At this sight mother and daughter both turned their heads quickly away by
one independent impulse, and set a bad example. Apparently neither of
them had calculated on this paltry little detail; they were game for
theoretical departures; to impalpable universities: and "an air-drawn
Bus, a Bus of the mind," would not have dejected for a moment their lofty
Spartan souls on glory bent; safe glory. But here was a Bus of wood, and
Edward going bodily away inside it. The victim kissed them, threw up his
portmanteau and bag, and departed serene as Italian skies; the victors
watched the pitiless Bus quite out of sight; then went up to his bedroom,
all disordered by packing, and, on the very face of it, vacant; and sat
down on his little bed intertwining and weeping.

Edward was received at Exeter College, as young gentlemen are received at
college; and nowhere else, I hope, for the credit of Christendom. They
showed him a hole in the roof, and called it an "Attic;" grim pleasantry!
being a puncture in the modern Athens. They inserted him; told him what
hour at the top of the morning he must be in chapel; and left him to find
out his other ills. His cases were welcomed like Christians, by the whole
staircase. These undergraduates abused one another's crockery as their
own: the joint stock of breakables had just dwindled very low, and Mrs.
Dodd's bountiful contribution was a godsend.

The new comer soon found that his views of a learned university had been
narrow. Out of place in it? why, he could not have taken his wares to a
better market; the modern Athens, like the ancient, cultivates muscle as
well as mind. The captain of the university eleven saw a cricket-ball
thrown all across the ground; he instantly sent a professional bowler to
find out who that was; through the same ambassador the thrower was
invited to play on club days; and proving himself an infallible catch and
long-stop, a mighty thrower, a swift runner, and a steady, though not