many others. Mr. Parker was, it is believed, a pastrycook by trade; but he very commonly dabbled in more piquant luxuries than jam tarts or Bath buns. Men who knew what was what, and who were willing to pay—or to promise to pay—for their knowledge, were in the habit of breakfasting there, and lunching. Now a breakfast or a lunch at Parker's generally meant champagne.

Harcourt was seated on the table when they got into the back room, and the other men were standing.

he sung out as Bertram entered the room. "Make way for the double-first—the hero of the age, gentlemen! I am told that they mean to put up an alabaster statue to him in the Common Room at Trinity. However, I will vote for nothing more expensive than marble."

"Make it in pie-crust," said Bertram, "and let Parker be the artist."

"Yes; and we'll celebrate the installation with champagne and paté de foie gras," said Twisleton.

"And afterwards devour the object of our idolatry, to show how short-lived is the fame for which we work so hard," said Madden.

"I should be delighted at such tokens of your regard, gentlemen. Harcourt, you haven't seen Wilkinson."

Harcourt turned round and shook hands warmly with his other friend. "Upon my word, I did not see you, Master Wilkinson. You have such a habit of hiding yourself under a bushel that one always misses you. Well; so the great day is over, and the great deed done. It's a bore out of the way, trampled under foot and got rid of; that's my idea of a degree."

Wilkinson merely smiled; but Harcourt saw at once that he was a deeply-disappointed man. The barrister, however, was too much a man of the world either to congratulate him or condole with him.

"There are fewer firsts this year than there have been for the last nine years," said Gerard, thinking to soften the asperity of Wilkinson's position.

"That may be because the examiners required more, or because the men had less to give," said Madden, forgetting all about Wilkinson.

"Why, what noodles you are," said Bertram, "not to know that it's all settled by chance at roulette the night before the lists come down! If it's not, it ought to be. The average result would be just as fair. Come, Harcourt, I know that you, with your Temple experiences, won't drink Oxford wine; but your good nature 

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