Wedderburn shook his head in benevolent contempt, and the conversation was deflected from Lonsdale’s artistic education by a long-legged Wykehamist with crisp chestnut hair and a thin florid face of dimpling smiles. “Has anybody been into Venner’s yet?” he asked. “I have,” proclaimed a dumpy Etonian whose down-curving nose hung over a perpetually open mouth. “Marjoribanks took me in just before hall. But he advised me not to go in by myself yet awhile.” “The second-year men don’t like it,” agreed the long-legged Wykehamist with a wise air. “They say one can begin to go in occasionally in one’s third term.” “What is Venner’s?” Michael asked. “Don’t you know?” sniffed the dumpy Etonian who had already managed to proclaim his friendship with Marjoribanks, the President of the Junior Common Room, and therefore presumably had the right to open his mouth a little wider than usual at Michael. “I’m not quite sure myself,” said Lonsdale quickly. “I vote that Cuffe explains.” “I’m not going to explain,” Cuffe protested, and for some minutes his mouth was tightly closed. “Isn’t it just a sort of special part of the J. C. R.?” suggested the smiling Wykehamist, who seemed to wish to make it pleasant for everybody, so long as he himself would not have to admit ignorance. “Old Venables himself is a ripper. They say he’s been steward of the J. C. R. for fifty years.” “Thirty-two years,” corrected Wedderburn in his voice of most reverberant certitude. “Venner’s is practically a club. You aren’t elected, but somehow you know just when you can go in without being stared at. There’s nothing in Oxford like that little office of Venner’s. It’s practically made St. Mary’s what it is.” All the freshmen, sipping their port and lolling back in their new gowns, looked very reverent and very conscious of the honor and glory of St. Mary’s which they themselves hoped soon to affirm more publicly than they could at present. Upon their meditations sounded very loud the blast of a coach-horn from above. “That’s Templeton-Collins,” said Michael. “Who’s he?” several demanded. “He’s the man who used to live in these rooms last year,” said Lonsdale lightly, as if that were the most satisfactory description for these freshmen, as indeed for all its youthful heartlessness it was. “Let’s all yell and tell him to shut up that infernal row,” suggested Wedderburn sternly. Already from sitting in an armchair at the head of a table of freshmen he was acquiring an austere seniority of his own. “To a second-year blood?” whispered somebody in dread surprise. “Why not take away the coach-horn?” Lonsdale added. However, this the freshmen were not prepared to do, although with unanimity they invited Templeton-Collins to refrain from blowing it. “Keep quiet, little boys,” shouted Templeton-Collins down the stairs.