“Make it three,” said Daphne.

“And we are to reassemble between St. Mary’s and The Radcliffe.  Or was it between The Radcliffe and St. Mary’s?”

“We shall wait five minutes and no more,” said I.  “That gives you one minute forty seconds a ton, or five seconds a hundredweight.  Keep the home fires burning.”

“Mathematician and imitation humorist,” said Berry.  “Isn’t it wonderful?  Don’t forget to let me know what the bill comes to.  Just as a matter of interest.”

He sauntered in the direction of Mr. Lewis, who was watching him with the air of a terrier that hopes to be taken out for a walk....

I called for the bill, and five minutes later the rest of us were strolling across the cobbles under the shadow of The Radcliffe Camera.

“As soon as he comes,” said Jonah, “we’ll go to New College.  We can sit in the gardens there for a bit and suck soda-mints.  When the process of digestion is completed, we can see the chapel and hall, and then one of us can borrow a gown, and we’ll look in at The Bodleian.”

The project seemed admirable, but, as has been frequently remarked, Man but proposes.

More than four minutes had elapsed, and we were casually sauntering towards The High, to see if Berry was in sight, when the latter swung round the corner of Brasenose with Mr. Lewis stepping joyously by his side.

Instead of his grey Homburg, my brother-in-law was wearing a soft clerical hat which was too small for him.  The ludicrous effect created by this substitution of headgear can be more easily imagined than described.

For a moment we wavered.  Then Jill gave a shriek of laughter, and we broke and scattered something after the manner of a mounted reconnoitring patrol that has unexpectedly “bumped into” a battalion of the enemy.  Our retreat, however, was not exactly precipitate, and we endeavoured to invest it with a semblance of hypocrisy not usually thought necessary in warfare; but it was in no sense dignified, and only a child, too young to differentiate between right and wrong, could have failed to recognize the true motive which prompted our withdrawal.

Seizing Agatha by the arm I turned left about, pointed vehemently to the dome of the Camera, and hurried her in the direction of the gate which admitted to that institution.  Simultaneously Jonah wheeled right about and, apparently imparting information of a startling character concerning the east front of Brasenose to his sister and cousin, began to hustle them towards the entrance.  To Berry’s repeated nominal exhortations we paid not the slightest attention.  Coal or no coal, the combination of Mr. Lewis and my brother-in-law—­the latter in a mood which the assumption of so ridiculous a garb made it impossible to mistake—­was too awful to contemplate.  There are things which are worse than a cold bath.

I did not stop until we were safely on the leads of the Camera.  Considerably out of breath, we leaned cautiously upon the balustrade, if possible from our eminence to observe the manoeuvres of our terror.  Look where we would, there was no one to be seen.