on
himself to give Thornhill (who was really a clever fellow, and
professing to be reading for a first) some advice as to his conducting
himself when his examination should arrive.

"I'll tell you what, Thornhill, old boy, I'll give you a wrinkle; it
doesn't always answer to let out all you know at an examination. That
sly old varmint, West of Magdalen, asked me who Hannibal was. 'Aha!'
said I to myself, 'that's your line of country, is it? You want to walk
me straight into those botheration Punic Wars; it's no go, though; I
shan't break cover in that direction.' So I was mute. 'Can't you tell me
something about Hannibal?' says old West again. 'I can,' thinks I, 'but
I won't.' He was regularly flabergasted; I spoilt his beat entirely,
don't you see? So he looked as black as thunder, and tried it on in a
fresh place. If I had been fool enough to let him dodge me in those
Punic Wars, I should have been run into in no time. Depend upon it,
there's nothing like a judicious ignorance occasionally."

"Why," said Thornhill, "'when ignorance is bliss' (that is, when it gets
through the schools), ''tis folly to be wise.'"

"Ah! that's Shakespeare says that, isn't it? I wish one could take up
Shakespeare for a class! I'm devilish fond of Shakespeare. We used to
act Shakespeare at a private school I was at."

"By Jove!" said somebody from behind a cloud of smoke--whose the
brilliant idea was, was afterwards matter of dispute--"why couldn't we
get up a play?"

"Ah! why not? why not? Capital!"

"It's such a horrid bore learning one's part," lisped the elegant Horace
Leicester, half awake on the sofa.

"Oh, stuff!" said Savile, "it's the very thing to keep us alive! We
could make a capital theatre out of the hall; don't you think the little
vice-principal would give us leave?"

"You had better ask for the chapel at once. Why, don't you know, my dear
fellow, the college hall, in the opinion of the dean and the vice, is
held rather more sacred of the two? Newcome, poor devil, attempted to
cut a joke at the high table one of the times he dined there after he
was elected, and he told me that they all stared at him as if he had
insulted them; and the vice (in confidence) explained to him that such
'levity' was treason against the '_reverentia loci!_'"

"Ay, I remember when that old villain Solomon, the porter, fined me ten
shillings for walking in there with spurs one day when I was late for
dinner; he said the dean always took