hmen had learned the words and were able to sing
the final chorus with a vigor which positively detonated against the
windows and contrasted divertingly with the almost inaudible soloist.

Last of all came Auld Lang Syne, when everybody stood up on chairs and
joined hands, seniors, second-year men and freshmen. Auld Lang Syne
ended with perhaps the noisiest moment of all because although Lonsdale
had taken several lemon squashes to steady himself, he had not taken
enough to keep his balance through the ultimate energetic repetition,
when he collapsed headlong into a tray of syphons and glasses, dragging
with him two other freshmen. But nobody seemed to have hurt himself, and
downstairs they all rushed, shouting and hulloaing, into the cool
moonlight.

The guests from New College and University and the "out-of-college" men
hurried home, for it was close upon midnight. In the lodge the freshmen
foregathered for a few minutes with the second-year men, and as they
talked they knew that the moment was come when they must proclaim
themselves free from the restrictions of school, and by the kindling of
a bonfire prove that they were now truly grown up. Bundles of faggots
were seized from the scouts' holes: in the angle of St. Cuthbert's quad
where the complexion of the gravel was tanned by the numberless bonfires
of past generations the pile of wood grew taller and taller: two or
three douches of paraffin made the mass readily inflammable: a match was
set, and with a roar the bonfire began. From their windows second-year
men, their faces lighted by the ascending blaze, looked down with
pleasant patronage upon the traditional pastime of their juniors. The
freshmen danced gleefully round the pyre of their boyhood, feeding it
with faggots and sometimes daringly and ostentatiously with chairs: the
heat became intense: the smoke surged upward, obscuring the bland
aspectful moon. Slowly upon the group of law-breakers fell a silence, as
they stood bewitched by the beauty of their own handiwork. The riotous
preparations and annunciatory yells had died away to an intimate murmur
of conversation. From the lodge came Shadbolt the unctuous head-porter
to survey for a moment this mighty bonfire: conscious of their
undergraduate dignity the freshmen chaffed him, until he retired with
muttered protests to summon the Dean.

"What will the Dean do?" asked one or two less audacious ones as they
faded into various doorways, ready to obliterate