sometimes arose at these hunting dinners.

I was at that age when a man knows least and is most vain of his
knowledge; and when he is extremely tenacious in defending his opinion
upon subjects about which he knows nothing. My father was a hard man
for any one to argue with, for he never knew when he was refuted. I
sometimes posed him a little, but then he had one argument that always
settled the question; he would threaten to knock me down. I believe he
at last grew tired of me, because I both out-talked and outrode him.
The red-nosed squire, too, got out of conceit of me, because in the
heat of the chase, I rode over him one day as he and his horse lay
sprawling in the dirt. My father, therefore, thought it high time to
send me to college; and accordingly to Trinity College at Oxford was I
sent.

I had lost my habits of study while at home; and I was not likely to
find them again at college. I found that study was not the fashion at
college, and that a lad of spirit only ate his terms; and grew wise by
dint of knife and fork. I was always prone to follow the fashions of
the company into which I fell; so I threw by my books, and became a man
of spirit. As my father made me a tolerable allowance, notwithstanding
the narrowness of his income, having an eye always to my great
expectations, I was enabled to appear to advantage among my
fellow-students. I cultivated all kinds of sports and exercises. I was
one of the most expert oarsmen that rowed on the Isis. I boxed and
fenced. I was a keen huntsman, and my chambers in college were always
decorated with whips of all kinds, spurs, foils, and boxing gloves. A
pair of leather breeches would seem to be throwing one leg out of the
half-open drawers, and empty bottles lumbered the bottom of every
closet.