; but I'm going to buy an air-gun for the
benefit of the strangers. My rooms are pleasant enough, at the
top of the kitchen staircase, and separated from all mankind by a
great, iron-clamped, outer door, my oak, which I sport when I go
out or want to be quiet; sitting room eighteen by twelve, bedroom
twelve by eight, and a little cupboard for the scout.

"Ah, Geordie, the scout is an institution! Fancy me waited upon
and valeted by a stout party in black of quiet, gentlemanly
manners, like the benevolent father in a comedy. He takes the
deepest interest in all my possessions and proceedings, and is
evidently used to good society, to judge by the amount of
crockery and glass, wines, liquors, and grocery, which he thinks
indispensable for my due establishment. He has also been good
enough to recommend to me many tradesmen who are ready to supply
these articles in any quantities; each of whom has been here
already a dozen times, cap in hand, and vowing that it is quite
immaterial when I pay-which is very kind of them; but, with the
highest respect for friend Perkins (my scout) and his obliging
friends, I shall make some enquiries before "letting in" with any
of them. He waits on me in hall, where we go in full fig of cap
and gown at five, and get very good dinners, and cheap enough. It
is rather a fine old room, with a good, arched, black oak ceiling
and high panelling, hung round with pictures of old swells,
bishops and lords chiefly, who have endowed the college in some
way, or at least have fed here in times gone by, and for whom,
_"caeterisque benefactoribus nostris,"_ we daily give thanks in a
long Latin grace, which one of the undergraduates (I think it
must be) goes and rattles out at the end of the high table, and
then comes down again from the dais to his own place. No one
feeds at the high table except the dons and the
gentlemen-commoners, who are undergraduates in velvet caps and
silk gowns. Why they wear these instead of cloth and serge I
haven't yet made out, I believe it is because they pay double
fees; but they seem uncommonly wretched up at the high table, and
I should think would sooner pay double to come to the other end
of the hall.

"The chapel is a quaint little place, about the size of the
chancel of Lutterworth Church. It just holds us all comfortably.
The attendance is regular enough, but I don't think the men care
about it a bit in general. Several I can see bring in Euclids,
and other lecture