“Alas, poor Oxford! Who is that in the velvet sleeves? Why do you touch your cap?”
“That is the Proctor. He is our Cerberus; he has to keep all undergraduates in good order.”
“What a task! He ought to have three heads.”
“He has only one head, but it is a very long one. And he has a tail like any Basha, composed of pro-proctors, marshals and bull-dogs, and I don't know what all. But to go back to what we were saying—”
“No, don't let us go back. I'm tired of it; besides you were just beginning about dullness. How can you expect me to listen now?”
“Oh, but do listen, just for two minutes. Will you be serious? I do want to know what you really think when you hear the case.”
“Well, I will try—for two minutes, mind.”
Upon gaining which permission, Tom went off into an interesting discourse on the unnaturalness of men's lives at Oxford, which it is by no means necessary to inflict on our readers.
As he was waxing eloquent and sentimental, he chanced to look from his companion's face for a moment in search of a simile, when his eyes alighted on that virtuous member of society, Dick, the factotum of “The Choughs,” who was taking his turn in the Long Walk with his betters. Dick's face was twisted into an uncomfortable grin; his eyes were fixed on Tom and his companion; and he made a sort of half motion towards touching his hat, but couldn't quite carry it through, and so passed by.
“Ah! ain't he a going of it again,” he muttered to himself; “jest like 'em all.”