Michael came to the conclusion that he liked Balliol, that most unjustly had he heard its atmosphere stigmatized as priggish. He made up his mind to examine more closely at leisure this atmosphere, so that from it he might extract the quintessential spirit. Walking with Hazlewood to the lodge, he asked him if the men he had met in his room would stand as representatives of the college. “Yes, I should think so,” said Hazlewood. “Why, are you making exhaustive researches into the social aspects of Oxford life? It takes an American to do that really well, you know.” “But what is the essential Balliol?” Michael demanded. “Who could say so easily? Perhaps it’s the same sort of spirit, slightly filtered down through modern conditions, as you found in Elizabethan England.” Michael asked for a little more elaboration. “Well, take a man connected with the legislative class, directly by birth and indirectly by opportunities, give him at least enough taste not to be ashamed of poetry, give him also enough energy not to be ashamed of football or cricket, and add a profound satisfaction with Oxford in general and Balliol in particular, and there you are.” “Will that description serve for yourself?” Michael asked. “For me? Oh, great scott, no! I’m utterly deficient in proconsular ambitions.” They had reached the lodge by now, and Michael left his new friend after promising very soon to come to lunch and pursue further his acquaintance with Balliol. When Michael got back to college, Avery was hard at work with Wedderburn drawing up the preliminary circular of The Oxford Looking-Glass. Both the promoters insisted that Michael should listen to their announcement before he told them anything about himself or his day. “_The Oxford Looking-Glass,_” Avery began, “_is intended to reflect contemporary undergraduate thought._” “I prefer ‘will reflect,’” Wedderburn interrupted, in bass accents of positive opinion. “I don’t think it very much matters,” said Michael, “as long as you don’t think that ‘contemporary undergraduate thought’ is too pretentious. The question is whether you can see a ghost in a mirror, for a spectral appearance is just about as near as undergraduate thought ever reaches toward reality.” Neither Avery nor Wedderburn condescended to reply to his criticism, and the chief promoter went on: _“Some of the subjects which The Oxford Looking-Glass will reflect will be Literature, Politics, Painting, Music, and the Drama.”_ “I think that’s a rotten sentence,” Michael interrupted. “Well, of course, it will be polished,” Avery irritably explained. “What Wedders and I have been trying to do all the evening is to say as simply and directly as possible what we are aiming at.” “Ah!” Michael agreed, smiling. “Now I’m beginning to understand.” “_It may be assumed_,” Avery went on, “_that the opinion of those who are ‘knocking at the door_’ (in inverted commas)——”