It is seldom that any very determined attempt to be gay _par excellence_
has a perfect success, but certainly upon this evening ours had. Songs,
good stories, speeches, toasts, high visions of the campaign before us, the
wild excitement which such a meeting cannot be free from, gradually, as
the wine passed from hand to hand, seized upon all, and about four in the
morning, such was the uproar we caused, and so terrific the noise of our
proceedings, that the accumulated force of porters, sent one by one to
demand admission, was now a formidable body at the door, and Mike at last
came in to assure us that the bursar,--the most dread official of all
collegians,--was without, and insisted, with a threat of his heaviest
displeasure in case of refusal, that the door should be opened.

A committee of the whole house immediately sat upon the question; and it
was at length resolved, _nemine contradicente_, that the request should be
complied with. A fresh bowl of punch, in honor of our expected guest, was
immediately concocted, a new broil put on the gridiron, and having seated
ourselves with as great a semblance of decorum as four bottles a man admits
of, Curtis the junior captain, being most drunk, was deputed to receive the
bursar at the door, and introduce him to our august presence.

Mike's instructions were, that immediately on Dr. Stone the bursar
entering, the door was to be slammed to, and none of his followers
admitted. This done, the doctor was to be ushered in and left to our polite
attentions.

A fresh thundering from without scarcely left time for further
deliberation; and at last Curtis moved towards the door in execution of his
mission.

"Is there any one there?" said Mike, in a tone of most unsophisticated
innocence, to a rapping that, having lasted three quarters of an hour,
threatened now to break in the panel. "Is there any one there?"

"Open the door this instant,--the senior bursar desires you,--this
instant."

"Sure it's night, and we're all in bed," said Mike.

"Mr. Webber, Mr. O'Malley," said the bursar, now boiling with indignation,
"I summon you, in the name of the board, to admit me."

"Let the gemman in," hiccoughed Curtis; and at the same instant the
heavy bars were withdrawn, and the door opened, but so sparingly as with
difficulty to permit the passage of the burly figure of the bursar.

Forcing his way through, and regardless of what became of the rest, he
pushed on vigorously through