e of mind enough to hit him over the
knuckles. He let go, sank, and never rose again." Nobody, I imagine,
would have vouched for the truth of this story, but it was so often
repeated that it provided the old gentleman with a nickname, that
stuck to him always.

I could add more Oxford stories, but it seems almost ill-natured to do
so, and I could only say in most cases _relata refero_. When I first
came here Oxford and Oxford society were to me so strange that I
probably accepted many similar stories as gospel truth. My young
friends hardly treated me quite fairly in this respect. I had many
questions to ask, and my friends evidently thought it great fun to
chaff me and to tell me stories which I naturally believed, for there
were many things which seemed to me very strange, and yet they were
true and I had to believe them. The existence of Fellows who received
from L300 to L800 a year, as a mere sinecure for life, provided they
did not marry, seemed to me at first perfectly incredible. In Germany
education at Public Schools and Universities was so cheap that even
the poorest could manage to get what was wanted for the highest
employments, particularly if they could gain an exhibition or
scholarship. But after a man had passed his examinations, the country
or the government had nothing more to do with him. "Swim or drown" was
the maxim followed everywhere; and it was but natural that the first
years of professional life, whether as lawyers, medical men, or
clergymen, were years of great self-denial. But they were also years
of intense struggle, and the years of hunger are said to have
accounted for a great deal of excellent work in order to force the
doors to better employment. To imagine that after the country had done
its duty by providing schools and universities, it would provide
crutches for men who ought to learn to walk by themselves, was beyond
my comprehension, particularly when I was told how large a sum was
yearly spent by the colleges in paying these fellowships without
requiring any _quid pro quo_.

Having once come to believe that, and several other to me
unintelligible things at Oxford, I was ready to believe almost
anything my friends told me. There are some famous stone images, for
instance, round the Theatre and the Ashmolean Museum. They are
hideous, for the sandstone of which they are made has crumbled away
again and again, but even when they were restored, the same brittle
stone was used. They ar