The Serpents In Our Midst.

This place bears not the remotest resemblance to an Eden, for there are enough serpents in it to satisfy any self-respecting collector of reptiles. More than enough. The serpent in Eden, we are told, represented knowledge. This would of course be enough to damn it in the opinion of any respectable theologian. One would suppose it therefore to be numbered among the elect in a University. On the contrary, however, the other species abound in plenty and are blest.

There is the serpent of the evangelist. He is all over the place reforming things and people. He breeds on the third floor up in an atmosphere of holiness and sends his reptilian progeny abroad to sanctify the unholy places. I wish someone would cage him and his brood until they learn that sanctity, like charity, a virtue of which they have never heard, begins at home.

There is the little reptile which exhibits thoughts on Communism wherever a clear space can be found on the walls. He even draws hammers and sickles on the walls of the Common Common-Room, thereby making it more uninhabitable than before. Between him and the Chess Club there seems to be a strange affinity, though doubtless it is only one of abode. Let. him cease from his pranks, or some of us will retaliate by pasting up some of the newer opinions of Mr. Ramsay MacDonald. That will make him squirm until he dislocates himself.

Then there is the poker adict. He exhibits greasy pack in a corner. In a short while his venomous hisses stream out in filthy flow, until they are heard in the corridors. I wish someone would, hammer him into insensibility and then mow him with the sickle.

Then we descend to Avernus. Report hath it that the women's room has serpents in abundance. Nasty little things which crawl in the mud. Their main items of food are scandal, followed by a juicy piece of chewed reputation. Faugh! The sight of the things sickens me.

We must have a remedy. I suggest that these noisome pieces of animate matter be collected carefully with tongs and placed together where they can war on each other. It would be a war from which the rest of us would pray that none of the combatants emerge alive.

Hydra.

(Well, now! Who'd have thought it!—Ed.