dispensed in charity that wine which doubtless had gone beyond its age,
and become unfit for the Fellows' palates. He drew a glassful and
tasted it.

The first sip was a revelation. He returned to his rooms, wrote a score
of letters inviting to dinner all the acknowledged connoisseurs of other
colleges. When they had dined with him, and fallen into easy attitudes
around the table, he introduced this wine casually among half a dozen
others, and watched the result.

Not a man who tasted it would taste any other.

As for the notebooks--those priceless materials for the final edition of
Athenaeus--they were empty, mere blank pages! Only in that labelled
"No. 1" was there a scrap of the old scholar's handwriting, and it
began--

"Dulce cum sodalibus
Sapit vinum bonum:
Osculari virgines
Dulcius est donum:
Donum est dulcissimum
Musica tironum--
Qui tararaboomdeat,
Spernit regis thronum!"



BALLAST.