It was night when they arrived, and in the dimly-lighted streets there was not enough visible to gratify Julian’s eager curiosity. The omnibus was crowded with undergraduates, who were chiefly freshmen, but apparently anxious to seem very much at home. At the station, the piles of luggage seemed interminable, and Mrs Home and Violet were not sorry to escape from the unusual confusion to the quiet of their hotel.
Next morning, directly after an impatient breakfast, Julian started to call on his tutor.
“Which is the way to Saint Werner’s College?” he asked of the waiter.
“Straight along, sir,” was the reply, and off he started down King’s Parade. In his hurry to make the first acquaintance with his new college, Julian hardly stopped to admire the smooth green quadrangle and lofty turrets of King Henry’s College, or Saint Mary’s, or the Senate House and Library, but strode on to the gate of Saint Werner’s. Entering, he gazed eagerly at the famous great court, with its chapel, hall, fountain, and Master’s lodge; and then made his way through the cloisters of Warwick’s Court to his tutor’s rooms.
On entering, he found himself in a room, luxuriously furnished, and full of books. In a large armchair before the fire sat a clergyman, whom Julian at once conjectured to be Mr Grayson, the tutor on whose “side” he was entered. He was a tall, grave-looking man, of about forty, and rose to greet his pupil with a formal bow.
“How do you do, Mr —? I did not quite catch the name.”
“Home, sir,” said Julian, advancing to shake hands in a cordial and confiding manner; but the tutor contented himself with a very cold shake, and seemed at a loss how to proceed.
Julian was burning with curiosity and eagerness. He longed to ask a hundred questions; at such a moment—a moment when he first felt how completely he had passed over the boundary which divides boyhood from manhood, he yearned for a word of advice, of encouragement, of sympathy. He expected, at least, something which should resemble a welcome, or a direction what to do. Nothing of the kind, however, came. While Julian was awaiting some remark, the tutor shuffled, hemmed, and looked ill at ease, as though at a loss how to begin the conversation.
At last Julian, in despair, asked, “Whereabouts are my rooms, sir?”
“Oh, the porter will show you; you’ll find no difficulty about them,” said the tutor.