which was merely a habit, but suggested to me at first sight that he was pleased with his morning shave. He was nearly sixty years old, and when he wanted to be nice his efforts were not intelligible to everybody, but there was no mistaking him when he really wished to be nasty. However, he was one of those men who are spoken of at Oxford as having European reputations, and possibly the burden of an European reputation gives the owner of it a right to behave differently from ordinary people who have no reputation at all, or if they have one would prefer that it should be forgotten.

The Warden held out a hand to me and almost winced at my manner of grasping it. My father always said that he knew a man by his hand-shake, but I ought to have been wise enough to spare the Warden.

"I was in doubt whether or no we were to have the privilege of seeing you this morning. Perhaps the fatigues of a long journey by rail caused you to remain in your bedroom for a longer time than is usual, or indeed beneficial."

I was on the point of saying that I had been up at eight o'clock, when it occurred to me that an apology would be shorter than an explanation, so I mumbled that I was very sorry for being late. My chief desire was to get away from an atmosphere which I found overpowering.

I had to listen to some more remarks from the Warden, all of which were spun out in his extraordinary way, and at last I was introduced to my tutor, Mr. Gilbert Edwardes, who took me on one side and set to work telling me what lectures I was to attend. I think he meant to be friendly but he had a dreadfully stiff manner, and I am sure that he found it very difficult to unbend. He reminded me most strongly of a shirt with too much starch in it, or whatever it is that makes shirts as stiff as boards.

Later on in the day I went to see him in his rooms in college and he gave me a little advice and exhorted me to work. It was all a cut-and-dried sort of affair which did not appeal to any feelings I had, but since he was my tutor I thought I had better tell him something about myself.

He was even smaller than the Warden and quite the most prim-looking man I have ever beheld. His face was colourless and smooth, and as I sat opposite him in his gloomy room he looked so tidy and sure of himself that I found a great difficulty in speaking to him. Having said the usual things he was very obviously expecting me to go, but I did not want him to begin by thinking that I was a saint, though why I imagined that he was in any danger of thinking so I cannot explain. He had, however, said so much about work and the great care I must take in avoiding men who distracted me from my duty, that I thought I had better tell him that I was a very human being.

I never remember having twiddled my thumbs before but I caught myself doing it in his room. He was so placid and demure that I could not imagine that he had ever done a foolish thing in his life. It was impossible for me to think that he had ever been young, and I wanted him to know that I was both young and foolish. He must have known the one and I expect he guessed the other, but at any rate my intention was to begin fair. Then whatever happened he would not be able to say that I had not warned him.

But he made me so nervous that I did not get the right words, and I made him look more like a poker then ever. "Thanks, most awfully," I began, and it was a bad beginning, "for all your advice. But I want to tell you that I do the most stupid things without meaning to do them. I mean that they only strike me as being stupid after I have done them."

Mr. Edwardes made noises in his throat which sounded like a succession of "Ahems," and I floundered on: "I am afraid it is very hard for me not to like amusing myself as much as possible, but of course I will try to work and all that sort of thing as well." He stood up when I got as far as that and smiled at me, but I cannot say that he seemed to be pleased. "I thought I had better tell you, so that you would know," I added before I left him, and I went away with the hopeless feeling that I had made a complete idiot of myself. I hated Mr. Edwardes as I went back across the quadrangle, for I felt that I had tried to take him into my confidence and that he had responded by getting rid of me.

When I reached my rooms my luggage had arrived and I let off steam—so to speak—by having a dispute with the man who had brought it. I did not get the best of that dispute, but I did make an effort to practise the economy which my people had advised, and Clarkson saw me in a rage, which must have been very good for him. For a solid hour I unpacked things which I had thought beautiful in my study at Cliborough and put them about my room, but somehow or other most of them did not seem as beautiful as I had thought them, and there was a picture—I had won it in a shilling raffle, and been very proud of it—which filled me with sorrow. It had been painted by the sister of a fellow at Cliborough, and when he was frightfully hard-up he arranged a raffle, and everybody said I was jolly lucky to win it. I was even bid fifteen shillings for the picture by the original owner, but as I suspected that he wanted to get up another raffle I refused the offer. When I saw the thing hanging on my wall I wished that I had not been such a fool. Having got the thing I did not like to waste it, but if some one would have come in and stuck a knife into it I should have been very pleased. The name of this burden was "A Last Night at Sea," and the subjects represented were a small boat and two or three people huddled together at one end of it, while in the middle of the boat a woman with long streaming hair was stretching out her arms towards a terrific wave. If I had not remembered the name it might not have been so bad, but under the circumstances no one could say that it was a cheerful thing to live with. I suppose the satisfaction of having it in my study at Cliborough had been enough, for I did not recollect having looked at it before, and when a lot of fellows are swarming around saying what a lucky chap you are to have won a thing, it is not very likely to give you the blues then, whatever it may have in store for you afterwards. I turned "A Last Night at Sea" with its face to the wall and went on decorating my room. Photographs of my father and mother which I put on my mantelpiece made me feel rather better, but Nina resplendent in a green plush frame made me think again. I had been very proud of that frame some years before when Nina had given it to me; she had sold two rabbits and borrowed sixpence from Miss Read, her governess, to buy it, and it had never occurred to me that I could grow out of my admiration for green plush. The question of what to do with it puzzled me tremendously; I didn't want to treat Nina badly but the frame was an abomination. Fortunately there was a ring attached to the frame and I hung it up in a dark corner, but I promised myself that it should come out the following morning.

I had just sat down to survey my labours when Murray came in and proposed we should go for a walk in the town, and as I was perfectly sick of my room I was quite ready to go. Although the time was barely four o'clock and the sun doesn't set for another hour in the middle of October, it was half dark and drizzling with rain as we walked down Turl Street and came into The High. But I had got rid of my gloom and was eager to spend money. I did not quite know what I wanted but that was not of much consequence. We went into a shop which seemed to be exactly the place for any one who wished to buy things, and did not care much what he bought. Before I came out of it I had bought two chairs, a standard lamp, a small book-case, an enormous bowl—which got in my way for two years until somebody smashed it—a tea-set, a small table and half-a-dozen china shepherdesses. I then went to other shops and made more purchases, while Murray looked on and smiled until I was waylaid by an accommodating man in the Cornmarket, who wanted to sell me a fox-terrier pup, and