“Well, the Babe isn’t to blame if it is a windy night,” said Mr. Stewart. “They had probably been praying for wind in St. Mary’s, though the only time in my life that I attended a University sermon there was plenty of wind. The sermon was preached by a black missionary, who I think said he came from Iceland, which I don’t believe. He literally swept us away in a hurricane of inconsequent appeal. Really to assume that the Babe is responsible for the wind, is almost profanity. What a delicious night! It quite makes me think of the feasts of Tiberius at Capri. The air is as soft as the air of Naples and all the waiters here, as at Capri, are made in Germany. Germany itself, I believe, is getting gradually depopulated, and I ‘m sure I don’t wonder. Yes, I am staying here for a day or two. There is an expensive simplicity about the Savoy, which almost lets me forget for the time the pompous cheapness both literal and literary of University towns. Oxford is no better. Dons think about croquet and Triposes at Cambridge, and about Moderations and lawn tennis at Oxford. It is six of one and five and a half of the other. And the _cuisine_ of the college kitchens is enough to make Savarin turn in his grave. You order melted butter, and they bring forth milk in a crockery dish.” “I thought you were devoted to Cambridge,” said Reggie. “I’m sure I’ve heard you say so.” “Dear Reggie, let me ask you never to remember anything I say. But it is true that I am devoted to what I consider to be the _raison d’être_ of Cambridge, that is the undergraduates, with their fresh bright lives, and their _insouciance_, their costumes of tablecloths and their frank contempt for the class to which I have the misfortune to belong. That is why I always go up in the Long, dons for the time are in eclipse: it is like a whole holiday. I am going there next week, to stop for a month or so. I hope you are both coming.” “Yes,” said the Babe, “we are both going up to work. I am to go in for a tripos in history instead of a pass. I had a short and painful interview with my father about it. Why are fathers so curt? Do you suppose I shall get through?”