and offer
myself as Adlatus to blessed old Cudford! Yes! a little Latin is all that
remains to me, and I resolved, like the man I am, to turn, hic, hac, hoc,
into bread and cheese, and beer: Impute nought foreign to me, in the
matter of pride.'

'Usher in our old school--poor old Jack!' exclaimed Evan.

'Lieutenant in the Cudford Academy!' the latter rejoined. 'I walked the
distance from London. I had my interview with the respected principal. He
gave me of mutton nearest the bone, which, they say, is sweetest; and on
sweet things you should not regale in excess. Endymion watched the sheep
that bred that mutton! He gave me the thin beer of our boyhood, that I
might the more soberly state my mission. That beer, my friend, was brewed
by one who wished to form a study for pantomimic masks. He listened with
the gravity which is all his own to the recital of my career; he
pleasantly compared me to Phaethon, congratulated the river Thames at my
not setting it on fire in my rapid descent, and extended to me the three
fingers of affectionate farewell. "You an usher, a rearer of youth, Mr.
Raikes? Oh, no! Oh, no!" That was all I could get out of him. 'Gad! he
might have seen that I didn't joke with the mutton-bone. If I winced at
the beer it was imperceptible. Now a man who can do that is what I call a
man in earnest.'

'You've just come from Cudford?' said Evan.

'Short is the tale, though long the way, friend Harrington. From Bodley
is ten miles to Beckley. I walked them. From Beckley is fifteen miles to
Fallowfield. Them I was traversing, when, lo! near sweet eventide a fair
horsewoman riding with her groom at her horse's heels. "Lady," says I,
addressing her, as much out of the style of the needy as possible, "will
you condescend to direct me to Fallowfield?"--"Are you going to the
match?" says she. I answered boldly that I was. "Beckley's in," says she,
"and you'll be in time to see them out, if you cut across the downs
there." I lifted my hat--a desperate measure, for the brim won't bear
much--but honour to women though we perish. She bowed: I cut across the
downs. In fine, Harrington, old boy, I've been wandering among those
downs for the last seven or eight hours. I was on the point of turning my
back on the road for the twentieth time, I believe when I heard your
welcome vehicular music, and hailed you; and I ask you, isn't it luck for
a fellow who hasn't got a penny in his pocket, and is as hungry as five
hundred