oric occasions; on the other hand the fateful date has
passed, often enough, without the merest flinging of a squib or friendly
appropriation of the genial policeman's helmet.

No one can say, no one knows, whether there will be riot to-night or no.
Most of the young gentlemen now parading the K.P. and Petty Cury would
undoubtedly prefer that there should be a riot. For one thing there has
been no riot during the last five or six years--no one "up" just now
has had any experience of such a thing, and it would be beyond question
delightful to taste the excitement of it. But, on the other hand, there
is all the difficulty of getting under way. One cannot possibly enjoy
the occasion until one has reached that delightful point when one has
lost all sense of risk, when recklessly we pile the bonfire, snap our
fingers in the nose of poor Mr. Gregg who is terrific enough when he
marches solemnly into Chapel but is nothing at all when he is screaming
with shrill anger amongst the lights and fury of the blazing common.

Will this wonderful moment when discipline, respect for authority,
thoughts of home, terrors of being sent down, all these bogies, are
flung derisively to the winds arrive to-night? It has struck nine, and
to Olva and Lawrence, walking solemnly through the market-place, it all
seems quiet enough.

But behold how the gods work their will! It so happens that Giles of St
Martin's has occasion, on this very day, to celebrate his twenty-first
birthday. It has been done as a twenty-first birthday should be done,
and by nine o'clock the company, twenty in number, have decided that
"it was the ruddiest of ruddy old worlds"--that--"let's have
some moretodrink ol' man--it was Fifth o' November--and that a
ruddyoldbonfire would be--a--ruddyol'-joke---"

Now, at half-past nine, the company of twenty march singing down the
K.P. and gather unto themselves others--a murmur is spreading through
the byways. "Bonfire on the Common." "Bonfire on the Common." The
streets begin to be black with undergraduates.

2

Olva was conscious as he passed with Lawrence through the now crowded
streets that Bunning's hysteria had had an effect upon his nerves. He
could not define it more directly than by saying that the Shadow
that had, during these many weeks, appeared to be pursuing him, at a
distance, now seemed to be actually with him. It was as though three of
them, and not two, were walking there side by side. It was as though he