Sinister Street, vol. 2

primarily to secure. On the morning after the attempted adjustment of Appleby's behavior, a raw and vaporous November morning, Michael at one minute to eight o'clock

turn journey that must culminate in the completion of his toilet. Crossing the gravel space between Cloisters and Cuther's worldly

Are you going to

oing out to buy a

was contemplating distastefully the kedgeree which with a more hopeful appetite he had ordered on the

ing attack on the policy of the Oxford theater? Or perhaps you'd better begin at the beginning and go right through the whole paper and give me yo

interrupted, "do

s too clever. And if you find any misprints I haven't noticed, mark them down. We can't alter them now, of course, but I'll speak t

gain, "do you like it as much in the morning as you

do I know?" exclaim

nd let me know if you think I ought to

he success of this pa

n my rooms, and the little mulled claret we shall drink to keep out this f

Maurice suggested in a tone of disappointment. Lonsdale arrived for breakfast at this moment, just in ti

of the O.L.G. yet, Lonny?"

"if you promise to spend the bob you screw out of

Michael, not thinking it very prudent to remind Lonsdale of last night's encounter w

t question was ultimately conveyed to the reader, Michael was not sure. It was a promising fancy, this of the Academic Muse; and Michael played with the idea of elaborating his conception in an article for this very Looking-Glass which she invisibly supported. The Oxford Looking-Glass might serve her like the ?gis of Pallas Athene, an ?gis that would freeze to academic stone the self-confident chimeras of the twentieth century. Michael began to feel that his classical analogies were enmeshing the original idea, involving it already in complexities too manifold for him to unravel. His ideas always fled like wakin

ity: but suddenly all the impulse faded out in self-depreciation. Guy Hazlewood would solve the problem with his pranked-out allusiveness, would trace more featly the attributes of the Academic Muse and establish more convincingly her descent from Apollo or her identity with Athen

tions. By M

sonal to Maurice Avery than general to the university. Moreover, his glass would certainly never have stood a steady and protracted gaze. Still with all their faults these paragraphic reflections did s

Balliol. By

ch of Oxford in Guy that whatever he wrote spontaneously would always enrich the ma

of the Moder

. C. Wed

than Michael would have expected, but not wit

n the plural scarcely managed to convey himself into print. The neat bulk began to sprawl: the solidi

? By Nige

mething that Cambridge for all her poets lacked. Michael himself had since he came up let the practice of religion slide, but his first fervors had not burned themselves out so utterly as to make him despise the warmth they once had kindled. His inclination in any argument was always toward the Catholic point of view, and though he himself allowed to himself the license of agnostic speech and agnostic thought, he was always a little impatient of a skeptical non-age and very contemptuous indeed of an unb

kfast with an appetite. As he rose to leave the Common Room, Lonsdale emerged fro

that thing of Mossy's?"

el no

t most a

," Michael

uck the college up into supporting it. By Jove, I'll write and tell the governor to buy a copy. I want him t

enner's before going

llows are all so dreadfully wild about sport. They'd be sure to buy it then. Going to work this morning? That's right. I'm always advising t

he fire into a blaze, eyed with satisfaction November's sodden mists against hi

alism. By Ve

Tory Ideals. By

byrinth of rocks and streams. His desk not yet deranged by work or correspondence possessed a monumental stability of neatness that was most soothing to contemplate. It had the restfulness of a well-composed landscape where every contour took the eye easily onward and where every tree grew just where it was needed for a moment's halt. The olive-green magazine dropped unregarded onto the floor, and there was no other book within reach. The dancing fire danced on. Far away sounded the cries of daily life. The c

d scraps of generalization in a notebook that would inevitably be lost long before the Schools. At the same time it was rather lazy to lie back like this so early in the morning. Why was it so difficult

rst into the room, and Michael by a supreme effo

rice, rushing to the window and lettin

rmured Stewart. "I heard Mass at Bar

ack along the Broad and the Turl," announced Maurice. "And how

sed Michael

round. That's sixty, and it's not half-past ten yet. We ought to do another three hundred easily before lunch. In fact, ro

laughing, and lest he should seem to be laughing at Maur

ge the boys who were selli

redicted Michael. "And what on earth are you going to do with twenty-

rite round and get the best-known old Oxford men to give us contributions from time t

be dreadful to read of the sudden death of Quiller-Couch from apoplectic pride or

int," said Maurice severely. "You'd r

t, "is that there's an O.L.G. dinner to-night at the Grid; a

about lunc

ed to spend all day at the Union. Nigel had booked himsel

in the Union?" Micha

e Varsity does belong. Besides, Townsend and Bill Mowbray were both keen. You see they thin

te so editorial was ever conceived by the overwro

t affection. It had every justification for calling itself The Club without any qualifying prefix, but it produced a type too highly specialized, and was too definitely Dark Blue and Leander Pink. In a way, too, it belonged as much to Cambridge, and although violently patriotic had merged its individuality in braw

mation of mounte-bank-worship that differed only in degree from the photographs of actresses on the mantelpiece of a second-rate room in a second-rate college. The frequenters of the O.U.D.S. were always very definitely Oxford undergraduates, but they lacked the serenity of Oxford, and seemed already to have planted a foot in London. The big modern room over the big cheap shop was a restless place, and its pretentiousness and modernity were ting

e archaism made it a club too conservative to register much more than an effect of peculiarity. The Bullingdon had too much money, and not enough unhampered humanity to achieve the

The old rooms looking out on the converging High had recently been redecorated in a very crude shade of blue. Members were grumbling at the taste of the executive, but Michael thought the unabashed ugliness was in keeping with its character. It was as if unwillingly the club released its hold upon the externals of Victorianism. Such premises could afford to be anachronistic, since the frequenters were always so finely sensitive to fashion's lightest breath. Eccentricity was not tolerated at the Grid except in the c

lings and fourpence to the college for a dinner he would not eat. In the Strangers' Room were waiting the typical guests of the typical members. Here and there nods were exchanged, but the general atmosphere was one of serious expectancy. In the distance the rattle of crockery told of

, I suppose,"

tion a name. Nigel Stewar

ticle?" ask

," Michae

arianship of the Union," Towns

inside, when Bill Mowbray rushed breathlessly into the room. Everybody observed his dramatic entrance,

t fool will ne

nsend darkly, as the

ted that he u

ared. "Or else he knows his ridiculous article on

again to-night,"

hrugged hi

nother effective entrance,"

pression. They were followed almost immediately by Guy Hazlewood, who with his long legs came sloping in as self-possessed as he always was. Perhaps his left eyelid drooped a little lower than it was accustomed, and perhaps the sidelong smile that gave him a superficial resemblance to Michael was drawn down to a sharper point of mockery, but whatever stored-up flash

. Five bob all round. I say he's just discovered Milton to be a great poet and is no

d has been trying ever since to find out whether she w

l about it," pronounced We

aring off in the opposite direction and

for the week before last," Mi

that gentle and confiding air of his all the company, included them all as it were in an intimate aside, and with the voi

, Nigel?" inquired Guy. "You co

yes. "I expect, you know, dinner's ready." Then he plunged his arm through Guy's, and

eteness of his satisfaction. He hoped they all liked his scheme of inviting well-known, even celebrated, old Oxford men to contribute from time to time. He flattered himself they would esteem the honor vouchsafed to them. He disclaimed the wish to monopolize the paper's criticism and nobly invited Townsend to put in their places a series of contemporary dramatists. He congratulated Guy u

w a very roseate world, marched across the High to wind up the evenin

of the De Rebus Ecclesiasticis in my digs to

sibly go," dec

, hurriedly dipping into the la

y of her existence as she emerged

y rooms. Will you put out syphons and whi

give, sir?" ask

ant shook his

t coming? Yes, sir. Oh, they'll make themselves at home without you,

De Rebus Ecclesias

reigners. I'll

e names of their colleges, and with the same politeness agreed to visit him next morning. The Proctor raised his cap and with his escort faded into the fog. Arm in arm the six journalists continued their progress into Holywell. Guy had digs in an old house whose gabled front leaned outward, whose oriel windows were supported by oaken beams worm-eaten and grotesquely carved. Within, a wide balustraded staircase went b

up the fire and set glasses ready for anyone's need. Great armchairs were pulled round in a semicircle: pipes were lit: the stillness and mystery of the Oxford night crept along the ancient s

the Academic Muse had shown the company her ?gis, had turned everything to unpassionate stone, and softened all presumption with her guarded glances. It was extraordinary how under her guidance every subject was stripped of obtrusive reality, how even women, discussed never so grossly, remained untarnished; since they ceased to be real women, but mere abstractions wanton or chaste in accordance with the demands of wit. T