The Prelude to Adventure

against some person or persons unknown" had been returned. It was generally felt that Carfax's life had not been of the most savoury and that there were, in all probability, amongst t

obviously, at heart, relieved to be rid of his nephew so easily. Poor Carfax! For so rubicund and noisy a person he left strangely little mark upon the world. Within a fortnight the college had nearly lost account of his existence. He lent to Sannet Wood a sinister air that caused numberless undergraduates to cycle out in

le than the resolute determination of these young men to push grim facts away. They were not made-one could hear it so eloquently explained-for that kind of tragedy. The autumn air, the f

e, a delicate and gentle setting to the crudity of their later life. Carfax, when alive, had blundered into coarse disaster but had bl

kle, and through them all the steady working of the brain. Nevertheless those earlier games were yet remembered against him, and it was confidently said that this brilliance, with a man of Dune's temperament, could not possibly last. But, nevertheless, the expectation of his success brought him up, with precipitation, against the personality of Cardillac, and it was this implied rivalry that agitated the College. It is only in one's second year that a matter of this kind can assume world-shaking importance. The First-year Undergraduate is too near the child, the Third-year Undergraduate too near the man. For the First-year man School, for the Third-year man the World looms too heavily. So it is from the men of the

seemed determined, until now, to avoid any-thing of the kind. Suddenly the situation