I had not been many weeks a resident of Old Trinity ere the flattering reputation my chum, Mr. Francis Webber, had acquired, extended also to myself; and by universal consent, we were acknowledged the most riotous, ill-conducted, disorderly men on the books of the university. Were the lamps of the squares extinguished, and the college left in total darkness, we were summoned before the dean; was the vice-provost serenaded with a chorus of trombones and French horns, to our taste in music was the attention ascribed; did a sudden alarm of fire disturb the congregation at morning chapel, Messrs. Webber and O’Malley were brought before the board,--and I must do them the justice to say that the most trifling circumstantial evidence was ever sufficient to bring a conviction. Reading men avoided the building where we resided as they would have done the plague. Our doors, like those of a certain classic precinct commemorated by a Latin writer, lay open night and day, while mustached dragoons, knowingly dressed four-in-hand men, fox-hunters in pink, issuing forth to the Dubber or returning splashed from a run with the Kildare hounds, were everlastingly seen passing and repassing. Within, the noise and confusion resembled rather the mess-room of a regiment towards eleven at night than the chambers of a college student; while, with the double object of affecting to be in ill-health, and to avoid the reflections that daylight occasionally inspires, the shutters were never opened, but lamps and candles kept always burning. Such was No. 2, Old Square, in the goodly days I write of. All the terrors of fines and punishments fell scathless on the head of my worthy chum. In fact, like a well-known political character, whose pleasure and amusement it has been for some years past to drive through acts of Parliament and deride the powers of the law, so did Mr. Webber tread his way, serpenting through the statute-book, ever grazing, but rarely trespassing upon some forbidden ground which might involve the great punishment of expulsion. So expert, too, had he become in his special pleadings, so dexterous in the law of the university, that it was no easy matter to bring crime home to him; and even when this was done, his pleas of mitigation rarely failed of success.