Page:Carroll - Notes by an Oxford Chiel.djvu/125

Rh. This is a goodly fancy, and yet they are not vaults. No, Sir, you see before you a Railway Tunnel!

. 'Tis very strange!

. But no less true than strange. Mark me. 'Tis love, 'tis love, that makes the world go round! Society goes round of itself. In circles. Military society in military circles. Circles must needs have centres. Military circles military centres.

. Sir, I fail to see—

. Lo you, said our Rulers, Oxford shall be a military centre! Then the chiefest of them (glad in countenance, yet stony, I wot, in heart) so ordered it by his underling (I remember me not his name, yet is he one that can play a card well, and so serveth meetly the behests of that mighty one, who played of late in Ireland a game of cribbage such as no man, who saw it, may lightly forget); and then, Sir, this great College, ever loyal and generous, gave this Quadrangle as a Railway Terminus, whereby the troops might come and go. By that Tunnel, Sir, the line will enter.

. But, Sir, I see no rails.

. Patience, good Sir! For railing we