CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.
HOW MY MASTER FARED AT SAINT GEORGE'S COLLEGE AND MET AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE OF THE READER'S THERE.
It is not my intention in these pages to give a full and particular account of George Reader's college life.

It would neither be on the whole interesting, nor would it be found to have much bearing on my own career, which is the ostensible theme of the present veracious history.
Stories of college life have furnished amusing material for many a book before now, to which the reader must turn, should his curiosity in that direction require to be satisfied.

The life of a hard--a too hard- working student in his cell under the college staircase is neither amusing nor sensational, and it is quite enough to say that, after his first eventful evening, George Reader pursued his studies with unflagging ardour, though with greater precaution than ever.
He soon discovered which hours of the day and night were most favourable for uninterrupted work.
He made a point of taking his constitutional during the hour made hideous by the ill-starred aspirant on the ophicleide.

He invested in a trap for the rats, which, with the aid of his mother's cheese, yielded him a nightly harvest of victims, and he arranged with Benson, the "gyp," not to interrupt him, preferring rather to wait on himself--nay, even to dust out his own room--than have to sacrifice precious time while the same offices were being performed by another, especially by such an overpowering and awe-inspiring person as Benson.
So he set himself to work, attending lectures by day, reading every night into the small hours, spending scarcely anything, shrinking from all acquaintanceships, taking only a minimum of recreation, and living almost the life of a hermit, until I could see his cheeks grow pale, and his eyes dark round the rims, and feared for his health.
He treated me uniformly well.

Of course, as the gift of his fellow- villagers, he prized me highly, but by no means consigned me to the stately repose of a purely ornamental treasure.