fine thing to get a prize, but it was ten times a finer thing to get
drunk with a peer. So, when I had done the first, my resolve to be
worthy of my sires made me do the second,--not, indeed, exactly; I
never got drunk: my father disgusted me with that vice betimes. To
his gluttony I owe my vegetable diet, and to his inebriety my
addiction to water. No, I did not get drunk with peers; but I was
just as agreeable to them as if I had been equally embruted. I knew
intimately all the 'Hats' in the University, and I was henceforth
looked up to by the 'Caps,' as if my head had gained the height of
every hat that I knew.

[At Cambridge the sons of noblemen and the eldest sons of
baronets are allowed to wear hats instead of the academical
cap.]

But I did not do this immediately. I must tell you two little
anecdotes that first initiated me into the secret of real greatness.

"The first was this: I was sitting at dinner with some fellows of a
college, grave men and clever. Two of them, not knowing me, were
conversing about me; they heard, they said, that I should never be
so good a fellow as my father,--have such a cellar or keep such a
house. 'I have met six earls there and a marquess,' quoth the other
senior. 'And his son,' returned the first don, 'only keeps company
with sizars, I believe.' 'So then,' said I to myself, 'to deserve
the praise even of clever men, one must have good wines, know plenty
of earls, and for swear sizars.' Nothing could be truer than my
conclusion.

"Anecdote the second is this: On the day I gained a high university