He had no taste for a dinner at commons, so he ate his mutton-chop at a
tavern, and went to the play. Ineffably bored, he sauntered along the
almost deserted streets of the city, and just as midnight was striking, he
turned under the arched portal of the college. Secretly hoping that Atlee
might be absent, he inserted the key and entered his quarters.

The grim old coal-bunker in the passage, the silent corridor, and the
dreary room at the end of it, never looked more dismal than as he surveyed
them now by the light of a little wax-match he had lighted to guide his
way. There stood the massive old table in the middle, with its litter of
books and papers--memories of many a headache; and there was the paper of
coarse Cavendish, against which he had so often protested, as well as a
pewter-pot--a new infraction against propriety since he had been away.
Worse, however, than all assaults on decency, were a pair of coarse
highlows, which had been placed within the fender, and had evidently
enjoyed the fire so long as it lingered in the grate.

'So like the fellow! so like him!' was all that Dick could mutter, and he
turned away in disgust.

As Atlee never went to bed till daybreak, it was quite clear that he was
from home, and as the college gates could not reopen till morning, Dick was
not sorry to feel that he was safe from all intrusion for some hours. With
this consolation, he betook him to his bedroom, and proceeded to undress.
Scarcely, however, had he thrown off his coat than a heavy, long-drawn
respiration startled him. He stopped and listened: it came again, and from
the bed. He drew nigh, and there, to his amazement, on his own pillow, lay
the massive head of a coarse-looking, vulgar man of about thirty, with a
silk handkerchief fastened over it as nightcap. A brawny arm lay outside
the bedclothes, with an enormous hand of very questionable cleanness,
though one of the fingers wore a heavy gold ring.

Wishing to gain what knowledge he might of his guest before awaking
him, Dick turned to inspect his clothes, which, in a wild disorder, lay
scattered through the room. They were of the very poorest; but such
still as might have belonged to a very humble clerk, or a messenger in a
counting-house. A large black leather pocket-book fell from a pocket of the
coat, and, in replacing it, Dick perceived it was filled with letters.
On one of these, as he closed the clasp, he read the name, 'Mr. Daniel
Donogan, Dartmouth Gao