played several instruments with skill, and sang a capital song.  With all these qualities, he soon became, to a certain extent, popular.  He then set up as a giver of good and expensive dinners, kept a couple of horses in the hunting season, devoted great attention to his dress, and made himself unobtrusively agreeable to the little gods of our miniature world.  In his second year he had gained a position; most people spoke well of him, and liked him.  It only rested with PETER himself to maintain what he had gained, and to enter on life with troops of friends.  A few moments of purposeless folly were sufficient to shatter him.

I remember that in my first term I was not very agreeably impressed by something that PETER did.  A dog-fancier happened to come through the street in which we both lodged, and PETER began to bargain with him for a fox-terrier, who, according to the fancier’s account, had a pedigree as long and as illustrious as that of a Norman Peer.  Eventually it had been agreed that the dog was to become PETER’s property in consideration of thirty shillings in cash, a pair of trousers, and a bottle of brandy.  The exchange was made, and the man departed.  Thereupon PETER informed me with glee, that the trousers were a pair of his father’s, which had been packed in his portmanteau by mistake, and that the brandy-bottle contained about fifty per cent. of water, that amount of brandy having been poured off before payment was made.  As PETER put it, “I’ve done him in the eye, to prevent him doing me.”  I tried in vain to bring him round to the opinion that (let alone robbing one’s father) cheating a cheat was one of the lowest forms of roguery.  The dog-fancier soon afterwards returned, and protested, with tears in his eyes, that the shabby trick had wounded him in his tenderest feelings, but he seemed quite willing to begin a fresh bargain with “the only gen’lemen, s’help me, as ever bested pore little ALEC.”

All this is, however, by the way.  I merely mention it to illustrate PETER’s character.  At the University Steeple-Chase Meeting, which took place at the end of our third October term, SHEEF had entered his animals for several races.  He was a good rider, and confidently anticipated success.  To celebrate the occasion, he had arranged a big dinner-party, and had invited some twenty of us to dine with him.  I had been unable to go to the races myself, but at the appointed hour I turned up at SHEEF’s rooms.  I found the table brilliantly laid, waiters hanging about, and dozens of Champagne in readiness.  SHEEF was there, but, beside myself, no other guest had appeared.  And not a single one came.  I forget what excuse the miserable host made, but the result was that we two solemnly dined at a table laid for ten times our number.  I think I shall remember that ghastly festivity as long as I live.  The next day all Cambridge knew that SHEEF had not only pulled one of his horses openly and disgracefully, but had wilfully misled both his friends and the book-makers as to the horse he intended to ride in a race for which entries were made at the post.  I never heard that he stood to win more than L50 by the transaction.  And for this paltry sum (paltry, that is, to a man of his means) he had wrecked his reputation, and all the possibilities of his career.