aid down, is always broken; and therefore I feel
no hesitation in breaking it on this occasion. A long speech is a
long bore, and a little speech is a little bore; but bores must
be endured. We can't do very well without them. Now my bore shall
be a very short bore if I'm allowed to make an end of it without
interruption."

"All right, Harcourt," said Bertram. "Go ahead; we're only too
delighted to hear you. It isn't every day we have a London barrister
here."

"No; and it isn't every day that we have a double-first at old
Trinity. Gentlemen, there are, I think, five, six Trinity men here
including myself. It will be a point of honour with you to drink
health and prosperity to our friend Bertram with all the honours.
We have many men of whom we can boast at Trinity; but if I have any
insight into character, any power of judging what a man will do"--it
must be remembered that Mr. Harcourt, though a very young man in
London, was by no means a young man at Oxford--"there have been very
few before him who have achieved a higher place than will fall to his
lot, or whose name will be more in men's mouths than his. There are
also here four gentlemen of other colleges; they will not, I am sure,
begrudge us our triumph; they are his old friends, and will be as
proud of the Oxford man as we are of the Trinity man. Gentlemen, here
is prosperity to our friend the double-first, and health to enjoy the
fruits of his labour."

Whereupon the toast was drunk with a great deal of fervour. It was
astonishing that ten men should make so much uproar; even Wilkinson,
whose heart the wine had just touched sufficiently to raise it a
little from the depth to which it had fallen--even he cheered; and
Madden, overcoming by degrees his not unnatural repugnance to rise,
produced from certain vast depths a double-bass hurrah.

"Bertram," said he, when the voices and glasses were once more
silent, "you're a credit to your college, and I've a regard for you;
so I don't mind running the risk for once. But I must beg that I may
not be asked to repeat it."

Bertram of course returned thanks to his guests with all the mawkish
modesty which usually marks such speeches--or, rather, with modesty
which would be mawkish were it not so completely a matter of course.
And then he sat down; and then, with a face rather heightened in
colour, he got upon his legs again.

"In spite of Madden's difficulty of utterance," said he, "and his
very visible disincli