[40 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]

him to please to allow your tutor, or somebody, to see that your fire
was safely raked out at night; and I had intended to have done so,
but somehow it quite escaped me. How your mother and all at home
would like to see you in your own college room!" And the thoughts of
father and son flew back to the Manor Green and its occupants, who
were doubtless at the same time thinking of them.

Mr. Filcher then explained the system of thirds, by which the
furniture of the room was to be paid for; and, having accompanied his
future master and Mr. Green downstairs, the latter
accomplishing the descent not without difficulty and contusions, and
having pointed out the way to Mr. Slowcoach's rooms, Mr. Robert
Filcher relieved his feelings by indulging in a ballet of action, or
~pas d'extase~; in which poetry of motion he declared his joy at the
last valuable addition to Brazenface, and his own perquisites.

Mr. Slowcoach was within, and would see Mr. Verdant Green. So that
young gentleman, trembling with agitation, and feeling as though he
would have given pounds for the staircase to have been as high as
that of Babel, followed the servant upstairs, and left his father, in
almost as great a state of nervousness, pacing the quad below. But
it was not the formidable affair, nor was Mr. Slowcoach the
formidable man, that Mr. Verdant Green had anticipated; and by the
time that he had turned a piece of ~Spectator~ into Latin, our hero
had somewhat recovered his usual equanimity of mind and serenity of
expression: and the construing of half a dozen lines of Livy and
Homer, and the answering of a few questions, was a mere form; for Mr.
Slowcoach's long practice enabled him to see in a very few minutes if