nation to move--"

"I'm not going to do any more shouting," said Madden, "even though
you propose the health of the chancellor, vice-chancellor, and two
members."

"Not even though he throws the proctor's into the bargain," said
Twisleton.

"You may shout or not as you like; but at the risk of giving some
temporary pain to as good a friend as I have in the world, I will ask
you to drink the health of one whom on this occasion fortune has not
favoured--I mean my cousin, Arthur Wilkinson. The lists as they come
down are, I dare say, made out with tolerable fairness. It is not at
any rate for me to grumble at them. But of this I am quite sure, that
did there exist some infallible test for finding out the best man,
no man's name in this year would have been placed before his. He is
not so jovial as the rest of us now, because he has partly failed;
but the time will come when he will not fail." And then Arthur
Wilkinson's health was toasted with a somewhat bated enthusiasm, but
still with sufficient _eclat_ to make every glass in Mr. Parker's
house ring on its shelf.

Poor Wilkinson's ears tingled when he heard his name pronounced; and
he would at the moment have given anything to be allowed to be quiet.
But it may be doubted whether he would not have been more hurt had he
been left there without any notice. It is very hard to tune oneself
aright to a disappointed man. "I'll break the ice for him, at any
rate," said Bertram to himself. "When he's used to talk about it, he
will suffer less."

Wilkinson had been accounted a good hand at speaking in the debating
society, and though rather more prolix than Bertram, and not quite
so vivacious, had been considered almost more than a match for his
cousin on account of his superior erudition and more practised
delivery; but now his voluble gift of words deserted him. "He was
much obliged to them," he said; "though perhaps, on the whole, it was
better that men who placed themselves in a mediocre condition should
be left to their mediocrity. He had no doubt himself of the justness
of the lists. It would be useless for him to say that he had not
aspired; all the world"--it was all the world to him--"knew too
well that he had aspired. But he had received a lesson which might
probably be useful to him for the rest of his life. As for failing,
or not failing, that depended on the hopes which a man might form for
himself. He trusted that his would henceforth be so moderate in their