THE FIRE

The burning of the White Church produced a mysterious soberness. We have and we do cherish tradition—and, although our reverence must necessarily be of the dumb variety, it is none the less real. The smouldering embers cast an unmistakeable pall over us the absence of the never-noticed and alwaysfelt building on the corner leaves a something to be desired in our consciousness.

The entire College pitched into the job of saving what could be saved. We thought it a stroke of irony that the parish house, which is worth the proverbial dime in comparison to the Church, should not have burned. It was soon apparent that nothing could be done however, so we walked back into the crowd. Student enterprise was not to be daunted by anything like this, and to our surprise we saw an informal betting ring offering odds that the chimney would stand, that the west wall would fall eastward, that the east wall would fall westward, and finally, that the flaming belfry contained no bell. Moreover, we had but started to recover from this when an icecream vendor hove into sight, determined that no opportunity should pass untended.