letic vortex of the university. In
one way, his third year was a retrogression, for he was nearer to the
life of his first year than to his second. The Oxford Looking-Glass had
created for him a society representing various interests. This was now
broken up, partly by the death of the paper, partly by the more highly
intensified existence of the founders. Maurice certainly remained the
same and was already talking of starting another paper. But Wedderburn
was beginning to think of a degree and was looking forward to entering
his father's office and becoming in another year a prosperous partner in
a prosperous firm. Guy Hazlewood had gone down and was away in
Macedonia, trying to fulfill a Balliol precept to mix yourself up in the
affairs of other nations or your own as much as possible. Townsend and
Mowbray thought now of nothing but of being elected President of the
Union, and as Michael was not a member and hated politics he scarcely
saw them. Nigel Stewart had gone to Ely Theological College. The Oxford
Looking-Glass was shattered into many pieces. Alan, however, Michael saw
more often than last year, because Alan was very popular at Two Hundred
and Two.

Michael more and more began to assume the opinions and the attitude of
his companions. He began more and more rigidly to apply their somewhat
naive standards in his judgment of the world. He was as intolerant and
contemptuous as his friends of any breach of what he almost stated to
himself as the public-school tradition. Oxford was divided into Bad Men
and Good Eggs. The Bad Men went up to London and womanized--some even of
the worst womanized in Oxford: they dressed in a style that either by
its dowdiness or its smartness stamped them: they wore college colors
round their straw hats and for their ties: they were quiet,
surreptitious, diligent, or blatantly rowdy in small sections, and at
least half the colleges in the Varsity contained nothing but Bad Men.
The Good Eggs went up to London and got drunk; and if they womanized no
one must know anything about it. Drink was the only vice that should be
enjoyed communely; in fact, if it were enjoyed secretly, it transformed
the victim into the very worst of Bad Men. The Good Eggs never made a
mistake in dress: they only wore old school colors or Varsity club
colors: they were bonhomous, hearty, careless, and rowdy in large
groups. Only the men from about eight colleges were presumed to be Good
Eggs: the rest of the Varsi