"Then, sir," said Mr. Binney, now very angry, "I have to inform you that I shall not comply with the request of the college. I am here, and here I shall remain. The treatment I have received I consider infamous. I demand to be let alone. I shall keep on the right side of the law in the future, as I have done in the past, and I challenge--I _dare_ the college to touch me. Let me remind you, Mr. Rimington, that this University has been thrown open--yes, _open_, sir. The old iniquitous Test Acts have been done away. One man has as much right here as another. If I am interfered with further, I will raise such a storm throughout the country, that not only Trinity College but Cambridge University shall tremble in its shoes. I will wish you good-morning, sir; and let me advise you to take my words to heart," and with this Mr. Binney took himself out of his Tutor's rooms, and went straight round to the Union to write a fiery letter of indignation to the _Daily Chronicle_, unmasking the unwarrantable interference with the liberties of the subject practised by the authorities of a "well-known college in a well-known University." His letter was not inserted. So the storm he had threatened to raise delayed its raging for the present. After his departure, Mr. Rimington pondered for some time on his course of action, and then wrote the following letter:-- "DEAR MR. BINNEY,--I enclose the _exeat_ which you will require in order to enable you to leave Cambridge for the Christmas vacation. I have dated it for to-morrow. You will, I think, on consideration regret your manner towards me in our conversation of this morning, and I shall be glad to receive any expressions of regret you may feel inclined to make. I must also repeat my statement that it is subversive of all discipline in the college that a gentleman in your peculiar position should constitute himself a leader in disorderly behaviour, and warn you that if such behaviour is persisted in you will not be allowed to remain here.--Yours sincerely, "ROBERT RIMINGTON." "Let 'em try to remove me, that's all," said Mr. Binney, when he received this very moderate communication. "They'll be sorry for it all their lives. _Exeat_ dated for to-morrow! What does he mean? I don't want to go down to-morrow. A piece of impertinence! I shan't go." But on consideration Mr. Binney did go down on the appointed day, and having arrived at a more reasonable frame of mind after a few days' residence in Russell Square, wrote to Mr. Rimington that he regretted that he had been led in the heat of the moment to express himself in a way he could not justify, and that, while he still stood his stand on a position which, he thought, would prove to be unassailable, there was no reason why he and Mr. Rimington should not agree to differ in a perfectly friendly and gentlemanly way. CHAPTER IX ME. BINNEY GIVES A DINNER AND RECEIVES A REBUFF