Ronald Reagan was back in town yesterday, up to his old -- and a few new -- quips and, while he was at it, making no little news.

He provoked his George Washington University audience to cheers when he confirmed a published report that he supports the so-called "Brady bill," which would place a seven-day waiting period on handgun sales. He unleashed a few memories with his recollections of that March day 10 years ago when what he called "a routine public appearance came perilously close to being a very dark chapter in history." And he lightened the mood considerably with his yarn about coming back to GWU, in whose hospital he nearly died of a gunshot wound to the chest.

He'd been a little worried, he explained at a convocation conferring on him an honorary doctor of public service degree, when he was told GWU wanted him back. At first, he said, he thought it was for a 10-year checkup, until his doctors in Los Angeles told him there was no such thing. Then he wondered if it had something to do with his hospital bill for the 12 days he spent there in 1981 recovering from the attempt on his life. The idea of 10 years' worth of interest, he said, had him preparing to plead his case:

"I'd recently lost my job. Before that I was living in public housing for a while. Then I learned I was to be given an honorary degree and that only made matters worse. You see," he confided, "I've been burdened by a sense of guilt because the first degree I received from my alma mater in 1932 was honorary. ... Maybe if I had gone to school without the distraction of football, I would have done well and made something of myself."
