gluttony, drunkenness, and debauchery were the grand blessings of
life: Hector had prepared me to hear any thing with but little
surprise. The Lord and the Squire gloried in braving and breaking the
statutes of the college and the university; the tutor, fellow, and
master of arts in eluding them. The history they gave of themselves
was, that the former could ride, drive, swear, kick scoundrels, bilk
prostitutes, commit adultery, and breed riots: the latter could cant,
lie, act the hypocrite, hum the proctors, and protect their companions
in debauchery: in gluttony drunkenness and libidinous thoughts they
were all avowed rivals.

Hector descending to trifling vices, vaunted of having been five
times in one week _imposed_ (that is, reprimanded by set tasks)
for having neglected lectures and prayers, and worn scarlet, green
and gold; while the more heroic Lord Sad-dog told how he had been
twice privately _rusticated_, for an amour with the bar-maid of a
coffee-house whom he dared the vice-chancellor himself to banish
the city. Fearful of being surpassed, they exaggerated their own
wickedness and often imputed crimes to themselves which they had
neither the opportunity nor the courage to commit.

That I might appear worthy of the choice group among whom I was
admitted, Hector, by relating in a distorted manner things that had
happened, but attributing to me such motives as he imagined he should
have been actuated by had he been the agent, told various falsehoods
of my exploits. I had too great a mixture of sheepishness and vanity
to contradict him in such honourable society, and therefore accepted
praise at which I ought to have blushed.

During supper, while they were all gormandizing and encouraging me to