with the
dons to heed the soreness of his feet. This, too, was the last day of
his travels, for he had not altered his intention of waiting at Oxford
till July.

"We call this place the heart of knowledge," he said, passing a great
building that presided, white and silent, over darkness; "it seems to me
as little that, as Society is the heart of true gentility."

Crocker's answer was a grunt; he was looking at the stars, calculating
possibly in how long he could walk to heaven.

"No," proceeded Shelton; "we've too much common-sense up here to strain
our minds. We know when it's time to stop. We pile up news of Papias
and all the verbs in 'ui' but as for news of life or of oneself! Real
seekers after knowledge are a different sort. They fight in the dark--no
quarter given. We don't grow that sort up here."

"How jolly the limes smell!" said Crocker.

He had halted opposite a garden, and taken hold of Shelton by a button
of his coat. His eyes, like a dog's, stared wistfully. It seemed as
though he wished to speak, but feared to give offence.

"They tell you," pursued Shelton, "that we learn to be gentlemen up
here. We learn that better through one incident that stirs our hearts
than we learn it here in all the time we're up."

"Hum!" muttered Crocker, twisting at the button; "those fellows
who seemed the best sorts up here have turned out the best sorts
afterwards."

"I hope not," said Shelton gloomily; "I was a snob when I was up here.
I believed all I was told, anything that made things pleasant; my 'set'
were nothing but--"

Crocker smiled in the darkness; he had been too "cranky" to belong to
Shelton's "set."

"You never were much like your 'set,' old chap," he said.

Shelton turned away, sniffing the perfume of the limes. Images were
thronging through his mind. The faces of his old friends strangely mixed
with those of people he had lately met--the girl in the train, Ferrand,
the lady with the short, round, powdered face, the little barber;
others, too, and floating, mysterious,--connected with them all,
Antonia's face. The scent of the lime-trees drifted at him with its
magic sweetness. From the street behind, the footsteps of the passers-by
sounded muffled, yet exact, and on the breeze was borne the strain: "For
he's a jolly good fellow!"

"For he's a jolly good fellow! For he's a jolly good fe-ellow! And so
say all of us!"

"Ah!" he said, "they were good chaps."

"I used to think," said Crocker