bout them, I should think. But I
have not the honor of any acquaintance amongst them."

"At any rate, they are undergraduates, are not they?"

"Yes."

"And may take degrees, just like you or me?"

"They may have all the degrees to themselves, for anything I
care. I wish they would let one pay a servitor for passing
little-go for one. It would be deuced comfortable. I wonder it
don't strike the dons, now; they might get clever beggars for
servitors, and farm them, and so make loads of tin."

"But, Drysdale, seriously, why should you talk like that? If they
can take all the degrees we can, and are, in fact, just what we
are, undergraduates, I can't see why they're not as likely to be
gentlemen as we. It can surely make no difference, their being
poor men?"

"It must make them devilish uncomfortable," said the incorrigible
payer of double fees, getting up to light his cigar.

"The name ought to carry respect here, at any rate. The Black
Prince was an Oxford man, and he thought the noblest motto he
could take was, 'Ich dien,' I serve."

"If he were here now, he would change it for 'Je paye.'"

"I often wish you would tell me what you really and truly think,
Drysdale."

"My dear fellow I am telling you what I do really think. Whatever
the Black Prince might be pleased to observe if he were here, I
stick to my motto. I tell you the thing to be able to do here at
Oxford is--to pay."

"I don't believe it."

"I knew you wouldn't."

"I don't believe you do either."

"I do, though. But what makes you so curious about servitors?"

"Why, I made friends with Hardy, one of our servitors. He is such
a fine fellow!"

I am sorry to relate that it cost Tom an effort to say this to
Drysdale, but he despised himself that it was so.

"You should have told me so, before you began to pump me," said
Drysdale. "However, I partly suspected something of the sort.
You've a good bit of a Quixote in you. But really, Brown," he
added, seeing Tom redden and look angry, "I'm sorry if what I
said pained you. I daresay this friend of yours is a gentleman,
and all you say."

"He is more of a gentleman by a long way than most of the-"

"Gentlemen commoners, you were going to say. Don't crane at such
a small fence on my account. I will put it in another way for
you. He can't be a greater snob than many of them."

"Well, but why do you live with them so much, then?"

"Why? because they happen to do the things I like doing, and li