We appreciate the humble spirit in any student: it is all too much of a rara avis. Nevertheless, where the merit of the contribution is still humbler, we cannot do otherwise than consign it to the waste-paper basket:

It is in the humble spirit of the collector of curiosities that I submit the following fragment, which had its being under rather peculiar circumstances. I awoke one morning With a sense of heaviness upon me. as if I had tasted of the forbidden fruit and had stepped over the bounds of mortality. I arose, and, enveloped in the resplendent glory of my new pyjamas, penned the following literary atrocity-which now I am at a loss to understand.

* * *

Who is the most extraordinary person who has been blessed with so peculiar a name? Is he by any chance connected with these noble piles? Is he dead-or is he merely dying? What does he do for a living—for obviously he must do something? Perhaps some reader of this most mysterious fragment could enlighten me.

Who is it, that in neatly fitting tweed,
Of placid countenance and chivalrous deed,
Prolongs the death-throes of an outworn creed
By scattering wide the barren wisdom seed
O'er drowsy heads?

—X.E.

And so our poet goes on, but we confess that, like him, we are still Puzzled.

We instance the following merely to show that we are not the only persons capable of committing atrocities:

Our Editor's Atrocities.

'Tis 11th June, and still we find the following words disfiguring a green baize notice board, placed by benevolent authorities in a prominent place in the College Hall:—

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Will all Past Graduates, Undergraduates and Under-Graduettes who have Married or Become Engaged Since the Publication of the Last Number of the "Spike," or who Intend to Marry or Become Engaged Before June 30th next, Please Notify the Editor in Order that the Personal Columns of the Forthcoming Issue may be as Complete as Possible.

Ye Gods and little fishes! What an impudence! One would think that the Editor of "Spike" were our maternal parent, our sweetheart, or our private detective agency, that we should be asked to confess to him all the sweetest and bitterest secrets of our innermost hearts.

And even then he puts his words in the most tactless, clumsy and ambiguous way. He doesn't even show as much tact as does the private detective, who is always considerate enough to broach the question with a, "Yes, sir! But—er, what—er——I mean, if you don't mind telling me who—er—is the young lady. I hope you don't mind—er—but it's necessary to know."

Clumsiness! Never before have I witnessed such clumsiness! He asks us who we've married before we've even become engaged. He asks us who we intend to many before he asks us to whom we intend to become engaged.

He puts the cart before the horse! Excuse the smile—I mean the marriage before the engagement. Who ever heard of getting engaged to your wife after you've married her—except in wordy conflict. Or, worse still, who ever heard of trying to break up a happy family by asking a married man who he intended to become engaged to!

And that's a great deal more publicity than you would get anywhere outside the "Spike," my dear C. E. de M.!

W.J.H. entertained us for a moment with his ingenious effort, but we resolutely throw it in:

Memories of C. G. R. James Fifty Years Hence.

In proposing the toast of the ladies at the graduates' supper, Mr. James asked what our University would do without them, what our study—the Library—would be like but for furtive glances at some fair beauty across the hall, and so shall he reminisce:—

When I consider what I value best
Among the many gifts which youth conspired
To bestow on fond hopes I long desired
Before I could discern their secret, lest
Chill thought should bid them unfulfilled remain;
A wonder steals upon me. for unknown
The greatest loveliness of all has shown
That even learning does not fate ordain.

My thought drifts back to library and hall,
To lectures., books, and memories aglow
With furtive glances at my silvered bride
Who there at Salamanca in the fall
Had captured me, and now, alas, I know
That loves life's shiboleth of work divide.