Bellew was giving a dinner on the terrace of the Savoy Restaurant.

His guests were his nephew, young Herbert, who was only five years younger than his uncle, and Herbert's friend Birrell, an Irishman, both in their third term at the university.
After five years' service in India, Bellew had spent the last "Eights" week at Oxford, and was complaining bitterly that since his day the undergraduate had deteriorated.

He had found him serious, given to study, far too well behaved.

Instead of Jorrocks, he read Galsworthy; instead of "wines" he found pleasure in debating clubs where he discussed socialism.

Ragging, practical jokes, ingenious hoaxes, that once were wont to set England in a roar, were a lost art.