was absolutely endeavouring to invent some new method for proving
something which had been proved before in a hundred ways. Over this
he had wasted two days, and from that moment I saw it was useless to
waste any more of my time and patience in urging a scholar so
indocile for the beaten path.

What tricks he and Milverton used to play me, pretending not to
understand my demonstration of some mathematical problem, inventing
all manner of subtle difficulties, and declaring they could not go
on while these stumbling-blocks lay in their way! But I am getting
into college gossip, which may in no way delight my readers. And I
am fancying, too, that Milverton and Ellesmere are the boys they
were to me; but I am now the child to them. During the years that I
have been quietly living here, they have become versed in the ways
of the busy world. And though they never think of asserting their
superiority, I feel it, and am glad to do so.

My readers would, perhaps, like one to tell them something of the
characters of Ellesmere and Milverton; but it would ill become me to
give that insight into them, which I, their college friend and
tutor, imagine I have obtained. Their friendship I could never
understand. It was not on the surface very warm, and their
congeniality seemed to result more from one or two large common
principles of thought than from any peculiar similarity of taste, or
from great affection on either side. Yet I should wrong their
friendship if I were to represent it otherwise than a most true-
hearted one; more so, perhaps, than some of softer texture. What
needs be seen of them individually will be by their words, which I
hope I have in the main retained.