In the air already perhaps there were those mysterious signs and portents that heralded riot--nothing, as yet, for the casual observer to notice, nothing but a few undergraduates arm-in-arm pacing the sleepy streets--a policeman here, a policeman there.

Every now and again clocks strike the quarters, and in many common-rooms heads are nodding over ancient Port and argument of the gentlest kind is being tossed to and fro.

But, nevertheless, we remember other Fifths of November.

There was that occasion in '98, that other more distant time in '93.

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