aning on his uncle's arm,
and they speedily reached Mr. Buck's rooms, and were conducted into the
apartment of that courteous gentleman.

He had received previous information from Dr. Portman regarding Pen,
with respect to whose family, fortune, and personal merits the honest
Doctor had spoken with no small enthusiasm. Indeed Portman had described
Arthur to the tutor as "a young gentleman of some fortune and landed
estate, of one of the most ancient families in the kingdom, and
possessing such a character and genius as were sure, under the proper
guidance, to make him a credit to the college and the university." Under
such recommendations the tutor was, of course, most cordial to the young
freshman and his guardian, invited the latter to dine in hall, where he
would have the satisfaction of seeing his nephew wear his gown and eat
his dinner for the first time, and requested the pair to take wine at
his rooms after hall, and in consequence of the highly favourable report
he had received of Mr. Arthur Pendennis, said, he should be happy
to give him the best set of rooms to be had in college--a
gentleman-pensioner's set, indeed, which were just luckily vacant. So
they parted until dinner-time, which was very near at hand, and Major
Pendennis pronounced Mr. Buck to be uncommonly civil indeed. Indeed when
a College Magnate takes the trouble to be polite, there is no man more
splendidly courteous. Immersed in their books and excluded from the
world by the gravity of their occupations, these reverend men assume a
solemn magnificence of compliment in which they rustle and swell as in
their grand robes of state. Those silks and brocades are not put on for
all comers or every day.

When the two gentlemen had taken leave of the tutor in his study, and
had returned to Mr. Buck's ante-room, or lecture-room, a very handsome
apartment, turkey-carpeted, and hung with excellent prints and richly
framed pictures, they found the tutor's servant already in waiting
there, accompanied by a man with a bag full of caps and a number of
gowns, from which Pen might select a cap and gown for himself, and the
servant, no doubt, would get a commission proportionable to the service
done by him. Mr. Pen was all in a tremor of pleasure as the bustling
tailor tried on a gown and pronounced that it was an excellent fit; and
then he put the pretty college cap on, in rather a dandified manner and
somewhat on one side, as he had seen Fiddicombe, the younge