I hummed, and winked back at the Bull.

The great clock of Hart House struck a single resonant note. Everybody in the University knows what that sound means. “Great Heaven,” I cried, “it must be two o’clock.” And I hurried back to the dance.

On alternate Fridays during the university term, the Senior Fellows of this College entertain guests at dinner; some of our guests are Junior Fellows of the College, some are people who do interesting things in the world outside, some are visiting academics to whom we offer the hospitality of the College during their stay in the university. At our last dinner for the present year—that is to say, about a fortnight ago—we had two visitors of this latter class. One, an eminent Arabic scholar, was Dr. Abu Ben Adhem, from the University of Alexandria; the other was a Swiss, a Dr. Theophrastus von Hohenheim from, I think he said, the University of Basel. He seemed rather a queer customer; there is always a good deal of laughter at our High Table, but he never laughed; instead he smiled in a disquieting way, as if he saw a joke hidden from the rest of us. Also, he kept looking at his watch, and it was a watch that caught the eye.

“That’s a handsome watch you have,” I said to him, because one must make conversation and his special subject, which I believe was some sort of physics, was unknown country to me.

“Handsome indeed,” said he. “Very old; very precious.” He held it up for me to see. It was much larger than a modern pocket-watch, and beautifully cased in engraved gold; on the enamelled face were many dials; the figures on some of the dials were Greek letters, and others were signs which I knew—because I dabble a little in such things—to be cabbalistic. As he held it toward me he touched a spring, and the watch chimed prettily. Chiming watches are great rarities, and I have never heard one finer than his; I put out my hand to examine it, but he drew it back to himself. “Not to play with,” he said, smiling disagreeably. I felt a little snubbed, and turned to talk to another guest.

After we have dined in Hall, the High Table group goes to the Upper Library, where we sit around a big table and divert ourselves with port and Madeira and general conversation. Abu Ben Adhem and von Hohenheim sat across the table from me, on either side of our Visitor; he is used to queer customers—they are his stock-in-trade—and I knew he would give them a good time.

Sitting on my right was one of the young women who are now included among our Junior Fellows. I know it is considered inexcusably sexist in our time to say that any girl is charming, but it is hard to break the habit of a lifetime: she was charming. She was a lively talker, and I like a girl who has lots to say for herself; quiet girls, whom some men admire so much, always make me think of clocks that have run down. She was well wound up; she seemed to regard the College port as a pleasing light thirst-quencher, instead of the mover of mountains that it is, and after a glass or two she was almost over-wound.

The talk on these occasions is often general. We fling remarks and sometimes whole paragraphs up and down the board in good, well-rounded voices. The people who say we shout don’t understand academic courtesy; we are simply considerate of those who may be a little hard of hearing.

The loudest outcry on this particular night came from Professor Swinton and Professor Wilson. “What are you two roaring about?” cried our Visitor, who has himself a voice that dominates courtrooms and makes the boldest felons tremble. “About Scotland and the year 1974,” shouted Professor Wilson; “1974, the year that has seen the Scottish Nationalists on the march. And what better year for that? Is it not seven hundred years precisely since the birth of Scotland’s mighty king and liberator, Robert the Bruce?” “Ye’re daft,” cried Professor Swinton; “Robert the Bruce was well enough in his small way, but this year is a far greater anniversary in the history of Scots culture and imperialism, for was it not in 1774 that the great Henry Duncan was born.”

“And who might Henry Duncan be?” asked our Visitor.

Professor Swinton looked aghast. “Man, I despair of ye,” said he; “was not Henry Duncan the founder and deviser of the savings bank? And has not Scotland ever since dominated the earth through the gentle, ameliorating, civilizing influence of the savings bank?”

“Hoot, awa!” shouted our Librarian, from down the table. “Scotland’s poets are her glory, and let me remind you that Gavin Douglas was born five centuries ago, to the year.”

When Scotsmen are in full cry, they must be resisted. Professor LePan threw himself into the breach. “I’m not ashamed to say I’ve never heard of Gavin Douglas,” said he, “but I remind you that a very respectable, if not positively a great, poet was born in 1774, and that was Robert Southey.”

“Southey!” shouted the Librarian, with Caledoniannay, Nova Scotian-contempt; “Southey! Can ye not do better than Southey?”

“Yes,” said Professor LePan; “Oliver Goldsmith died in 1774; he popped out just as Southey popped in. And Robert Herrick died in 1674. So there!”

The Librarian uttered a wordless jeer; it was a Scottish sound rather like a power-saw striking a knot. “You’ve had to take refuge in deaths,” he triumphed; “deaths will avail you nothing.”

The rest of us rallied as well as we could to LePan’s defence. Our expert on Canadian literature is Dr. Claude Bissell. “What about Robert William Service, the bard of the Canadian north, born in 1874,” he cried, and launched at once into—

But he was overcrowed by a roar from Professor Stacey. “If you talk of Canada, tie this, if you can; who was born on the 17th of December, 1874? You don’t know? Of course you don’t know. But I know. It was William Lyon Mackenzie King; that’s who was born on December 17, 1874.”

“Mackenzie King didn’t write any poetry,” said Dr. Bissell, who wanted to get on with The Shooting of Dan McGrew.

“Oh, yes he did,” shouted Professor Stacey. “It’s not widely known, but I know it. And I’m bringing out a fully annotated edition of the Collected Poems of William Lyon Mackenzie King—including his five act blank verse drama The Happy Conscript—within the next twenty years, so all the rest of you keep your paws off it.”

“You’re welcome to your Mackenzie King,” shouted Professor Careless, who was late to get into the scrap, but the more valiant because of it. “King wasn’t the only Canadian poet to be born in 1874. In twenty years I’m bringing out the Collected Poems of Arthur Meighen, including his mighty Ode to Coalition Government; then we’ll see who was the better man.”

It was a moment for the voice of reason, of taste, of moderation and civilization, and of course it came from Professor Finch. “Allow me to remind you,” said he, “that apart from the lesser figures you mention, this year marks the fourth centenary of the birth of Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon, an ornament of a great civilization.”

The Librarian began a mocking chant: “Dirty books, dirty books, Finch only thinks about dirty books!”

“Pardon me,” said Professor Finch, with that perfection of high-bred scorn and unruffled temper which is peculiarly his own; “I presume you, Mr. Librarian, are thinking of the son, Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon, whose witty novel Le Sopha, might seem risqué to a Calvinist mind, coarsened by the lewd rhymes of the exciseman Burns. But that was Crébillon fils; I was speaking of the dramatist, Crébillon père.”