Grindham, I confess, had begun to look cold on me; but Swetter, who was a little ambitious of being considered an accomplished gentleman as well as a great mathematician, rather countenanced my proceedings. He never joined us himself--he was a great deal too deep for that--but he largely affected contempt for fellows who maintained that fiddling and reading were incompatible. And indeed, without being in the least aware of it, I had been made, as it were, the pattern-man of our association and the new system. Did any one object to our concerts, rehearsals, and practisings, as occupying too much time, he was referred to Pennefeather of St Saviour's, "a regular leading man, by Jove--pal of Grindham and Swetter--goes home after a concert, and sits up half the night with a wet cloth round his head." So said report--lying as usual; and my fall was the greater in consequence. The examination was over, and the result was to be announced next morning. I had felt my ideas rather vague on the subject of the questions asked, and half suspected that my answers partook of their looseness. Still I had my hopes--I had covered a good deal of paper with my writing--a wranglership was not so very unlikely. With this conviction I went to bed, and slept, on the whole, very soundly. In the morning I dressed, shaved, and breakfasted, with considerable deliberation; and, just before nine o'clock, walked down to the senate-house. The scene there, on this and like occasions, is sufficiently exciting to an uninterested person--something more than exciting to one in a situation like mine. A crowd of young men, half mad with expectation, beset the doors of the edifice. The fate of themselves and their friends, their bets and the honour of their respective colleges, are at stake. They shout and scream. The doors are thrown open. All rush in. A pandemoniac confusion ensues. Then some patriotic individual volunteers to read aloud the expanded list, and, hoisted on the shoulders of his neighbours, begins,--WRANGLERS, "Grindham, St John's; Swetter, Trinity; Pump, Trinity, ("Hooray!" shouts somebody, and runs off to convey the intelligence to Mr Pump, who is funking in his room)--Mullins, St John's; Shobley, St Saviours; &c., &c." I listened calmly to the first half of the wrangler-list, anxiously to the last, tremblingly to the names in the next class, agonisedly to those in the third and last. _My name was not there at all!_ In the hope that it might have been omitted by mistake, I waited until the crowd thinned, and then, with dim eyes, read the paper myself. There was no mistake at all. I ran, unobserved, to my rooms, locked myself in, and during the next three hours I won't say what I did or thought. There _are_ moments--but never mind! I'm a father of a family now.