[Illustration:  BREAKING THE ICE.

SCENE—­Public Drawing-room of Hotel in the Engadine.

The Hon. Mrs. Snebbington (to Fair Stranger), “ENGLISH PEOPLE ARE SO UNSOCIABLE, AND NEVER SPEAK TO EACH OTHER WITHOUT AN INTRODUCTION.  I ALWAYS MAKE A POINT OF BEING FRIENDLY WITH PEOPLE STAYING AT THE SAME HOTEL.  ONE NEED NEVER KNOW THEM AFTERWARDS!”]

* * * * *

ADVANCING YEARS.

(HOW IT STRIKES A CONTEMPORARY.)

    ["Owing to advancing years, Mr. ——­ has been compelled to
    resign his position as ——­” Extract from any Daily Paper.”]

  Advancing years!  It cannot be. 
    What, JACK, the boy I’ve known—­God bless me! 
  Why yes, it was in ’43
    That first we met, and—­since you press me—­
  The time has sped without my knowledge,
    That’s close on fifty years ago;
  Like some deep river’s silent flow,
    Since JACK and I first met at College.

  ’Twas on a cloudy Autumn day. 
    Fast fading into misty twilight;
  The freshmen, as they trooped to pray,
    Stepped bolder in the evening’s shy light. 
  As yet we did not break the rules
    In which the College deans immesh men,
  We fledglings from a score of schools,
    That far October’s brood of freshmen.

  Like one who starts upon a race,
    The Chaplain through the service scurried. 
  From prayer to prayer he sped apace;
    I marked him less the more he hurried. 
  My prayer-book fell—­my neighbour smiled;
    Reversing NEWTON with the apple,
  I, by that neighbour’s eye beguiled,
    Quite lost my gravity in chapel.

  And so we smiled.  I see him still,
    Blue eyes, where darting gleams of fun shine,
  A smile like some translucent rill
    That sparkles in the summer sunshine,
  A manly mien, and unafraid,
    Crisp hair, fair face, and square-set shoulders,
  That made him on the King’s Parade
    The cynosure of all beholders.

  And from this slight irreverence,
    Too small, I hope, to waste your blame on,
  We grew, in quite a Cambridge sense,
    A sort of PYTHIAS and DAMON. 
  Together “kept,” together broke
    Laws framed by elderly Draconians,
  And I was six, and JACK was stroke,
    That famous night we bumped the Johnians.

  How strong he was, how fleet of foot,
    Ye bull-dogs witness, and ye Proctors;
  How bright his jests, how aptly put
    His scorn of duns, and Dons, and Doctors. 
  We laughed at care, read now and then—­
    Though vexed by EUCLID on the same bridge—­
  Ah, men in those great days were men
    When JACK and I wore gowns at Cambridge.

  We paid our fines, we paid our fees,
    And, though the Dons seemed stony-hearted,
  We both got very fair degrees,
    And then, like other friends, we parted. 
  And when we said good-bye at last
    I vowed through life to be his brother—­
  And more than forty years have passed
    Since each set eyes upon the other.