reat shifts when he would distinguish himself from them. Had
he been older than they, he would have talked of "young heads," "hot
heads," and the like; but since they were grave and cool men, and outran
him by fourteen or fifteen years, he found nothing better than to shake
his head, mutter against party-spirit, refuse to read their books, lest
he should be obliged to agree with them, and make a boast of avoiding
their society. At the present moment he was on the point of starting for
a continental tour to recruit himself after the labours of an Oxford
year; meanwhile he was keeping hall and chapel open for such men as were
waiting either for Responsions, or for their battel money; and he took
notice of Reding as a clever, modest youth of whom something might be
made. Under this view of him, he had, among other civilities, asked him
to breakfast a day or two before he went down.

A tutor's breakfast is always a difficult affair both for host and
guests; and Vincent piqued himself on the tact with which he managed it.
The material part was easy enough; there were rolls, toast, muffins,
eggs, cold lamb, strawberries, on the table; and in due season the
college-servant brought in mutton-cutlets and broiled ham; and every one
ate to his heart's, or rather his appetite's, content. It was a more
arduous undertaking to provide the running accompaniment of thought, or
at least of words, without which the breakfast would have been little
better than a pig-trough. The conversation or rather mono-polylogue, as
some great performer calls it, ran in somewhat of the following strain:

"Mr. Bruton," said Vincent, "what news from Staffordshire? Are the
potteries pretty quiet now? Our potteries grow in importance. You need
not look at the cup and saucer before you, Mr. Catley; those came from
Derbyshire. But you find English crockery everywhere on the Continent. I
myself found half a willow-pattern saucer in the crater of Vesuvius. Mr.
Sikes, I think _you_ have _been_ in Italy?"

"No, sir," said Sikes; "I was near going; my family set off a fortnight
ago, but I was kept here by these confounded smalls."

"Your _Responsiones_," answered the tutor in a tone of rebuke; "an
unfortunate delay for you, for it is to be an unusually fine season, if
the meteorologists of the sister University are right in their
predictions. Who is in the Responsion schools, Mr. Sikes?"

"Butson of Leicester is the strict one, sir; he plucks one man in three.