Norfolk Circuit, took to very frequent potations in our Combination room. They were a doubtful credit to their school or their College, and the better sort were decidedly shy of 'potus et exlex,' as they were called. The Up Town' collegers, presumably not born in the purple, were heavily handicapped from the first. The sons of Eton masters were received on equal terms, but the same privileges were not conceded to the sons of Eton or Windsor doctors or solicitors, royal servants, or successful tradesmen. The poor lad was pointed at; he began his career as a pariah, ... Niger est, hunc tu, Romane, caveto.' For some mysterious reason, the farther away from Eton a boy lived, the more he was respected; the nearer to Eton, the less he was esteemed accordingly. It was thought a brilliant piece of wit on Election Monday to ask the Windsor-bred boy, By what train are you going home?' the questioner knowing perfectly well that the lad's parents lived just beyond Windsor Bridge. This biting jest was supposed to come with extra force and acidity if hurled by a Scotchman or Northumbrian, whose long journeys were supposed to indicate long purses and ancestral acres. When the collegers were short in number (I remember less than forty, all told), the few lower boys amongst them were in constant demand as fags, and a stray, unconscious oppidan, hailed from a window in Long Chamber, was a godsend to the overtaxed Gibeonites in College. A small colleger would often assist as an extra cook and scullion. Our masters were growing lads with healthy appetites, and a competent fag would smuggle fish, kidneys, sausages, and lard into Long Chamber for their use and consumption. These Delicatessen were generally purchased some time before they were finally landed. I remember one old colleger with whom St. Vitus's dance was a trick, not an infirmity, and it was usually most active at the time of five o'clock lesson in school, if he had successfully stowed away in the pockets of his gown the raw kidneys or steaks intended for his late supper. The glimpse of the raw meat, provided by Thumbwood the butcher, the savoury prospect of rognons à la broche, set St. Vitus going, and my friend addressed the kidney thus: 'Oh, oh! my little kidney, I've got you now,' in such loud and jubilant tones that Hawtrey, overhearing the unwonted apostrophe, exclaimed: 'Are you mad?' Our cooking was primitive, and the kitchen battery adapted by the Long Chamber Soyer was peculiar and fragile. Long strips detached from the coarse coverlets of our beds served as a suspending line for a duck, or a pike caught in Fellows' Pond or Perch Hole. The roasting and frying were simple processes, but the bird, I am afraid, was not always honestly come by, and on one occasion a farmer at Slough complained to our head-master that three of his ducks had been lamed by the slings and stones of fourth-form marauders. The school was summoned, and the headmaster addressed us in the following terms: In the centre of our great Metropolis, on an artificial lake of water, surrounded with rare exotic shrubs, birds of an exquisite hue and plumage are to be seen daily. They lay their eggs, and rear their young, and float about in perfect security. But a mile from the most celebrated seminary in England, Eton boysfourth form boys, it is true, but still Eton boys have forgotten themselves, and three |