cover in that direction.' So I was mute. 'Can't
you tell me something about Hannibal?' says old West again. 'I can,'
thinks I, 'but I won't.' He was regularly flabbergasted; I spoilt his
beat entirely, don't you see? so he looked as black as thunder, and
tried it on in a fresh place. If I had been fool enough to let him dodge
me in those Punic Wars, I could have been run into in no time. Depend
upon it, there's nothing like a judicious ignorance occasionally."

"Why," said Thornhill, "'when ignorance is bliss,' (_i. e._ when it gets
through the schools,) 'tis folly to be wise.'"

"Ah! that's Shakspeare says that, isn't it? I wish one could take up
Shakspeare for a class! I'm devilish fond of Shakspeare. We used to act
Shakspeare at a private school I was at."

"By Jove!" said somebody from behind a cloud of smoke--whose the
brilliant idea was, was afterwards matter of dispute--"why couldn't we
get up a play?"

"Ah! why not? why not? Capital!"

"It's such a horrid bore learning one's part," lisped the elegant Horace
Leicester, half awake on the sofa.

"Oh, stuff!" said Savile, "it's the very thing to keep us alive! We
could make a capital theatre out of the hall; don't you think the little
vice principal would give us leave?"

"You had better ask for the chapel at once. Why, don't you know, my dear
fellow, the college hall, in the opinion of the dean and the vice, is
held rather more sacred of the two? Newcome, poor devil, attempted to
cut a joke at the high table one of the times he dined there after he
was elected, and he told me that they all stared at him as if he had
insulted them; and the vice (in confidence) explained to him that such
'levity' was treason against the '_reverentia loci_!'"

"Ay, I remember when that old villain Solomon, the porter, fined me ten
shillings for walking in there with spurs one day when I was late for
dinner; he said the dean always took off his cap when he went in there
by himself, and threatened to turn off old Higgs, when he had been scout
forty years, because he heard him whistling one day while he was
sweeping it out! Well," continued Savile, "you shall have my rooms; I
sha'n't trouble them much now. I am going to pack all my books down to
old Wise's next week, to turn them into ready _tin_; so you may turn the
study into a carpenter's shop, if you like. Oh, it can be managed
famously!"

So, after a few _pros_ and _cons_, it was finally settled that Mr
Savile's rooms sho