Our contests were always fierce, but only once so far as I remember did they become really venomous. Some ingenious Cambridge mind had hit on the idea of protecting his badge with a secret battery of pins, and there ensued a series of real and desperate fights that threatened our clan with physical extinction. The trouble passed as suddenly as it had arisen; a mysterious rumour went round the clans that pins were bad form; and there was a lull while Cambridge treated their black eyes and Oxford put sticking-plaster on their torn fingers. Pleasanter to remember is the famous retort of L—, an utterance so finely dramatic that even to-day I cannot recall it without a thrill. Caught apart from his comrades, he was surrounded by the Oxford rabble, and robbed of his colours. “You aren’t Cambridge now,” said one of his assailants, mockingly. “Ah, but the sky is Cambridge!” he replied, and indeed it was. We had our little victories to dull the edge of our defeats. And yet, probably, we of Cambridge were not altogether sorry when the Boat Race was over, and the business might be forgotten for another eleven months, for we had but little rest while the war of the ribbons was in the air. If we sought to take a quiet walk round the quad, the chance was that a boy, too small perhaps to keep a favour even for a minute, but with a light-blue heart, would run up with tidings of some comrade hardly beset in the cloisters, and the battle must be begun again. These contests were sometimes the cause of temporary friendships, for in the course of the tumult one would find oneself indebted to a year-long enemy for the timely discomfiture of one’s opponent, who in his turn might be, normally, one’s bosom companion. For no tie was sacred enough to overcome this vernal madness of the Blues. If a fellow was base enough to be Oxford, his presence in the world was unnecessary, his society tabooed. And, as I have said, even brothers would bang each other’s heads for the beauty of the Idea. Then came a day when age and responsibility changed our views on a good many things, and the Boat Race was not spared. Forgetful of the old triumphs and the old despairs, we preferred to treat ourselves and life in more sober terms, while smiling tolerantly at the little boys playing their rough games beneath our feet. Leaning forward with hands eager to clutch our manhood, we would not for worlds have compromised our new position by taking an interest in such childish trifles as coloured ribbons. So the game went on without us, and the measure of our loss is the measure of the loss of the earth when the spring melts into summer.