a perfect contrast to himself in appearance, whose name or college no man knew, though some professed to recognise him as a Bible-clerk of one of the smallest and most obscure of the halls. Attempts were made to pump out of his scout some information as to how Russell passed his time: for, with the exception of a daily walk, sometimes with the companion above mentioned, but much oftener alone, and his having been seen once or twice in a skiff on the river, he appeared rarely to quit his own rooms. Scouts are usually pretty communicative of all they know--and sometimes a great deal more--about the affairs of their many masters; and they are not inclined in general to hold a very high opinion of those among "their gentlemen" who, like Russell, are behind-hand in the matter of wine and supper parties--their own perquisites suffering thereby. But Job Allen was a scout of a thousand. His honesty and integrity made him quite the "_rara avis_" of his class--_i.e._, a _white_ swan amongst a flock of black ones. Though really, since I have left the university, and been condemned to house-keeping, and have seen the peculation and perquisite-hunting existing pretty nearly in the same proportion amongst ordinary servants--and the higher you go in society the worse it seems to be--without a tittle of the activity and cleverness displayed by a good college scout, who provides supper and etceteras for an extemporary party of twenty or so at an hour's notice, without starting a difficulty or giving vent to a grumble, or neglecting any one of his other multifarious duties, (further than perhaps borrowing for the service of the said supper, some hard-reading freshman's whole stock of knives, and leaving him to spread his nocturnal bread and butter with his fingers;) since I have been led to compare this with the fuss and fidget caused in a "well-regulated family" among one's own lazy vagabonds by having an extra horse to clean, or by a couple of friends arriving unexpectedly to dinner, when they all stare at you as if you were expecting impossibilities, I have nearly come to the conclusion that college servants, like hedgehogs, are a grossly calumniated race of animals--wrongfully accused of getting their living by picking and stealing, whereas they are in fact rather more honest than the average of their neighbours. It is to be hoped that, like the hedgehogs, they enjoy a compensation in having too thick skins to be over-sensitive. At all events, Job Allen was an honest fellow. He had been known to expostulate with some of his more reckless masters upon the absurdities of their goings-on; and had more than once had a commons of bread flung at his head, when taking the opportunity of symptoms of repentance, in an evident disrelish for breakfast, to hint at the slow but inevitable approach of "degree-day." Cold chickens from the evening's supper-party had made a miraculous reappearance at next morning's lunch or