Clapham are coloured by
an abiding gratitude for his kindly protection of me as a shrinking and
very unhappy 'new boy' in 1860."

From school I went to Trinity College, Cambridge. I lodged first with a
tailor called Daniells in Bridge Street, nearly opposite to the new
chapel of St John's--the slow rise of which I used to watch from my
windows. Afterwards I moved into rooms on the ground floor to the left
of the New Court Gate that leads out into the Backs. Why the architect
made the sitting-rooms look into the Court and all its mean stucco
decorations I cannot imagine. My bedroom looked out on the Backs and its
avenue of lime-trees, where the nightingales sang through the happy May
nights.

I hardly made any permanent friends till my second year, when I had the
good fortune to become intimate with Edmund Gurney and Charles Crawley,
both of whom died early. Crawley was drowned in a boating accident in
which he tried in vain to save the women of the party. Edward Stirling,
an Australian, has only recently (1919) died. I am glad to think that my
undergraduate friends (except those removed by death) are still my
friends.

Among the Dons who were friendly to students of natural science the first
place must be given to Alfred Newton, the Professor of Zoology, who most
kindly invited us to come to his rooms in Magdalene any and every Sunday
evening. There we smoked our pipes and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. We
had the advantage of meeting older members of the University. It was in
this way I became acquainted with G. R. Crotch, of St John's, who was an
assistant in the University Library. He was a strikingly handsome man
with a long silky beard and wonderful eyes. His passion was Entomology,
and he had a great knowledge of the Coleoptera, and used sometimes to
take me out beetle-catching, but I never became a collector. He was
eccentric in his habits; for instance, he dressed entirely in black
flannel--shirt, coat, and trousers--which were made for him by Brown, the
tailor, who was a brother entomologist. He finally gave up his
librarianship and went off beetle-catching to the United States, where he
died in what would have been miserable conditions but for the tender care
bestowed on him by a complete stranger, whose name I have unfortunately
forgotten. There, too, I occasionally saw Clifford, the well-known
mathematician, who died early--also Kingsley on at least one occasion. I
remember him, too, at th