ST. JOHN’S CHAPEL, FROM THE BACKS.

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THE BABE, B.A.

BEING THE UNEVENTFUL HISTORY OF
A YOUNG GENTLEMAN AT CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY

By EDWARD F. BENSON
AUTHOR OF “DODO” “LIMITATIONS”

WITH SIX ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON & NEW YORK G. P.
PUTNAM’S SONS 1897

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Entered at Stationers’ Hall

DEDICATION.

Dear Toby:

It is fitting, and I hope you will not feelit otherwise, that your name should appearon the forefront of this little book, for youknow best how much good humour went tothe making of it, and how when it was readpiecemeal, as it was written, to you, yournative politeness, which I cannot admiretoo much, more than once prompted you tolaugh. (Advt.) You will remember, too,when I first mentioned the idea of it to you,that with some solemnity we procured alarge sheet of foolscap paper, and a bluepencil, and then and there set ourselves toput down all the remarkable and stirringevents which happened to us in those fouryears we spent together at Cambridge; howwe failed egregiously to recollect anythingremarkable or stirring—pardon me, we rememberedone stirring event, but decided{iv}not to treat the world to it—which hadcome within our personal experience, andthereupon cast, or as you said, “speired”about for any remarkable and stirring incident,which had happened, not, alas, tous, but to anybody else soever. Here againI may recall to you that we drew blank,and our sheet of paper was still v