“May I have till tomorrow to make up my mind?” said I, and the Professor’s nod was so feeble that I became greatly alarmed about him.

But we Threes have substantial powers of improvisation. It was clear that the Professor was so overcome by what he had found out about Massey College that he needed first aid, and of a special kind. So I did my unscientific best. Taking him in my arms, I carried him up the back stairs to the College kitchen; it was like carrying a wineskin, for the vinegar within him kept sloshing around most unaccountably. But I got him on one of the kitchen tables without having been seen during our wobbly progress through the College, and I undressed him, right down to his skin. Former priest that he was, I was not surprised to find that he was wearing a tiny hair shirt, which is still in my possession, more or less, for Miss Whalon uses it as a tea-cosy. I managed to rouse him sufficiently to drink a couple of large beakers of vinegar, then I brought jugs of ice-water, doused him thoroughly, and tucked him up for the night on a shelf in our large, walk-in refrigerator. In that embracing chill he fell instantly into a child-like sleep, and so I left him.

I went immediately to my wife, and put the great question up to her: was I to go to Bogota and a chilly life eternal, in order that, from time to time, I might return to Massey College and spy on what my successors were doing? She thought for a while, and then said: “I wouldn’t, if I were you. Don’t be a Massey College ghost; it would be most unbecoming. Don’t you remember the line from our theatre days—’Superfluous lags the veteran on the stage’? When you have made your exit, take off your costume, clean the assumed character off your face, and leave the theatre.”

These were wise words, as I had expected them to be. So I went to bed; went to sleep; and forgot the whole matter.

I was sharply reminded of it only last week, when we had our annual Christmas Dance. A great feature of that affair is the buffet, which is a splendidly theatrical creation at which all the guests survey, before they eat, the miracles of cuisine that our chefs have prepared. Elegantly displayed turkeys, splendidly ornamented fish, jellies and potted meats pressed into fantastic and festive shapes, cream puffs filled with cream, so that their whiteness takes on the likeness of swans, wonderful little tartlets like jewels of topaz, and ruby and emerald. Cakes decorated in High Baroque styled that are themselves the epitome of Christmas, and happy youth and good cheer. As always, I looked at it with pride; this was just the sort of show to appeal to a man whose Golden Number is Three. And then—

I don’t want to continue. I’d much rather not. But there are imperatives of historical truth which even a Three dare not brush aside. There, at the centre of the main table, was—No, no. No, I say!

Well, it was a roast suckling pig. At any rate, that was the way it was garnished. Certainly it had an apple in its mouth, and around the little eyes were outlines of white icing. Tips of pink icing extended its ears, which were not wholly pig-like. I looked hopefully between the markedly un-piglike buttocks for a curly tail, but there was none.

Turning to our Bursar, Colin Friesen, I said, controlling my voice as best I could: “That’s unusual, isn’t it? Where did you get it?”

“It must have come in a big order,” said he. “Nobody seems to know anything about it. It is a novelty. Delicious! Vinegar-cured, I should say. Try a bit of the crackling.”

But I declined. A flighty Three I may perhaps be, but I can boast, as I hope all my successors will be able to boast, that I have never, knowingly, eaten a guest of this College.