and I crossin' over the College Green,
had me down on the stones, on'y a dacint lad gript a hould of me, and
whirled me inside the College gates. There I was before I rightly knew
anythin' had happened me, and I after spendin' the best part of me life
gettin' to it. 'Twasn't the way I thought it 'ud be.... But the College
is as grand as any notion I had of it; on'y since I've seen it, 'tis
like a drame to me that ever I set fut in it, just a sort of drame....
Great ancient places the squares are; I walked round the whole of them
before I found the Hall. A couple of chaps in uniform like came axin' me
me business, but I tould them fast enough that I was a candidate--ah,
goodness help me.... And the Hall's a spacious and splendid apartment.
On'y it was strange, now, to see it full of nothin' but young fellows,
scarce oulder than the two lads there. I might, sure enough, have known
the way it 'ud be, if I'd come to considher, but somehow it seemed to
put me out, as if I'd no call to be there at all. There was one of them
began pricin' me ould hat, and another of them tripped him up against a
black marble construction with a pair of angels atop of it, that there
is on the wall--sure they were just spalpeens. But I'll give you me
word, when they called me up to the examiner's table, there was a young
gintleman sittin' at it in his black gown and his cap wid the
tassel--bound to be one of the College Fellows, and ivery sort of a fine
scholar--and for all the age there was on him he might ha' been me son
or me grandson.

"So he handed me over a little black _Virgil_ wid the page opened where
I was to exhibit me acquaintance wid the text. It was merely a bit of
an oration of Queen Dido's that I've known ivery line of these forty
years as well as I know me own name, and better. And what came over me
is more than I can tell, but the minute I took the book in me hand, it
seemed to me as if ivery atom of sinse and manin' slipped out of the
words, or out of me head--I couldn't say which, and I just stood starin'
at them and starin', till iverythin' else got whirlin' round about me,
fit to shake the panes out of the big windows, and the pictures off the
walls.... Belike himself persaived I was flusthered, for, 'Take your
time,' sez he; and after a while they stood steady enough. But, the Lord
be good to me--sorra a syllable of the sinse come back. And be that I
well knew it was all up wid me; and I was thinkin' me father's son had
n