ith his masters, and
warm-hearted and sincere in his intercourse with his school-fellows.
He was by no means slow with his wits, he was very quick with his eye
and his limbs. Thus it came about that, although his scholarship was
not calculated to make of him a Porson, he earned the admiration
and applause of boys and masters by his triumphs as an athlete, a
cricketer, and a foot-ball player, and was established as a universal
favourite. At the usual age he left school and betook himself to
college, freighted for this new voyage with the affection and the
hopes of all who knew him.

And now when everything smiled, and when in the glow of his first
independence life assumed its brightest hues, in the midst of apparent
success his real failures began. The sudden emancipation from the
easy servitude of school was too much for him. The rush of his new
existence swept him off his feet, and, yielding to the current, he
was carried day by day more rapidly out to the sea of debt and
dissipation, which in the end overwhelmed him. For a time, however,
everything went well with him. His school and his reputation as a
popular athlete assured to him a number of friends, he was elected a
member of one or two prominent Clubs, he got into a good set. In their
society he learnt that an undergraduate's tastes and his expenditure
ought never to be limited by the amount of the yearly allowance he
receives from his father. Whilst still in his freshman's Term, he was
invited to a little card-party, at which he lost not only his head,
but also all his ready money, and the greater part of the amount which
had been placed to his credit at his Bank for the expenses of his
first Term. This incident was naturally much discussed by the society
in which he moved, and it was agreed that, for a freshman, he had
shown considerable coolness in bearing up against his losses. Even
amongst those who did not know him, his name began to be mentioned
as that of one who was evidently destined to make a splash, and might
some day be heard of in the larger world. His vanity was tickled.
This, he thought to himself, not without pleasure, was indeed
life, and thinking thus, he condemned all his past years, and the
aspirations with which he had entered his University, as the folly
of a boy. Soon afterwards he was found at a race-meeting, and was
unfortunate enough to win a large sum of money from a book-maker who
paid him.

The next incident in his first Term was