eleven at night
than the chambers of a college student; while, with the double object of
affecting to be in ill-health, and to avoid the reflections that daylight
occasionally inspires, the shutters were never opened, but lamps and
candles kept always burning. Such was No. 2, Old Square, in the goodly days
I write of. All the terrors of fines and punishments fell scathless on the
head of my worthy chum. In fact, like a well-known political character,
whose pleasure and amusement it has been for some years past to drive
through acts of Parliament and deride the powers of the law, so did Mr.
Webber tread his way, serpenting through the statute-book, ever grazing,
but rarely trespassing upon some forbidden ground which might involve the
great punishment of expulsion. So expert, too, had he become in his special
pleadings, so dexterous in the law of the university, that it was no easy
matter to bring crime home to him; and even when this was done, his pleas
of mitigation rarely failed of success.

There was a sweetness of demeanor, a mild, subdued tone about him, that
constantly puzzled the worthy heads of the college how the accusations
ever brought against him could be founded on truth; that the pale,
delicate-looking student, whose harsh, hacking cough terrified the hearers,
could be the boisterous performer upon a key-bugle, or the terrific
assailant of watchmen, was something too absurd for belief. And when Mr.
Webber, with his hand upon his heart, and in his most dulcet accents,
assured them that the hours he was not engaged in reading for the medal
were passed in the soothing society of a few select and intimate friends
of literary tastes and refined minds, who, knowing the delicacy of his
health,--here he would cough,--were kind enough to sit up with him for an
hour or so in the evening, the delusion was perfect; and the story of the
dean's riotous habits having got abroad, the charge was usually suppressed.

Like most idle men, Webber never had a moment to spare. Except read, there
was nothing he did not do; training a hack for a race in the Phoenix,
arranging a rowing-match, getting up a mock duel between two white-feather
acquaintances, were his almost daily avocations. Besides that, he was at
the head of many organized societies, instituted for various benevolent
purposes. One was called "The Association for Discountenancing Watchmen;"
another, "The Board of Works," whose object was principally devoted to the
e