"(Woman screaming)" "(Gunshot)" "Priest:" "If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts." "But if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties." "Man that is borne of a woman hath but a short time to live and is full of misery." "He cometh up, and is cut down like a flower." "He fleeth as if it were a shadow..." "God!" "You did give me a fright, Miss." "Carrie!" "What on earth is it?" "There's somebody in one of the lecture rooms." "Annie Wilson sent me to fetch you." "We didn't want to knock on the door for fear of waking the place." "Sorry if I startled you." "That's all right." "Did you manage to see who it was?" "I couldn't quite make out through the curtain who it was." "Which lecture room?" "Science, Miss." "Annie's gone to fetch the Dean." "Right." "Did the person know he or she had been seen?" "I don't think so, Miss." "We were ever so quiet." "(Whispers) How was it first noticed?" "Annie heard someone in the Buttery..." "One of the undergrads after some milk and sugar." "I remember doing exactly the same thing myself." "And she saw the lights on over here." "There's a key on the inside..." "You can't see nothing." "(Thud) Damn!" "(Clatter from inside)" "Is this the only way out?" "Yes." "All the windows have got bars." "Right." "Shine the torch." "Be careful, Miss!" "There is another way out!" "Oh, yes." "I forgot the darkroom." "Oh, heavens!" "Oh, hell!" "I'm sorry, Miss." "It's all right, Carrie." "We couldn't have got 'round here in time, anyway." "What, has the culprit got away?" "I'm afraid so, yes." "Could you tell me what's below this window?" "It's a flagstone path." "I don't think you'll find very much down there." "No." "And it happens to be a spot that's overlooked by absolutely nothing." "So..." "This is where it's done." "I wonder why." "It does seem unnecessarily public." "It's best not to touch anything." "Sorry." "You're not thinking of calling the police?" "No." "Not the police." "Ah." "Yes, of course." "Now, Carrie..." "you said you saw something." "What exactly was it?" "As I said, Miss, I think I saw something, but I was in a bit of a fluster." "I thought it was a woman." "She had something black on." "But you didn't see her face?" "She was sitting with her back to the door." "All right, you two can go." "Mrs. Martin and I will see to things." "Good night." "Good night, Miss," "do you know what I'd like to do?" "I'd like to leave everything as it is, lock up, keep the key, and in the morning, get a second opinion." "Yes." "Yes, of course." "I should be most interested to know what he makes of this." "Miss Martin:" "Am I really going to see fingerprints discovered?" "But of course." "They won't actually tell us anything, but they inspire confidence, you know, and...impress the spectator." "There you are, you see?" "Oh!" "So many!" "A mess of fingerprints." "How inveterate is the habit of catching hold of a door when one opens it!" "Hence the old-fashioned institution of the finger plate." "I shall need a chair." "Oh, thank you, Miss Vane." "I didn't actually mean you to bring it." "Surely you don't expect to find them so high up?" "Nothing would surprise me more." "This is merely a shop window display of thoroughness and efficiency." "Purely routine, as the policemen say." "Good heavens... your College is kept remarkably well dusted." "Congratulations." "Finished in the dark room, Bunter?" "Yes, m'lord." "Made three exposures." "Ought to do." "You might dust off this door." "Certainly." "We will now bend our straining eyes and do the same thing for this door." "You see, even if we did identify all of these fingerprints..." "They'd only turn out to belong to people who have a perfect right to be here." "In any case, like anybody else these days, our culprit probably knows enough to wear gloves." "Fewer fingerprints..." "as you see." "Top of the door..." "equally well dusted." "Hmm." "Which is more than can be said for this windowsill." "Still, there's always something gets left out, isn't there?" "Made a bit of a meal of the exit." "Hmm." "Miss Vane?" "Yes?" "Something worries you about this room." "What is it?" "You don't need to be told." "No, I'm quite sure our two hearts beat as one." "But tell Miss Martin." "Well... when the... let's call her "she,"" "since Annie Wilson believes it's a woman... when she turned out the light, she must have been standing next to that door." "She then made her escape through the darkroom." "So the mystery is, how, after that, did she manage to knock over the blackboard, which was standing quite out of the line of the two doors?" "Oh, that's nothing." "I can remember my reading lamp fused one night." "I got up to turn on the wall switch, and I ended up with my nose against the wardrobe." "Hmm." "Ah." "The chill of common sense falls on our conjectures like ice cold water on hot glass... and shatters them to bits." "I don't believe it." "We are saying, aren't we, that the board fell down after the light went out?" "That's right, yes." "In that case, she only had to switch out the light and then grope her way along this wall." "She must have had a reason for groping back into the middle of the room." "Perhaps she'd left something on the table, something that incriminated her... a handkerchief, used to press the letters down." "Perhaps." ""Vain Vane...." ""you will never get me you"" ""You" what?" "Is this is the first time you've been so honored?" "The first time since..." "the first time." ""You"..." "We'll never know, will we?" "Here are only "s"s, "q"s, "p"s, zeds, and other such useless and unhelpful consonants." "Difficult to know how the letter was meant to end." "What puzzles me is, why did she use this room at all?" "There's the mystery." "Excuse me, m'lord." "I think this may contribute to our enquiries." "Bunter... good heavens." "This is like a leaf out of a forgotten story." "Does anybody use these things?" "Lots of people." "Little buns are coming back..." "Buns in the nape of the neck." "I use them myself, but mine are bronze." "I know who uses black ones this shape." "Of course." "Miss Devine!" "Always the white queen." "And she would drop them all over the place." "But she is one of the few members of the College who would never use the darkroom or consult scientific works." "And of course, we don't know that this one is hers." "Perhaps Miss Vane could get Miss Devine to identify it." "And perhaps Miss Devine might volunteer some information." "Well." "I think this lecture room offers no further scope for research." "Well, in that case, please excuse me." "I should have loved to have shown you 'round the College," "Lord Peter." "But alas, so much to do and so little time in which to do it." "It is the lot of man." "And of woman, too." "We shall meet at dinner." "M'lord, since we have the almost unique facility of a darkroom at hand, shall I set about developing the film immediately?" "Splendid." "Do take care." "What do you mean?" "Well, these amazing events... getting knocked down in the chapel, and now this message." "You..." "you by name... have become a challenge to this person." "Could be dangerous, all I'm saying." "Um..." "You haven't forgotten that yesterday you seemed prepared to accept a somewhat less dangerous challenge." "By no means." "I shall come dressed for combat." "Half an hour, Magdalen Bridge." "Oh..." "You might bring your notes." "Well, I'll say this for the writing of detective fiction... you certainly know how to put your story together..." "How to lay out the evidence." "I say, Holmes, that's terribly decent of you." "Nevertheless," "I can't say that it suggests to me the faintest glimmer of a motive." "A motive only too painfully obvious." "Not to me." "The sexual overtones... the obscenity of some of the things." "Ah... the Freudian view." "The effects of sexual abstinence on the human psyche." "We could both of us deliver a thesis on that subject." "Don't people the cloisters with bogies, Harriet, just because you've set your mind to a spot of celibacy." "We're not talking about me and my feelings." "We're talking about this beastly case in the College." "But you can't keep your feelings out of the case." "I admit, I am finding it hard to see things clearly." "What is it, Harriet?" "I feel like Judas, Peter, allowing you in on the case." "Siding with London against Oxford, the world against the cloister." "Feeling like Judas is part of the job." "I've always known it's no job for a gentleman." "Nor a lady, it would seem." "Well..." "Shall we wash our hands like pontius pilate and become thoroughly respectable?" "No, we're both in it for now." "We'll be degraded together." "That'll be nice." "Like those decadent lovers in the Von Stroheim film." "Ha ha ha!" "I was beginning to think that almost any of them might be capable of it." "And you calmly stood by and allowed me to accept their invitation to dinner." "Look, leave your book with me and I'll see if it sparks anything off." "Who knows?" "I might even come up with that good, old-fashioned pre-freudian motive." "Good lord..." "D'you know," "I'll swear those are the self-same ducks that I fed here 23 years ago." "Ten years ago," "I, too, fed them to bursting point." "(Diners conversing)" "You're probably not especially interested in all this question of women's education." "Is it still a question?" "it ought not to be." "Even here in Oxford, there are those for whom it remains very much one." "Hence the particular need for circumspection," "Lord Peter." "I do see that." "And I fondly supposed I was returning to civilization when I came back here." "Actually, Carlyle should have added women's education to his three great elements of modern civilization." "I don't think I know that, Warden." "Gunpowder, printing, and the Protestant religion?" "You are extensively read, Lord Peter." "A facility for quotation covers the absence of original thought." "I think you are excessively modest!" "The apt quotation is no mere intellectual sleight of hand... it's a form of wisdom." "The only kind of wisdom that has any social use is the knowledge of one's own limitations." "Not something that young Dons and students are very ready to admit to!" "Thereby showing themselves less wise than Socrates who made the admission fairly frequently." "For heaven's sake, please... don't bring Socrates into the conversation." "Lord Peter, I'm ashamed of you!" "One should always bring Socrates into the conversation, if for no other reason than that he was a seeker of the truth." "As I presume, in your line, you are, too." "I stand reproached." "Please, bring Socrates into the conversation as much as you like." "Miss Burrows:" "Isn't there a problem of definition when it comes to truth?" "They seem to be getting on rather well over there." "Miss Pyke likes an audience." "Well, it's good for a man to do the listening sometimes." "Yes, I suppose so." "By the way, Lord Peter tells me that he can obtain access for me to some private collections of historical documents in Florence." "Do you suppose he means what he said?" "If he says so, you can be sure he can and will." "That is a testimonial." "I'm very glad to hear it." "Peter:" "...as choices." "The other day I heard the unfortunate story of an artist of genius, a married man, whose work is so original that it brings in very little money." "Now, there's a choice..." "Should he change his style and paint potboilers, or fulfill his genius and let his family starve?" "Oh, it's very clear..." "he must cease painting." "He mustn't paint potboilers..." "that would be immoral." "Well, if you can't agree about painters, make it someone else..." "A scientist." "I've no objection to scientific potboilers." "I mean, a popular book isn't necessarily unscientific." "So long as it doesn't falsify the facts." "But it might be a different kind of thing." "To take a concrete example, someone wrote a novel called The quest." "Oh, yes, T.H. Black." "I never read it." "Miss Martin:" "Oh, I did." "It's about a man who starts out to be a scientist and gets on very well, till just as he's going to be appointed to an important executive post, he discovers that he's made a careless error" "in a scientific paper." "He doesn't get the job..." "somebody finds out." "So he decides he doesn't really care about science after all." "Obviously not." "He only cared about the post." "But if it were only a mistake..." "The point is what an elderly colleague says to him." "He tells him that the only principle that has made science possible is the ethical one that the truth must be told at all times, and if we do not penalize false statements made in error, then we open up the way" "for false statements made by intent." "And the falsification of fact made by intent is the most serious crime that a scientist can commit." "That, uh, is the gist of the thing, anyway," "I may not be quoting accurately." "Well, nothing could possibly excuse deliberate falsification." "It sounds anyway like a manufactured case." "It could seldom happen, and if it did..." "Oh, it happens..." "it happened to me." "Happened to you, Miss Devine?" "Yes." "To me." "Is it possible to..." "Oh, I don't mind telling you." "Without names, of course." "When I was at Flamborough College, examining for the Professorial thesis in Ripon University, there was a man who sent in a very interesting paper on a historical subject." "It was a most persuasive piece of argument, but I happened to know that the whole contention was quite untrue, because a document..." "a letter, as it so happened... that absolutely contradicted it was actually in existence in a certain very obscure library in a foreign town." "I had come across it when I was reading something there." "That wouldn't have mattered, of course, but the internal evidence showed that the man must have had access to that library." "So I had to make an enquiry, and I found he really had been there and must have seen the letter and deliberately suppressed it." "Miss Lydgate:" "But how could you be so sure he had seen the letter?" "He might carelessly have overlooked it." "And that would be a completely different matter." "He not only had seen it, he stole it." "We made him admit as much." "He had come upon the letter when his thesis was nearly complete and he had no time to rewrite it." "But apart from that, he had grown so enamored of his own theory, he couldn't bear to give it up." "That's the mark of an unsound scholar," "I'm afraid." "But here's the curious thing..." "He was unscrupulous enough to let the false conclusion stand, but too good a historian to destroy the letter." "He kept it." "You'd think it would be as painful as biting on a sore tooth." "What happened to him?" "Oh, that was the end of him." "He lost the Professorship, naturally, and they took away his M.A., as well." "A pity, because he was brilliant, in his own way." "Poor man." "He must have needed the post very badly." "Yes." "Meant a great deal to him financially." "He was married, and not very well off." "So where is he now?" "I've no idea." "About six years ago he disappeared completely." "One was sorry about it, of course, but there it was." "You couldn't possibly have done anything else." "You'd think it would have been a lesson to him..." "It didn't pay, did it?" "Say he sacrificed his professional honor for these women and children we hear so much about... in the end, it left him much worse off." "But that was only because he had committed the extra sin of being found out." "It seems to me..." "Yes?" "Well, oughtn't the women and children to have a point of view?" "I mean, supposing the wife had known her husband had done such a thing for her..." "What would she feel about it?" "That's a very important point." "She'd probably feel too ghastly for words." "It depends..." "I don't believe nine out of ten women would give a dash!" "That's a monstrous thing to say!" "Well, ask Mrs. Bones, the butcher's wife, or Miss Tape, the tailor's daughter, how much they'd worry about suppressing a mouldy old fact from an historical thesis." "We are most positive this evening, aren't we, Dean?" "Yes, I suppose we are." "Lord Peter, I do apologize for the way we have all been clacking on about intellectual integrity in such an unwomanly fashion." "Not at all..." "I'm in your debt." "I'm having the most, um, stimulating and instructive evening." "(Knock at door)" "Just a minute." "Come in." "Hello, Carrie." "Good morning, Miss." "Padgett asked me to give you this." "What is it?" "Padgett said it'd been left at the lodge and you was to get it as soon as possible." "All right, Carrie." "Thank you." "Peter:" ""Harriet... forgive me." ""I've gone to see a man about a dog." ""Could you speak to Dr. Baring?" ""Luncheon tomorrow?" "Your servant, Peter."" "Well, thank you very much." "But where is the man, and what is the dog?" "Ripon?" "!" "He would say no more than that is was the merest speculation, but that it related to hairpins." "I do hope that makes sense." "Barely, Warden." "I suspect Lord Peter of having a taste for mischief." "Anyway, he wants..." "and I quote..." ""Hairpins to telephone the Grand Hotel, Ripon." "Clearly a coded message." "Will you attend to his arcane instructions, Miss Vane?" "I shall, Warden." "That, uh... practiced air of inanity he is pleased to adopt conceals a sharp intellect, does it not seem to you?" "I certainly hope so, Warden." "Miss Devine, Miss?" "You've just missed her, she's gone up to London." "Oh, damn!" "When do you expect her back?" "She'll be up there all day, Miss." "I know she's got a lecture at King's in the Strand this evening." "I'd say not till ten at the earliest." "Ohh!" "Can I do anything, Miss?" "No, Padgett, thanks." "I had a message for her, that's all." "You could leave a note on the board, Miss, except that she might not see it." "No..." "No, I may catch her later in her room." "Very good, Miss." "(Bells tolling)" "(Chopin etude plays on radio)" "Help me!" "Let me out!" "It's Annie!" "It's Annie Wilson." "I've been attacked!" "Let me out!" "(Sobbing)" "Help!" "Annie:" "Help!" "(Organ playing)" "(Playing Bach pastorale)" "Thank you." "I enjoyed that." "Music for a while doth all your cares beguile, don't you know." "Besides, I thought" "I ought to give thanks to someone for the fact that you're not dead yet." "I'm feeling quite remorseful today, don't you know." "If you're reproaching yourself for what happened to me last night, please don't." "You warned me..." "I acted foolishly." "That's all there is to be said about it." "If you really want to make me feel better, stop being so mysterious and tell me what you've been up to in Ripon." "Ah..." "That's quite a story." "It was, in fact, only the beginning of my, uh, hot pursuit to find one Arthur Robinson, M.A." "Not a name that means anything to you," "I imagine?" "Not at all." "Nor to me, until I prized it out of a somewhat reluctant Miss Devine after dinner." "It was, of course, her story that set me on the track." "It being the first evidence that there might be someone who had a grudge against a member of this College." "So, three counties and as many driving summonses later," "I think I know who our poltergeist is." "I see." "I hope you're not suggesting that Arthur Robinson is here, hiding in this College, or that Miss Hilliard is that very gentleman in disguise?" "Nothing so droll, I'm afraid." "Arthur Robinson is dead." "What a pity." "He was, however, not unrelated." "Yes." "Didn't Miss Devine say he was married?" "And therein lies the heart of the matter." "Peter..." "I'm beginning to have an idea, but I don't believe..." "There's a lot more to be said." "But first, we must allay the fears of the Senior Common Room." "I think a meeting over tea is indicated." "Peter:" "But I was disinclined to look on these outrages as the outcome of repressions of the kind which sometimes are associated with the celibate life and result in irrational malice." "So, starting with Miss Vane's invaluable data," "I began to define... with all the confidence of a Johnny-come-lately... a rational motive." "Highly significant were the anti-scholastic bias and the destruction of Miss Barton's book, with its attack on the contention that woman's first and only place is in the home." "Finally, I realized that this rational motive had as its basis some injury, amounting, in x's mind, to murder." "Now, the outrages began just after" "Miss Devine arrived here to take up her appointment." "Miss Devine will forgive me when I say obviously I had to discover whether Miss Devine had, indeed, murdered or injured anyone." "And over a very interesting conversation during dinner at high table," "Miss Devine revealed the relevant incident." "Arthur Robinson." "Do you mean that all that discussion was intended to bring out that story?" "I offered an opportunity for its appearance." "Proof positive, as it turns out, that there is no devil on earth like that of devoted love." "Let me tell you a little bit about poor Arthur Robinson... he had a brilliant academic mind, he was the winner of the Jules Michelet memorial prize for European history, and was disgraced, as we know," "by the then Provost of Flamborough College and Head of the University Appointments Board..." "Your own research fellow..." "Miss Devine." "Arthur robinson was married." "While at Oxford, he had married the daughter of his landlady," "Charlotte Ann Clark, and they had two children." "After his disgrace, he changed his name and took to drink." "He obtained a post, sadly, as a Junior Master at a minor prep school, but he was dismissed for drunkenness." "By now he was an alcoholic, and he sold their furniture to buy drink, though it wasn't his to sell, because they'd moved into furnished lodgings." "One day Arthur Robinson decided that he'd done enough harm to those people that meant most to him, and he took a gun and shot himself." "Here is a photograph of Arthur Robinson and his wife and two children whilst the sun still shone for him." "But... this isn't possible, Lord Peter!" "It just isn't!" "Like most suicides," "Arthur Robinson left a note, which I found quoted in the newspaper reports of the inquest." "It was a long, rambling letter saying that he'd been hounded to death, and significantly containing a Latin quotation." "Goodness gracious!" ""These birds have maiden faces, foulest filth they drop."" "Just so, Miss Pyke." "I have not taken your time by going through all the details of this confusing case." "But I have presented the salient points to you as they occurred to me, and I've shown you the basis on which I founded my working theory." "I've also told you some of the evidence." "Although it lacks, as yet, one detail," "I am in a position to state conclusively the name of the culprit." "This is all very convincing, Lord Peter, except for one thing." "What is that, Warden?" "Well, she was present at the discovery in the lecture room." "That is what she wanted us to believe." "But the whole thing was a clear fake." "The idea that the poltergeist was caught in discovery by preparing her messages in such a public place was rather absurd." "The ceiling lights had been used when there was a reading lamp in good working order on the table, next to the box of cut out letters, the very box containing insufficient vowels and consonants to complete the taunting message begun to Miss Vane." "It was Annie who drew Carrie's attention to the light at the window, and it was only Annie who claimed to have seen the figure at the table." "But Miss Vane and Carrie heard the easel being knocked over in the lecture room when I was hurrying to join them!" "Yes, you having been alerted from the lodge telephone by Annie, who then just had time to stage manage that very convincing effect by rushing back and nipping in through the darkroom window and out again, and 'round," "In time to arrive about the same time as you did yourself." "I must admit, I was looking for evidence of strings over the tops of doors, but the marks on the darkroom windowsill were commensurate with Annie's necessary three trips to and fro." "And of course, the suspicious hairpin..." "Just another plant." "(Knocking) Come in." "Excuse me, m'lord." "Padgett asked me to give you this." "Just a moment, Mr. Bunter." "Lord Peter, I want to see Annie Wilson." "She must be found and brought here." "Better not." "But you've just made a public accusation against this unfortunate woman." "I think it is only right that she be given the opportunity to answer it." "Please... tell Padgett to bring her here at once." "Very good, ma'am." "The united spirit of the College as a whole has stood between us and the most unpleasant publicity." "But had it not been for Miss Vane's involvement," "I fear that matter would now be out of our hands." "We owe her a great deal." "(Knocking)" "Come in." "You sent for me, Dr. Baring?" "Yes, Annie." "Come here, please." "Lord Peter?" "This is your key, I believe." "Key?" "Don't know what you're talking about." "A duplicate key with which you locked yourself into the cellar after your mistaken attack on Miss Vane." "I imagine it was mistaken in that the attack was meant for Miss Devine." "Mrs. Robinson?" "Annie, we are giving you the opportunity to clear yourself." "Clear myself?" "Yes." "What is this?" "some Court of Law?" "No." "I'd like to see you bring me to a real Court." "Then I could tell the Judge how that woman there killed my husband!" "That's enough!" "What you've done is very wicked!" "Broke him and killed him!" "Mrs. Robinson," "I'm immensely disturbed to hear about all this." "I knew nothing about it until now." "You didn't give a damn!" "But you must understand," "I had no choice in the matter." "You murdered him." "I couldn't possibly have foreseen the outcome." "I say you murdered him." "What harm had he done to anybody?" "He told a lie about someone who's dead and dust hundreds of years ago." "Who was the worse for that?" "You broke him and killed him..." "all for nothing!" "Do you think that's a woman's job?" "A woman's job is to look after her husband and children!" "I wish I could kill you all!" "Annie, that's..." "You can't shut me up, you cold bitch, you're the worst of the lot, you run this place!" "And you all stick together, don't you?" "Even though you don't trust each other." "You can't agree about anything, except hating decent women and their men." "There's nothing in your books about real life and marriage and children, is there?" "Nothing about people who are desperate, or love, or hate... or anything that's human." "You brought him here." "I know about you!" "I'm sorry." "Why are you sorry?" "You're the dirtiest hypocrite of the lot." "I know who you are... you had a lover once, he died." "You chucked him out because you were too proud to marry him." "You'd say you loved him..." "you don't know what love is." "And you'll probably do the same for him." "Well, what are you gonna do now, all of you?" "!" "Run away to the magistrate?" "I don't think you dare!" "You're afraid to come out into the light!" "You're afraid of your precious College and your precious selves." "And you always will be." "Peter, I apologize for letting this scene take place." "I should have known better." "You're quite right." "Miss Devine," "I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say that no sane person could possibly think of blaming you." "Thank you, Warden." "Nobody, perhaps, but myself." "Not for my original action, which was right and unavoidable... it's the sequel for which I hold myself to blame." "The lack of concern for a fellow human being." "No matter that he brought about his own downfall," "I should have made it my responsibility to see what became of that unhappy man and his wife and family." "And speaking of responsibility to and for others, what about you and Lord Peter?" "I'm not sure I've ever thought of him as a responsibility of mine." "I don't mean to pry, Miss Vane, but isn't it time you faced facts?" "I've been facing one fact for some time now..." "If I once gave way to Peter, I should burn up like straw." "That is moderately obvious." "How often has he used the knowledge of that as a weapon against you?" "Never." "Never." "Then what are you afraid of... yourself?" "Maybe." "I shouldn't be at all an easy person to live with," "I've got a devilish temper..." "I'd make his life a misery." "If you're determined you're not fit to black his boots, tell him so and send him away." "I've been trying to send Peter away ever since I first met him!" "If you had tried, you could have sent him away in five minutes." "Meaning I didn't want to?" "Bring your scholar's mind to the question and be true to yourself, for he will never make up your mind for you." "Peter:" "It looks as if I shall have to go back to Rome again next week." "but I thought I'd stay on for a couple of days here." "How about you?" "I haven't made any plans." "Not thinking of rooting yourself here, among the grass and stones?" ""Ask for the old paths and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls."" "Can it be done?" "No." "But there are times here, away from the haste and violence, when one thinks it can." "Funny we should be here talking like this." "Do you remember Wilvercombe, when all we could find to throw at one another was cheap wit and spiteful remarks?" "At least I was spiteful..." "you never were." "Oh, that was the watering place atmosphere." "One is always vulgar at watering places." "Thank heavens it's almost impossible to achieve at Oxford." "After one's second year, at least." "There's something about this place that alters one's values considerably." "Yes, there is." "For instance..." "You may have noticed that I haven't proposed to you whilst I've been in Oxford." "Yes, I had noticed that." "The fact is," "I'm afraid that anything you say here will be final..." "No going back." "That is a risk." "I say, this Arcade's rather jolly." "A touch of Vanburgh." "Harriet, you know I love you." "Will you marry me?" "Dear idiot..."