have a bonner."

"Will you light it, Sinclair?" asked another Wykehamist in a cynical
drawl.

"Why not?" Sinclair retorted.

"Oh, I don't know. But you always used to be better at theory than
practice."

"How these Wykehamists love one another," laughed an Etonian.

This implied criticism welded the four Winchester men present in
defiance of all England, and Michael was impressed by their haughty and
bigoted confidence.

"Sunday night is the proper time for a bonner," said Wedderburn. "After
the first 'after.'"

"'After'?" queried another.

"Oh, don't you know? Haven't you heard?" several well-informed freshmen
began, but Wedderburn with his accustomed gravity assumed the burden of
instruction, and the others gave way.

"Every Sunday after hall," he explained, "people go up to the J. C. R.
and take wine and dessert. Healths are drunk, and of course the
second-year men try to make the freshers blind. Then everybody goes
round to one of the large rooms in Cloisters for the 'after Common
Room.' People sing and do various parlor tricks. The President of the J.
C. R. gives the first 'after' of the term. The others are usually given
by three or four men together. Whisky and cigars and lemon-squash. They
usually last till nearly twelve. Great sport. They're much better than
private wines, better for everybody. That's why we have them on Sunday
night," he concluded rather vaguely.

The unwieldy bulk of sixteen freshmen was beginning to break up into
bridge fours. Friendships were already in visible elaboration. The first
evening had wonderfully brought them together. Something deeper than the
superficial amity of chance juxtaposition at the same table was now
begetting tentative confidences that would ultimately ripen to
intimacies. Etonians were discovering that all Harrovians were not the
dark-blue bedecked ruffians of Lords nor the aggressive boors of Etonian
tradition. Harrovians were beginning to suspect that some Etonians might
exist less flaccid, less deliberately lackadaisical, less odiously
serene than the majority of those they had so far only encountered in
summer holidays. Carthusians found that athletic prowess was going to
count pleasantly in their favor. Even the Wykehamists extended a
cordiality that was not positively chilling, and though they never lost
an opportunity to criticize implicity all other schools, and though
their manners were so perfect that they abashed all but the more
debonair Et