his attendance as a guest at
a big dinner, where the unwonted excitement and a bumper or two of
University champagne upset his balance. He grew boisterous, and on
his way home to his rooms addressed disrespectfully the Dean of his
College, who happened to be taking the air on the College grass-plot.
He woke, the next morning, to find himself parched and pale, but
famous. "Did you hear what So-and-So, the freshman, said to the Dean
last night? Frightful cheek!"--so one undergraduate would speak of him
to another, with a touch of envy which was not diminished by the fact
that his hero had been gated at nine for a week.

But it is useless to pursue his career through every detail. He went
on gambling, and soon found himself the debtor or the creditor of
those whom he still attempted to look upon as his friends. He bought
several thousand large cigars at L10 per hundred from a touting
tobacconist, who promised him unlimited credit, and charged him a high
rate of per-centage on the debt. He became constant in his visits to
London, and, after a course of dinners at the Bristol, the Berkeley,
and the Cafe Royal, he acquired, at Cambridge, the reputation of a
connoisseur in cooking and in wine. The Gaiety was his abiding-place,
the lounge at the Empire would have been incomplete without him: for
him Lais added a rosy glow to her complexion and a golden shimmer to
her hair; he supped in her company, and, when he gave her a diamond
swallow, purchased without immediate payment in Bond Street, the
paragraphist of a sporting paper recorded the gift in his columns with
many cynical comments. In short, he now knew himself to be indeed a
man of the world. Henceforward he seemed to spend almost as much
time in London as in Cambridge. It is unnecessary to add that his
legitimate resources soon ran dry; he supplied their deficiency from
the generous fountain of a money-lender's benevolence. After all,
eight per cent. per month sounds quite cheap until it is multiplied by
twelve, and, as he always disliked arithmetic, he abstained from the
calculation, and pocketed the loan. And thus, for a time, the wheel
of excitement was kept spinning merrily. But the pace was too fast to
last for long. Somehow or other, soon after the beginning of his third
year, his happy gaiety which had carried him cheerfully through many
scenes of revelry seemed to desert him. He became subject to fits of
morose abstraction. His dress was no longer of the same shi