et his fellowship, they would all be
delighted to have him as one of their body; there could--so thought
the master--be no doubt that he might in the meantime maintain
himself at the University by his pupils. The tutor was perhaps not
quite so encouraging. He was a working man himself, and of a harder
temperament than his head. He thought that Wilkinson should have
got a first, that he had owed it to his college to do so, and that,
having failed to pay his debt, he should not be received with open
arms--at any rate just at first. He was therefore cool, but not
generous. "Yes; I am sorry too; it is a pity," was all he said when
Wilkinson expressed his own grief. But even this was not so bad as
Arthur had expected, and on the whole he left his college with a
lightened heart.

Nor were his creditors very obdurate. They did not smile so sweetly
on him as they would have done had his name been bruited down the
High Street as that of a successful University pet. Had such been his
condition, they would have begged him not to distress their ears by
anything so unnecessarily mundane as the mention of his very small
account. All that they would have wanted of him would have been the
continuation of his favours. As it was, they were very civil. Six
months would do very well. Oh! he could not quite undertake to pay it
in six months, but would certainly do so by instalments in two years.
Two years was a long time, certainly; would not Mr. Wilkinson senior
prefer some quicker arrangement? Oh! Mr. Wilkinson senior could do
nothing! Ah! that was unfortunate! And so the arrangement for two
years--with interest, of course--was accepted. And thus Mr. Wilkinson
junior began the swimming-match of life, as so many others do, with a
slight millstone round his neck. Well; it may be questioned whether
even that is not better than an air-puffed swimming-belt.

When he got home, his mother and sisters hung about him as they
always had done, and protected him in some measure from the cold
serenity of the vicar. To his father he said little on the subject,
and his father said as little to him. They talked, indeed, by the
hour as to the future; and Arthur, in spite of his having resolved
not to do so, told the whole story of his debts, and of his
arrangement for their payment.

"Perhaps I could do something in the spring," said Mr. Wilkinson.

"Indeed, father, you shall do nothing," said the son. "I had enough,
and should have lived on it; as I