hout a blush for Alan's
rooms. The great space of Tom quad by absorbing his self-consciousness
allowed him to feel himself an unit of the small and decorative
population that enhanced the architecture there. The scattered, groups
of friends whose voices became part of the very air itself like the
wings of the pigeons and the perpetual tapping of footsteps, the two
dons treading in slow confabulation that wide flagged terrace, even
himself were here forever. Michael captured again in that moment the
crystallized vision of Oxford which had first been vouchsafed to him
long ago by that old print of St. Mary's tower. He turned reluctantly
away from Tom quad, and going on to seek Alan in Meadows, by mistake
found himself in Peckwater. A tall fair undergraduate was standing alone
in the center of the quad, cracking a whip. Suddenly Michael realized
that his father had been at Christ Church; and this tall fair
whip-cracker served for him as the symbol of his father. He must have
often stood here so, cracking a whip; and Michael never came into
Peckwater without recreating him so occupied on a fine autumn afternoon,
whip in hand, very tall and very fair in the glinting sunlight.

Dreams faded out, when Michael ran up the staircase to Alan's rooms; but
he was full-charged again with all that suppressed intellectual
excitement which he had counted upon finding in Oxford, but which he had
failed to find until the wide tranquillity of Tom quad had given him, as
it were, the benediction of the University.

"Hullo, Alan!" he cried. "How are you getting on? I say, why do they
stick 'Mr.' in front of your name over the door? At St. Mary's we drop
the 'Mr.' or any other sort of title. Aren't you unpacked _yet?_ You are
a slacker. Look here, I want you to come out with me at once. I've got
to get some more picture-wire and a gown and a picture of Mona Lisa."

"Mona how much?" said Alan.

"La Gioconda, you ass."

"Sorry, my mistake," said Alan.

"And I saw some rattling book-shops as I came up the High," Michael went
on. "What did you have for lunch? I had bread and cheese--commons we
call it at St. Mary's. I say, I think I'm glad I don't have to wear a
scholar's gown."

"I'm an exhibitioner," said Alan.

"Well, it's the same thing. I like a commoner's gown best. Where did you
get that tea-caddy? I don't believe I've got one. Pretty good view from
your window. Mine looks out on the High."

"Look here," asked Alan very solemnly,