west and north to south. Up the staircase leading to the
famous dining-hall many illustrious men, as yet unillustrious, had
passed with firm and confident step. On the walls were innumerable
flashlight photographs of famous suppers, suppers that had reduced
potential judges and incipient statesmen to helpless imbecility. Prime
ministers-to-be, generals of the future, and admirals of the next
generation had lost their bearings and their equilibrium as a result of
the good fare, liquid fare, that is, dispensed by the immortal Bungem.

Colonial governors, viceroys, and archbishops could have recalled
uproarious nights spent beneath the hospitable roof of Bungem's, had
their memories not been subject to severe censorship.

Framed above the head of the table was the quatrain, written by a
future Poet Laureate, that was the pride of Bungem's heart:

"Take from me all I have: my friends,
My songs, for no one's ever sung 'em;
One crowded hour of glorious life
I crave, but let it be with Bungem."

Never had Bungem's presented so gay and glorious an appearance as on
the Wednesday evening of the famous supper to Josiah Williams.

Applications for tickets had poured in upon the Dinner Committee
hastily organised by the men of St. Joseph's. Many ideas, in which
originality and insanity were happily blended, had been offered to the
Committee. One man had even suggested that the waiters should be
dressed as kangaroos; but the idea had been discarded owing to the
difficulty of jumping with plates of soup. Another suggestion had been
that nothing but Mr. Williams's mutton should be eaten, whilst a third
had proposed a bushman's menu. An Australian Rhodes man had, however,
with great gravity of countenance, assured the Committee that the
Bushmen were cannibals, and the project had been abandoned.

The banquet was limited to two hundred covers, and the applications had
exceeded twice that number. Preference was given to men of St.
Joseph's, and after that to the Australian Rhodes scholars, who had
kindly undertaken during the course of the evening to reproduce the
battle-cry of the Bushmen.

One Rhodes scholar, more serious than the rest, suggested that the
Bushmen had no battle-cry; but he was promptly told that they would
possess one after that evening.

Tom Little had taken upon himself the guarding of Reginald Graves, as a
suspicion had flitted through the minds of the organisers of the feast
that he might