“None of your hopes or fears to me. Shew me his rooms.—If two hours ago I did not see ———. See him,—yes, I’ve seen him, and he’s seen the last of me.”
He had now reached my rooms; and never shall I forget his look of astonishment, of amazement bordering on incredulity, when I calmly came forward, took his hand, and welcomed him to Cambridge. “My dear Sir, how are you? What lucky wind has blown you here?”—“What George! who—what—why—I can’t believe my eyes!”—“How happy I am to see you!” I continued; “How kind of you to come! How well you’re looking!”—“How people may be deceived! My dear George (speaking rapidly), I met a fellow, in a tandem, in the Haymarket, so like you in every particular, that I hailed him at once. The puppy disowned me—affected to cut a joke—and drove off. Never was I more taken off my stilts. I came down directly, with four post-horses, to tell your tutor; to tell the master; to tell all the college, that I would have nothing more to do with you; that I would be responsible for your debts no longer; to inclose you fifty pounds and disown you for ever”—My dear Sir, how singular!”—Singular! I wonder at perjury no longer, for my part. I would have gone into any court of justice, and would have taken my oath it was you. I never saw such a likeness. Your father and the fellow’s mother were acquainted, or I’m mistaken. The air, the height, the voice, all but the manner, and—that was not yours. No, no, you never would have treated your uncle so.”—“How rejoiced I am, that—”
“Rejoiced; so am I. I would not but have been undeceived for a thousand guineas. Nothing but seeing you here so quiet, so studious, surrounded by problems, would have convinced me. Ecod! I can’t tell you how I was startled. I had been told some queer stories, to be sure, about your Cambridge etiquette. I heard that two Cambridge men, one of St. John’s, the other of Trinity, had met on the top of Vesuvius, and that though they knew each other by sight and reputation, yet, never having been formally introduced, like two simpletons, they looked at each other in silence, and left the mountain separately and without speaking: and that cracked fellow-commoner, Meadows, had shewn me a caricature, taken from the life, representing a Cambridge man drowning, and another gownsman standing on the brink, exclaiming, ‘Oh! that I had had the honour of being introduced to that man, that I might have taken the liberty of saving him!’ But,—it, thought I, he never would carry it so far with his own uncle!—I never heard your father was a gay man,” continued he, musing; “yet, as you sit in that light, the likeness is—” I moved instantly—“But it’s impossible, you know, it’s impossible. Come, my dear fellow, come; I must get some dinner. Who could he be? Never were two people so like!”
We dined at the inn, and spent the evening together; and instead of the fifty, the “last fifty,” he generously gave me a draft lor three times the amount. He left Cambridge the next morning and his last words were, as he entered his carriage, “My brother was a handsome man; and there was a Lady Somebody, who, the world said was partial to him. She may have a son. Most surprising likeness. God bless you. Read hard, you young dog; remember. Like as two Brothers!”—I never saw him again.
His death, which happened a few months afterwards, in consequence ol his being bit in a bet, contracted when he was a “little elevated,” left me the heir to his fine estate; I wish I could add, to his many and noble virtues. I do not attempt to palliate deception. It is always criminal. But, I am sure, no severity, no reprimand, no reproaches, would have had half the effect which his kindness, his confidence, and his generosity wrought on me. It reformed me thoroughly, and at once. I did not see London again till I had graduated: and if my degree was unaccompanied by brilliant honours, it did not disgrace my uncle’s liberality or his name. Many years have elapsed since our last interview; but I never reflect on it without pain and pleasure—pain, that our last intercourse on earth should have been marked by the grossest deception; and pleasure, that the serious reflections it awakened, cured me for ever of all wish to deceive, and made the open and straightforward path of life.
AN OLD STUDENT—[ANONYMOUS.]
