enormous pump, at which, and by a double handle, Burton and another were
working away like sailors on a wreck; throwing forth-, above a yard off,
a jet of water almost enough to turn a mill.

The whole plot now revealed itself to me at once, and I commenced a
series of kickings and plungings that almost left me free. My enemies,
however, were too many and too powerful; on they bore me, and in a
perfect storm of blows, lunges, writhings, and boundings, they held me
fast under the stream, which played away in a frothy current over my
head, face, chest, and legs,--for, with a most laudable impartiality,
they moved me from side to side till not a dry spot remained on my whole
body.

[Illustration: 0060]

I shouted, I yelled, I swore, and screamed for aid, but all in vain; and
my diabolical tormentors seemed to feel no touch of weariness in their
inhuman pastime; while I, exhausted by my struggles and the continual
rush of the falling water, almost ceased to resist; when suddenly a cry
of "The Dean! the Dean!" was heard; my bearers let go their hold,--down
I tumbled upon the flags, with barely consciousness enough to see
the scampering crew flying in all directions, while a host of porters
followed them in hot pursuit.

"Who are you, sir? What brought you here?" said a tall old gentleman I
at once surmised to be the Dean.

"The devil himself, I believe!" replied I, rising with difficulty under
the weight of my soaked garments.

"Turn him outside the gates, Hawkins!" said the Dean to a porter behind
him. "Take care, too, he never reenters them."

"I 'll take good care of it, sir," said the fellow, as with one strong
hand on my collar, and the closed fingers of the other administering
gentle admonitions to the back of my head, he proceeded to march me
before him through the square; revolving as I went thoughts which,
certes, evinced not one sentiment of gratitude to the learned
university.

My college career was, therefore, more brief than brilliant, for I was
"expelled" on the very same day that I "entered."

With the "world before me where to choose," I stepped out into the
classic precincts of College Green, fully assured of one fact, that
"Town" could scarcely treat me more harshly than "Gown." I felt, too,
that I had passed through a kind of ordeal; that my ducking, like
the ceremonies on crossing the line, was a kind of masonic ordinance,
indispensable to my opening career; and that thus I had got success