"Maybe you've missed something, and thinks one of us has got it," was
the cheerful suggestion.

The curate laughed, and the deputation laughed, and George laughed, and
George's mother laughed, which made things much easier for all parties.

"No, we haven't missed anything, Mr Reader," replied the curate, "but
we expect to miss _somebody_--George, and that is the reason of our
visit."

And then the curate explained what the business was, and one of the
churchwardens made a speech (the composition of which had kept him awake
all the previous night), and then I was produced and handed over. And
George blushed and stammered out something which nobody could
understand, and George's mother began to cry, and George's father,
unable otherwise to express his sense of the occasion, began to whistle.
And so the little business was satisfactorily concluded, and the
deputation withdrew, leaving me in the pocket of a new master. Three
days afterwards both of us took our departure for Cambridge.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

HOW MY NEW MASTER MADE TRIAL OF A PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE UNDER
DIFFICULTIES.

But now let us follow Reader. My master's rooms at Saint George's
College were of the poorest and meanest description; in fact it would
not be too much to describe them--the bedroom and study--as being like a
pair of big cupboards under a great staircase. They looked out on
nothing more picturesque than a blank wall. They were carpeted with
nothing better than an old drugget; and as for paper, the place would
have looked better simply whitewashed. They were suffocating in summer
and draughty in winter, and at nights afforded rendezvous to a whole
colony of rats. Every step on the staircase above thundered down into
the study; the loosely-hung windows rattled even in a light breeze, and
the flavours of the college dustbins, hard by, appeared to have selected
these chambers, above all others, for their favourite haunt. I am told
Saint George's College has recently undergone renovation. It so, it is
probable "the Mouse-trap"--for this was the designation by which George
Reader's classical domain was familiarly styled--has disappeared. Let
us hope so, for a more miserable, uncomfortable, and uninviting couple
of rooms I never saw.

But they had one merit, and that a great one: they were cheap, which to
George Reader meant everything. He had gained a small entrance
scholarship, by the help of which he hoped, with the most rigid e