one of these occasions that Edwards astonished them by his vocal as well as his poetical powers. He called his song, “The Lay of the Vice-Chancellor,” and it ran as follows:-- “I’ve sung you many a ditty, some stupid and some witty, In our snug and cosy common-rooms after dinner many a day; But there’s one I have omitted, of a blunder I committed, That may serve you as a warning, and may while an hour away. When I was young and hearty, I took a reading party (“Hear, hear!” from the audience) To study in America one summer long ago; And while out there we tarried, I went--and--I got married, And what that is, my bachelors, you very little know. But upon that little portion of my most unhappy tale, Will you kindly, will you kindly draw a veil, draw a veil? _Chorus._--Draw a veil! draw a veil! “But oh! when I reflected that I should be expected To forfeit either Fellowship or wife, I thought ’twould be a pity she should leave her native city And be tied to an old tutor all her life. When I pictured you all cosy, at your port wine old and rosy, And I was at cold mutton, and romance was growing cool-- When I thought of you so gaily dining gloriously daily, I took a _single_ cabin in a ship for Liverpool. But upon the mix’d emotions of my hurried homeward sail, Will you kindly, will you kindly draw a veil, draw a veil? _Chorus_ (_very gently_).--Draw a veil! draw a veil!