il to me, (I took the liberty of mentioning
your name, sir;) he showed me the whole process of stocking-making; very
interesting indeed it is--but of course you have seen it often; and I
really think, for a small establishment, Mr Mogg's is one of the best
conducted I ever saw. You don't know Mr Mogg, Hawthorne, do you? Get the
dean to give you a letter to him, if you ever go to Nottingham; a very
good sort of man he is, and has his whole heart in his business. 'Some
men are ashamed of their trade, sir' said he; 'I a'n't. What should I
do, I should like to know, if trade was ashamed of me?' And really Mrs
Mogg"----

"Ah yes!" said Mr Hodgett, hitherto overwhelmed by John's eloquence, (he
never talked so fast,) and utterly at a loss how to meet it, "Mogg is a
great man in his line at Nottingham. I shouldn't wonder if he was member
some day; he has a large wholesale connexion."

"And retail, too, sir," chimed in John. "I bought six pair of the nicest
sort of stockings there I have seen for a long time: did I show them to
you, Hawthorne? 'These,' said Mr Mogg, 'I can recommend; I always'"----

"If you won't take any more coffee, gentlemen," said the dean, jumping
up and looking at his watch, "I am afraid, as I have an appointment at
ten"----

"I declare, so have I," said Brown; "but I had quite forgotten it, our
conversation has been so very agreeable. Good-morning, sir; and if you
are writing to Mrs Hodgett, pray make my compliments." And with this
Parthian shaft he quitted the field.

Having adjusted the difficult questions which are apt to arise as to the
ownership of caps and gowns, the rest of the party took leave. The
facetious freshman, after putting in an ineffectual claim upon one or
two of the most respectable of the caps, at last marched off with the
dean's, as being certainly more like the new one he had bought the day
before, than the dilapidated article with a broken board and half a
tassel, which was the tempting alternative, and possessing also the
common property of having a red seal in it. He was not allowed, however,
to remain long in peaceful possession of his prize. Scarcely had he
reached his rooms, when Robert, the dean's scout, came to inform him
that he had left his own cap (which Robert presented to him with a grin)
behind him, and taken away Mr Hodgett's in mistake; enlightening him, at
the same time, as to the fact, that fellows' caps, by special exemption,
were "not transferable." And when