hite shirt-front. He had tucked his
napkin in his collar, but that did not reassure him, because he then
became alarmed lest the napkin should be soiled. However, he watched
very carefully the careless, well-bred eating of Little and the
finicking deportment of Graves, and managed to strike the middle
course. It is true he absorbed his soup with sibilance and from the
point of the spoon; but apart from that he acquitted himself
excellently until the arrival of the asparagus. When the waiter
presented it Bindle eyed the long, slender stems suspiciously. Then he
looked at the waiter and back again at the stems and shook his head.

"Nonsense!" said Dick Little; "nobody ever refuses asparagus at
Bungem's."

_Asperge a la Bungem_ is a dish the memory of which every Oxford man
cherishes to the end of his days.

Bindle weakened, and helped himself liberally, a circumstance which he
soon regretted.

"How do I eat it?" he enquired of Dick Little in an anxious whisper.

"Watch me," replied Little.

The asparagus was tired and refused to preserve an erect position.
Each stem seemed desirous of forming itself into an inverted "U."
Little selected a particularly wilted stem and threw his head well back
in the position of a man about to be shaved, and lowered the asparagus
slowly into his mouth.

Nobody took any particular notice of this, and Little had been very
careful to take only two or three stems. To the horror of Graves,
Bindle followed Dick Little's lead.

"Funny sort o' stuff, Reggie, ain't it?" said Bindle, resuming an
upright position in order to select another stick. "Seems as if yer
'ad to 'ave somebody rubbin' yer while it goes down."

Never in the history of Bungem's had the famous asparagus been so
neglected. Everybody was watching alternately Bindle and Graves.
Bindle was enjoying himself; but on the face of Graves was painted an
anguish so poignant that more than one man present pitied him his
ordeal.

Dick Little's mallet fell with a thump, and the attention of the guests
became diverted from Graves to the chairman, amidst cries of "Chair,"
"Order," "Shame," and "Chuck him out."

"Gentlemen--a mere euphemism, I confess," began Dick Little; "men of
St. Joseph's never propose the toast of the King; that is a toast that
we all drink silently and without reminder. The toast of the evening
is naturally that of the health and happiness of the guest of the
evening, Mr. Josiah Williams of Moonagoona