college
talent with a remarkable degree of equanimity. It is quite wonderful how
all the Burkes, and Scotts, and Peels, among college Seniors, do quietly
disappear, as a man gets on in life.

As for any degree of fellowship with such giants, it is an honor hardly
to be thought of. But you have a classmate--I will call him Dalton--who
is very intimate with a dashing Senior; they room near each other
outside the college. You quite envy Dalton, and you come to know him
well. He says that you are not a "green-one,"--that you have "cut your
eye-teeth"; in return for which complimentary opinions you entertain a
strong friendship for Dalton.

He is a "fast" fellow, as the Senior calls him; and it is a proud thing
to happen at their rooms occasionally, and to match yourself for an hour
or two (with the windows darkened) against a Senior at "old sledge." It
is quite "the thing," as Dalton says, to meet a Senior familiarly in the
street. Sometimes you go, after Dalton has taught you "the ropes," to
have a cosy sit-down over oysters and champagne,--to which the Senior
lends himself with the pleasantest condescension in the world. You are
not altogether used to hard drinking; but this you conceal--as most
spirited young fellows do--by drinking a great deal. You have a dim
recollection of certain circumstances--very unimportant, yet very
vividly impressed on your mind--which occurred on one of these
occasions.

The oysters were exceedingly fine, and the champagne exquisite. You have
a recollection of something being said, toward the end of the first
bottle, of Xenophon, and of the Senior's saying in his playful way, "Oh,
d--n Xenophon!"

You remember Dalton laughed at this; and you laughed--for company. You
remember that you thought, and Dalton thought, and the Senior thought,
by a singular coincidence, that the second bottle of champagne was
better even than the first. You have a dim remembrance of the Senior's
saying very loudly, "Clarence--(calling you by your family name)--is no
spooney;" and drinking a bumper with you in confirmation of the remark.

You remember that Dalton broke out into a song, and that for a time you
joined in the chorus; you think the Senior called you to order for
repeating the chorus in the wrong place. You think the lights burned
with remarkable brilliancy; and you remember that a remark of yours to
that effect met with very much such a response from the Senior as he had
before employed with refere