ion
which might attach to me from the possession of such questionable
articles so soon as our theatre closed for the season, I resolved that
my successful defence from this last imputation would be an admirable
ground on which to assume the dignity of a martyr, to appeal against all
uncharitable conclusions from insufficient premises, and come out as the
personification of injured innocence throughout my whole college career.

When my interview with the dean was over, I ordered some luncheon up to
Leicester's rooms, where, as I expected, I found most of my own "set"
collected, in order to hear the result. A private conference with the
official aforesaid seldom boded good to the party so favoured; the dean
seldom made his communications so agreeable as he might have done. In
college, as in most other societies, La Rochefoucauld's maxim holds
good--that "there is always something pleasant in the misfortunes of
one's friends;" and, whenever an unlucky wight did get into a row, he
might pretty confidently reckon upon being laughed at. In fact,
under-graduates considered themselves as engaged in a war of stratagem
against an unholy alliance of deans, tutors, and proctors; and in every
encounter the defeated party was looked upon as the deluded victim of
superior ingenuity--as having been "done," in short. So, if a lark
succeeded, the authorities aforesaid were decidedly done, and laughed at
accordingly; if it failed, why the other party were done, and there was
still somebody to laugh at. No doubt, the jest was richer in the first
case supposed; but, in the second, there was the additional gusto, so
dear to human philanthropy, of having the victim present, and enjoying
his discomfiture, which, in the case of the dons being the sufferers,
was denied us. It may seem to argue something of a want of sympathy to
find amusement in misfortunes which might any day be our own; but any
one who ever witnessed the air of ludicrous alarm with which an
under-graduate prepares to obey the summons, (capable of but one
interpretation,)--"The dean wishes to see you, sir, at ten
o'clock"--which so often, in my time at least, was sent as a whet to
some of the assembled guests at a breakfast party; whoever has been
applied to on such occasions for the loan of a tolerable cap, (that of
the delinquent having its corners in such dilapidated condition as to
proclaim its owner a "rowing man" at once,) or has responded to the
pathetic appeal--"Do I lo