to Cambridge, for which he longed passionately. The journey
thither was now familiar to him, and he took pleasure in each
landmark. The fair valley of Tewin Water, the cutting into
Hitchin where the train traverses the chalk, Baldock Church,
Royston with its promise of downs, were nothing in themselves,
but dear as stages in the pilgrimage towards the abode of peace.
On the platform he met friends. They had all had pleasant
vacations: it was a happy world. The atmosphere alters.

Cambridge, according to her custom, welcomed her sons with open
drains. Pettycury was up, so was Trinity Street, and
navvies peeped out of King's Parade. Here it was gas, there
electric light, but everywhere something, and always a smell. It
was also the day that the wheels fell off the station tram, and
Rickie, who was naturally inside, was among the passengers who
"sustained no injury but a shock, and had as hearty a laugh over
the mishap afterwards as any one."

Tilliard fled into a hansom, cursing himself for having tried to
do the thing cheaply. Hornblower also swept past yelling
derisively, with his luggage neatly piled above his head. "Let's
get out and walk," muttered Ansell. But Rickie was succouring a
distressed female--Mrs. Aberdeen.

"Oh, Mrs. Aberdeen, I never saw you: I am so glad to see you--I
am so very glad." Mrs. Aberdeen was cold. She did not like being
spoken to outside the college, and was also distrait about her
basket. Hitherto no genteel eye had even seen inside it, but in
the collision its little calico veil fell off, and there vas
revealed--nothing. The basket was empty, and never would hold