dashed out into the road and dived panic-stricken into the waiting
taxi. We made good our escape.

* * * * *

Those seven stars represent the War. I take a childlike pleasure
in dismissing Armageddon in this brusque fashion. If you have had
anything at all to do with it you will understand.

Having been demobilised at a relatively early date, out of respect for
our pivotal intellects, Biffin and I were bound for Cambridge, to take
up the threads of learning where WILHELM had snapped them some years
previously. Both of us have changed a little. Biffin has been burnt
brown by the suns of Egypt, while I wear a small souvenir of Flanders
on my upper lip.

"I wonder if Parsons will remember us," said Biffin as the train
thundered into the station.

"Of course he will," I replied. "Parsons never forgets anything."

"I doubt it," said Biffin.

As our taxi drew up before the portals of Alma Mater the first person
we saw, standing on the steps of the porter's lodge, was Parsons. He
was as Olympian as ever. As soon as you saw him you felt that, though
they might abolish compulsory Greek or introduce a Finance Tripos,
they would never be able to subdue the ancient spirit of the
University. A single glimpse of Parsons, standing erect in all his
traditional glory, showed up people like Mr. H.G. WELLS in their true