are they not written in the chronicle of St. John's? These achievements
inspired me with an extravagant sense of my own superiority; I could not
but despise the rich fellows whom I could have blown down with a sneeze.
Nevertheless, there was an impassable barrier between me and them--a
sizar was not a proper associate for the favourites of fortune! But
there was one young man, a year younger myself, of high birth, and the
heir to considerable wealth, who did not regard me with the same
supercilious insolence as the rest; his very rank, perhaps, made him
indifferent to the little conventional formalities which influence
persons who cannot play at football with this round world; he was the
wildest youngster in the university--lamp-breaker--tandem-driver--mob-
fighter--a very devil in short--clever, but not in the reading line--
small and slight, but brave as a lion. Congenial habits made us
intimate, and I loved him like a brother--better than a brother--as a dog
loves his master. In all our rows I covered him with my body. He had
but to say to me, 'Leap into the water,' and I would not have stopped to
pull off my coat. In short, I loved him as a proud man loves one who
stands betwixt him and contempt,--as an affectionate man loves one who
stands between him and solitude. To cut short a long story: my friend,
one dark night, committed an outrage against discipline, of the most
unpardonable character. There was a sanctimonious, grave old fellow of
the College, crawling home from a tea-party; my friend and another of his
set seized, blindfolded, and handcuffed this poor wretch, carried him,
_vi et armis_, back to the house of an old maid whom he had been courting
for the last ten years, fastened his pigtail (he wore a long one) to the
knocker, and so left him. You may imagine the infernal hubbub which his
attempts to extricate himself caused in the whole street; the old maid's
old maidservant, after emptying on his head all the vessels of wrath she
could lay her hand to, screamed, 'Rape and murder!' The proctor and his
bull-dogs came up, released the prisoner, and gave chase to the