They grouped us in all sorts of ways and photographed us at their diligent leisure, while we smoked and talked.

We were there more than an hour; then we returned to headquarters, happy, content, and greatly refreshed.
Presently we filed into the theatre, under a very satisfactory hurrah, and waited in a crimson column, dividing the crowded pit through the middle, until each of us in his turn should be called to stand before the Chancellor and hear our merits set forth in sonorous Latin.
Meantime, Kipling and I wrote autographs until some good kind soul interfered in our behalf and procured for us a rest.
I will now save what is left of my modesty by quoting a paragraph from Sydney Brooks's "Ovation." * * * * * Let those stars take the place of it for the present.

Sydney Brooks has done it well.

It makes me proud to read it; as proud as I was in that old day, sixty-two years ago, when I lay dying, the centre of attraction, with one eye piously closed upon the fleeting vanities of this life--an excellent effect--and the other open a crack to observe the tears, the sorrow, the admiration--all for me--all for me! Ah, that was the proudest moment of my long life--until Oxford! * * * * * Most Americans have been to Oxford and will remember what a dream of the Middle Ages it is, with its crooked lanes, its gray and stately piles of ancient architecture and its meditation-breeding air of repose and dignity and unkinship with the noise and fret and hurry and bustle of these modern days.

As a dream of the Middle Ages Oxford was not perfect until Pageant day arrived and furnished certain details which had been for generations lacking.