’Ruined, the last ignominy endured, I fled from the gay vistas of the Bench—­for they live who would thither lead me! and determined, the day before the yesterday—­what think’st thou? why to go boldly, and offer myself as Adlatus to blessed old Cudford!  Yes! a little Latin is all that remains to me, and I resolved, like the man I am, to turn, hic, hac, hoc, into bread and cheese, and beer:  Impute nought foreign to me, in the matter of pride.’

‘Usher in our old school—­poor old Jack!’ exclaimed Evan.

‘Lieutenant in the Cudford Academy!’ the latter rejoined.  ’I walked the distance from London.  I had my interview with the respected principal.  He gave me of mutton nearest the bone, which, they say, is sweetest; and on sweet things you should not regale in excess.  Endymion watched the sheep that bred that mutton!  He gave me the thin beer of our boyhood, that I might the more soberly state my mission.  That beer, my friend, was brewed by one who wished to form a study for pantomimic masks.  He listened with the gravity which is all his own to the recital of my career; he pleasantly compared me to Phaethon, congratulated the river Thames at my not setting it on fire in my rapid descent, and extended to me the three fingers of affectionate farewell.  “You an usher, a rearer of youth, Mr. Raikes?  Oh, no!  Oh, no!” That was all I could get out of him.  ’Gad! he might have seen that I didn’t joke with the mutton-bone.  If I winced at the beer it was imperceptible.  Now a man who can do that is what I call a man in earnest.’

‘You’ve just come from Cudford?’ said Evan.

’Short is the tale, though long the way, friend Harrington.  From Bodley is ten miles to Beckley.  I walked them.  From Beckley is fifteen miles to Fallowfield.  Them I was traversing, when, lo! near sweet eventide a fair horsewoman riding with her groom at her horse’s heels.  “Lady,” says I, addressing her, as much out of the style of the needy as possible, “will you condescend to direct me to Fallowfield?”—­“Are you going to the match?” says she.  I answered boldly that I was.  “Beckley’s in,” says she, “and you’ll be in time to see them out, if you cut across the downs there.”  I lifted my hat—­a desperate measure, for the brim won’t bear much—­but honour to women though we perish.  She bowed:  I cut across the downs.  In fine, Harrington, old boy, I’ve been wandering among those downs for the last seven or eight hours.  I was on the point of turning my back on the road for the twentieth time, I believe when I heard your welcome vehicular music, and hailed you; and I ask you, isn’t it luck for a fellow who hasn’t got a penny in his pocket, and is as hungry as five hundred hunters, to drop on an old friend like this?’

Evan answered with the question: 

‘Where was it you said you met the young lady?’

’In the first place, O Amadis!  I never said she was young.  You’re on the scent, I see.’