to be cleaned. Such are the customs that make sweet the lives of
succeeding undergraduates at Oxford. It is pleasant to know that
Palmerston, Pitt, Gladstone, Asquith--they have all gone through
the old routine. Forbes's father had occupied the very same
rooms, thirty years before, and very likely old Hinton, then a
"scout's boy," had blacked his boots. Certainly Forbes senior had
lain in the same bedroom and watched Magdalen Tower through the
trees while delaying to get up on chilly mornings.

"Anything else to-night, sir?" said Hinton, as Forbes put down
Belloc and began to clean a very crusty briar.

"Nothing to-night."

"Thank you, sir," said Hinton and took his departure, after
poking up the fire and removing the dead tea things.

The eight o'clock chimes spoke as Hinton clumped downstairs, and
a few moments later Forbes's guests began to straggle in. All
were wet and ruddy from rain and wind, and, as they discarded
raincoats and caps, disclosed a pleasant medley of types. The
Scorpions was a rather recent and informal society, but it had
gathered from various colleges a little band of temperamental
congenials who found a unique pleasure in their Sunday evening
meetings. None of them was of the acknowledged literary successes
of the university: their names were not those seen every week in
the undergraduate journals. And yet this obscure group, which had
drawn together in a spirit of satire, had in it two or three men
of real gift. Forbes himself was a man of uncommon vivacity.
Small, stocky, with an unruly thatch of yellow hair and a