ewed; the freshmen had been "larked" till
they were grown as cunning as magpies; and the Dean had set up a
divinity lecture at two o'clock, and published a stringent proclamation
against rows in the Quad. It was, in short, in a particularly
uninteresting state of things, with the snow falling lazily upon the
grey roofs and silent quadrangle, that some half dozen of us had
congregated in Bob Thornhill's rooms, to get over the time between lunch
and dinner with as little trouble to our mental and corporal faculties
as possible. Those among us who had been for the last three months
promising to themselves to begin to read "next week," had now put off
that too easy creditor, conscience, till "next term." One alone had
settled his engagements of that nature, or, in the language of his
"_Testamur_"--the prettiest bit of Latin, he declared, that he ever
saw--"_satisfecit examinatoribus_." Unquestionably, in his case, the
examiners must have had the rare virtue of being very easily satisfied.
In fact, Mr Savile's discharge of his educational engagements was rather
a sort of "whitewashing" than a payment in full. His passing was what is
technically called a "shave," a metaphor alluding to that intellectual
density which finds it difficult to squeeze through the narrow portal
which admits to the privileges of a Bachelor of Arts. As Mr S. himself,
being a sporting man, described it, it was "a very close run indeed;"
not that he considered that circumstance to derogate, in any way, from
his victory; he was rather inclined to consider, that, having shown the
field of examiners capital sport, and fairly got away from them in the
end without the loss of his brush, his examination had been one of the
very best runs of the season. In virtue whereof he was now mounted on
the arm of an easy-chair, with a long _chibouque_, which became the
gravity of an incipient bachelor better than a cigar, and took upon
himself to give Thornhill (who was really a clever fellow, and
professing to be reading for a first) some advice as to his conducting
himself when his examination should arrive.

"I'll tell you what, Thornhill, old boy, I'll give you a wrinkle; it
doesn't always answer to let out all you know at an examination. That
sly old varmint, West of Magdalen, asked me who Hannibal was.
'Aha!'--said I to myself--'that's your line of country, is it? You want
to walk me straight into those botheration Punic Wars, it's no go,
though; I sha'n't break