We had a tutorial there. Some chap was going on and on about some old fogey called Aristotle. They tell me he died a few years back. Pity. I'd like to screw his ruddy neck, giving us all that muck to learn. Anyway, we kept quiet and endured it.

We endured this silly business for an hour or so then bolted for the door. Escape was all we wished. But escape was not our lot. Why? The door would not open! The lock was, as they say. "faulty." We glanced back. There sat the lecturer, a fiendish grin on his dissipated face.

It suddenly became clear. He was getting his own back on Society and we were the victims. To have to suffer Political Science for the rest of our lives, such was to be our fate. Not that our lives would be all that long. What with lack of nourishment and over-abundance of learned phrases, we would not survive for long. He would remain, for that Greek was food and drink to him. We were trapped, and soon panic struck us. We lunged at the door, and heaved. It was no use. Perspiring profusely, we tore over to the windows. There was the outside world. Hope returned. Maybe someone would climb down or even jump? There were no volunteers. The steady drone of overworked vocal chords reverberated from the room behind us. Our punishment was beginning. Enough pairs of trousers strung together could make an ideal rope to safety. Again nobody offered, we were in mixed company when all was said and done. If we must die, was the general opinion, we must die honourably.

Help

But help was just around the corner. The lecturer would be foiled. Below us, some fifty feet down, a human being was noticed bending over his motor cycle. Our first instinct was to throw something at him to attract his attention, something like a chair or a table; but as live heroes are usually better than dead ones, we confined ourselves to bawling at the top of our voices: He heard, he glanced up. "You're joking," he said. "You're having me on. People just don't get trapped in lecture rooms these days. You've been reading too many 'Famous Five' books." We sighed distractedly and tried to convince him. We finally managed it. He opened the door from the outside.

We are now free people, but we shall never be the same again. I don't think anybody could go through what we went through and still be the same. Half of us are thinking about throwing in our University education altogether I'm thinking about becoming a farm labourer.

The lecturer? Oh, he's still around. But you'll never find out who he is. He'll deny anything to do with trapping young students in gloomy rooms. He'll say it's all been made up. But don't you be too sure. Someday he may be more successful and you may be the victim.

All I can advise you is to never let any member of the staff of this university shut the door of the room in which you have assembled. Only by taking such a precaution will you remain safe to fail your exams., so do be careful, won't you?