Dinner that evening was a capital meal. John Berrisford was in his best form and kept up a lively duel with Viola Cartmell. Even Robert managed to shake off the depressing effects of Aristotle. They drank to Martin's career at Oxford.
"You're certain to like Oxford," said Godfrey Cartmell when the men were alone.
"I'm afraid I wasn't much impressed by it in December," answered Martin.
"That wasn't Oxford," interrupted Robert. "That was a dismal city in the Midlands seen at its worst."
"Exactly," said Mr Berrisford, breaking into the conversation. "Oxford isn't a place. Everybody talks about the buildings and the age and the dreaming spires. It goes down with the Yankees and the people who are proud of having read _The Scholar Gipsy_, and I suppose it keeps up the picture post card business."
"But there are good things," said Cartmell resentfully. He was of Magdalen.
"Certainly. But these things are incidental and not essential. After all, the best college--with all due respect to you, Cartmell, and to you, Martin--has a front quad like a toy castle and a chapel--well, I suppose it's the kind of chapel that particular college ought to have, according to all tradition--a Great Speckled Warning against God. Half the most sensible people in Oxford don't know a jot about the architecture, but they know Oxford."
"Then," answered Cartmell, taking up the argument, as behoved a Liberal, seriously, "would you mind if the whole show--the educational work, I mean--were transferred to Margate or Southend or some place with a little air? On your theory that would be a very sound plan."
"It has its points," added Robert. "Just think of the progs on a seaside promenade."
"And the sea," continued his father, "is limitless. Many young men would go down to the sea in ships and have business in great waters. What a chance for enterprise! Moonlight trips round the bay."
"But seriously," said Cartmell, still smarting under the implied contempt for Magdalen's beauty.
"The port lingers at your side," was the answer. "Restore the circulation."
"Well, seriously," John Berrisford continued, when his glass had been filled again, "to move would be fatal, because the traditions would all go if you took them away from their home. But it's the traditions that count, not the place. God knows I'm willing enough to be sentimental about places. I can even enjoy hearing the song about 'Devon, glorious Devon,' sung by a Dandy Coon baritone at an audience of Cockneys at Teignmouth. I can understand a Scottish exile in America going a hundred miles to hear Harry Lauder. To my mind places are the only things about which a man has a right to be sentimental. No causes or catch-words for me: but hills and valleys--as much as you like. That's Nationalism, and therefore Liberalism, Cartmell."