rown a fine tall young stripling now, with the same bright blue
eyes which I remembered when he was quite a little boy.

"What the deuce brings you here?" said I.

He laughed and looked roguish. "My father--that's my father--would come.
He's just come back from India. He says all the wits used to come here. I
told him your name, and that you used to be very kind to me when I first
went to Smithfield. I've left now: I'm to have a private tutor. I say,
I've got such a jolly pony. It's better fun than old Smiffle."

Here the whiskered gentleman, Newcome's father, strode across the room
twirling his moustaches, and came up to the table where we sat, making a
salutation with his hat in a very stately and polite manner, so that
Hoskins himself felt obliged to bow; the glee-singers murmured among
themselves, and that mischievous little wag, little Nadab the
Improvisatore, began to mimic him, feeling his imaginary whiskers, after
the manner of the stranger, and flapping about his pocket-handkerchief in
the most ludicrous manner. Hoskins checked this sternly, looking towards
Nadab, and at the same time calling upon the gents to give their orders.

Newcome's father came up and held out his hand to me, and he spoke in a
voice so soft and pleasant, and with a cordiality so simple and sincere,
that my laughter shrank away ashamed; and gave place to a feeling much
more respectful and friendly.

"I have heard of your kindness, sir," says he, "to my boy. And whoever is
kind to him is kind to me. Will you allow me to sit down by you? And may
I beg you to try my cheroots?" We were friends in a minute, young Newcome
snuggling by my side, his father opposite, to whom, after a minute or two
of conversation, I presented my three college friends.

"You have come here, gentlemen, to see the wits," says the Colonel. "Are
there any celebrated persons in the room? I have been five and thirty
years from home, and want to see all there is to be seen."

King of Corpus (who was an incorrigible wag) was about to point out a
half dozen of people in the room, as the most celebrated wits of that
day; but I cut King's shins under the table, and got the fellow to hold
his tongue, while Jones wrote on his card to Hoskins, hinted to him that
a boy was in the room, and a gentleman who was quite a greenhorn: hence
that the songs had better be carefully selected.

And so they were. A lady's school might have come in, and have taken no
harm by what happen