He returned to Oxford convinced of the immediate importance of pressing his campaign. Munich and Haggerston had been equally encouraging. The fifth number of _The Mongoose_ was already in the press. It contained a signed interview with a well-known Chinatown bruiser, and an unpublished photograph of The King. On the day before publication the bolt fell. Jade-eyed jealousy had dogged the footsteps of success. Two powers had clashed. In an ukase of fine Latinity which Gaveston was the first to appreciate, the Vice-Chancellor ordered the suppression of _The Mongoose_ and the rustication of its editor unless its policy were changed. For a moment Gaveston thought of boldly publishing the dread decree and appealing to the immense force of public opinion. That would be the Areopagitical gesture, wouldn’t it? But should he not rather temper it with the practice of the old school and try diplomacy? With the trusted David he discussed the subject monologically on an afternoon’s tramp over Shotover. Little was his position to be envied. He stood alone, alone against the most autocratic power left in modern Europe. One by one his collaborators had unobtrusively resigned. Only David remained as business-manager. “But glory, David,” he said as they reached the summit of Shotover Hill, “glory is ever a solitary apex. I have always found that. And the Vice-Chancellor, though he be only the Warden of Rutland College, must have found it too.” “I expect he has,” nodded the business manager. “Then we have common ground, he and I. I shall try diplomacy.” And he did. Next morning he repaired to the official residence of the Vice-Chancellor. But not without difficulty, for political feeling had been running high these days. Stout barricades had been erected across both ends of the Turl; the cross-streets were permanently closed to traffic; only senior members of the University who had passed the climacteric age of sixty-three, or such junior members as had certificates of loyal character from the Hebdomadal Council, or one of the non-political clubs, were allowed to pass the barrier. Pickets of chosen men from the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, steel-helmeted and armed to the teeth, guarded the venerable Warden of Rutland College from the possible approach of wild-eyed trade-unionists, Chartists or Agnostics--for such abounded, at large in the streets. Gaveston, however, was known even to the rough soldier lads, and had only to show to their officer the passport which Uncle Wilkie’s diplomatic influence had procured for his last trip to Brittany. He was escorted to the massive gates of Rutland, whence protruded half-a-dozen Stokes guns manned by stalwart Rhodes Scholars who in their home townships had been office-bearers of the Ku-Klux-Klan, and through the barbed wire entanglements which covered the immemorial gravel[19] of the quadrangle. [19] Alas! no longer. (LIT. EXEC.)