“Well, I suppose one must make allowances,” said Grainger. “These artistic devils are always liable to breaks.” “That’s right,” said Michael. “Hoist the Union Jack. It’s an extraordinary thing, the calm way in which an Englishman is always ready to make art responsible for everything.” Next day Maurice overtook Michael on the way to a lecture. “I say,” he began impetuously, “I made an awful fool of myself yesterday evening. What shall I do?” “Nothing,” said Michael. “I was really horribly worried, you know, and I think I rather jumped at the opportunity to get the beastly business off my chest, as a sort of joke.” “Come and dine at the Palace of Delights this evening,” Michael invited. “And tell Frank Castleton to come.” “We can’t afford to be critical during the last fortnight of jolly old Two Hundred and Two,” said Michael to Lonsdale and Grainger, when they received rather gloomily at first the news of the invitation. Maurice in the course of the evening managed to reinstate himself. He so very divertingly drew old Wedders on the subject of going down. The last week of the summer term arrived, and really it was very depressing that so many Good Eggs were irrevocably going to be lost to the St. Mary’s J.C.R. “I think my terminal dinner this term will have to be the same as my first one,” said Michael. “Only twice as large.” So they all came, Cuffe and Sterne and Sinclair and a dozen more. And just because so many of the guests were going down, not a word was said about it. The old amiable ragging and rotting went on as if the college jokes of to-night would serve for another lustrum yet, as if Two Hundred and Two would merely be empty of these familiar faces for the short space of a vacation. Not a pipe was gone from its rack; not a picture was as yet deposed; not a hint was given of change, either by the material objects of the big room or by the merry and intimate community that now thronged it. Then the college tenor was called upon for a song, and perhaps without any intention of melancholy he sang O Moon of My Delight. Scarcely was it possible even for these Good Eggs, so rigidly conscious of each other’s rigidity, not to think sentimentally for a moment how well the turning down of that empty glass applied to them. The new mood that descended upon the company expressed itself in reminiscence; and then, as if the sadness must for decency’s sake be driven out, the college jester was called upon for the comic song whose hebdomadal recurrence through nine terms had always provoked the same delirious encore. Everything was going on as usual, and at a few minutes to midnight Auld Lang Syne ought not to have been difficult. It had been sung nearly as often as the comic song, but it was shouted more fervently somehow, less in tune somehow, and the silence at its close was very acute. Twelve o’clock was sounding; the guests went hurrying out; and, leaning from the windows