ti-climax. He addressed a dwindling
house and failed to rouse it. He lost his motion and concluded that
the undergraduate was not only a traitor to the cause of the Right, but
an uncivil jackanapes. What business had they to ask him down and then
to take notice only of this Chard fellow?

A few days later Chard was elected to the presidency by a record
majority. He had surpassed even the majority of Walmersly, the
Churchmen's champion, who had had an election agent in every college,
who had whipped up an army of country parsons and other dilapidated
senior members with a silent promise of increased vacational
facilities, who had entertained over three hundred junior members in
two terms.

Chard received a polite note of congratulation from Smith-Aitken and
sent, in return, a vote of thanks. Nothing was ever heard about the
King's Arms, Abingdon: certainly no damage could have been done.

"Good for you," Martin said to him. "It's been a great business. At
least one of the Push is a made man."

"It has been fun," Chard admitted. He was intensely happy.

"All the same it was just as well we had that little smash. By Jove,
we had some luck. No damage done and just enough mud to be convincing.
And then that carrier's cart to get us in absolutely up to time."

"Certainly I owe a good many votes to your enterprise in fetching me
and to the terrific blend of eagerness and incompetence which put me in
the ditch."

"I can't help a skid," said Martin.

"Whose bike?" asked Chard. It was the first time he had thought of it.
"We made it look pretty silly."

"Rendell's," answered Martin. "We'd better pay the damage. I'd
forgotten."

"That's my affair," said Chard, who felt like generosity. "Comes under
reasonable election expenses surely."

Also he gave a dinner to his "workers." King's had not had a President
of the Union for several years. That distinction and the fame gained
by the kidnapping incident made Chard into a notable. Freshers stared
at him in the High and pointed him out to the ignorant.

As a President he shone with incomparable lustre, and he acquired a
fine presence and manner for his official duties. The Push in general
and Martin in particular felt the reflection of that brilliant light.
It seemed good that Chard's taper should be so radiant. Life for the
Push, during that third year, was free of care and free of idleness,
fruitful of activity and enterprise, restless and fascinatin