ok _very_ seedy?"--any one to whom such absurd
recollections of early days occur--and if you, good reader, are a
university man, as, being a gentleman, I am bound in charity to conclude
you are, and yet have no such reminiscences--allow me to suggest that
you must have been a very slow coach indeed;--any one, I say once more,
who knows the ridiculous figure which a man cuts when "hauled up" before
the college Minos, or Radamanthus, will easily forgive his friends for
being inclined to laugh at him.

However, in the present case, any anticipations of fun at my expense,
which the party in Leicester's rooms might charitably entertain, were
somewhat qualified by the fear, that the consequences of any little
private difference between the dean and myself might affect the
prosperity of our unlicensed theatre. And when they heard how very
nearly the discovery of the stays had been fatal to our project,
execrations against Simmons's espionage were mingled with admiration of
my escape from so critical a position.

The following is, I apprehend, an unique specimen of an Oxford bill--and
the only one, out of a tolerably large bundle which I keep for the sake
of the receipts attached, (a precaution by no means uncalled for,) which
I find any amusement in referring to.

---- Hawthorne, Esq.,

To M. Moore.

2 pr. brown jean corsets, 8 0
Padding for do., made to order, 2 6
-----
10 6
Rec'd. same day, M. M.

(Savile, when I showed it to him, said the receipt was the only one of
the kind he had seen in the course of a long experience.) Very much
surprised was the old lady, of whom I made the purchase in my capacity
of stage-manager, at so uncommon a customer in her line of business; and
when, after enjoying her mystification for some time, I let her into the
secret, so delighted was she at the notion, that she gave me sundry
hints as to the management of the female toilet, and offered to get made
up for me any dresses that might be required. So I introduced Leicester
and his fellow-heroines to my friend Mrs Moore, and by the joint
exertions of their own tastes and her experience, they became possessed
of some very tolerable costumes. There was a good deal of fun going on,
I fancy, in fitting and measuring, in her back parlour; for there was a
daughter, or a niece, or something of the sort, who c