with half the contents of the cottage, and Burt
as valet; for the old boatswain was as bad as the other two. But
I compromised the matter with him by accepting his pocket compass
and the picture of the brig which hangs there; the two things,
next to his wife, which he values, I believe, most in the world.

"Well, it is now two years last October since I came to Oxford as
a servitor; so you see I have pretty, nearly finished my time
here. I was more than twenty then--much older as you know, than
most freshmen. I daresay it was partly owing to the difference in
age, and partly to the fact that I knew no one when I came up,
but mostly to my own bad management and odd temper, that I did
not get on better than I have done with the men here. Sometimes I
think that our college is a bad specimen, for I have made several
friends amongst out-college men. At any rate, the fact is, as you
have no doubt found out--and I hope I haven't tried at all to
conceal it--that I am out of the pale, as it were. In fact, with
the exception of one of the tutors, and one man who was a
freshman with me, I do not know a man in college except as a mere
speaking acquaintance.

"I had been rather thrown off my balance, I think, at the change
in my life, for at first I made a great fool of myself. I had
believed too readily what my father had said, and thought that at
Oxford I should see no more of what I had been used to. Here I
thought that the last thing a man would be valued by would be the
length of his purse, and that no one would look down upon me
because I performed some services to the college in return for my
keep, instead of paying for it in money.

"Yes, I made a great fool of myself, no doubt of that; and, what
is worse, I broke my promise to my father--I often _was_ ashamed
of my poverty, and tried at first to hide it, for somehow the
spirit of the place carried me along with it. I couldn't help
wishing to be thought of and treated as an equal by the men. It's
a very bitter thing for a proud, shy, sensitive fellow, as I am
by nature, to have to bear the sort of assumption and insolence
one meets with. I furnished my rooms well, and dressed well. Ah!
you stare; but this is not the furniture I started with; I sold
it all when I came to my senses, and put in this tumble-down
second-hand stuff, and I have worn out my fine clothes. I know
I'm not well dressed now. (Tom nodded ready acquiescence to this
position.) Yes, though I still wince