"Oh, what's that in the hollow, so pale I quake to follow?" "Oh, that's a thin dead body that waits the Eternal term." The answer effectually arouses him, and he pulls up in terror, asking her to turn. She answers again, and he knows his fate. "Turn again, oh my sweetest! Turn again, false and fleetest! This way, whereof thou weetest, is surely Hell's own track!" "Nay, too late for cost counting, nay too steep for hill-mounting, This downward path is easy, but there's no turning back." Shakespeare tells us that there is a tide in the affairs of man, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune: omitted, all the voyage of the after life is spent in shoals and miseries. That will apply to other things besides fortune. I fully believe that after a young fellow has set out on the downward path, in almost all cases there's a chance given him of pulling up again, if he only is sufficiently wise and firm to seize upon it. The opportunity was to come for Tod. He had started; there was no doubt of that; but he had not got down very far yet and could go backward almost as easily as forward. Left alone, he would probably make a sliding run of it, and descend into the shoals. But the chance for him was at hand. Our commons and Whitney's went up to Gaiton's room in the morning, and we breakfasted there. Lecture that day was at eleven, but I had work to do beforehand. So had Tod, for the matter of that; plenty of it. I went down to mine, but Tod stayed up with the two others. Bursting into our room, as a fellow does when he is late for anything, I saw at the open window somebody that I thought must be Mr. Brandon's ghost. It took me aback, and for a moment I stood staring. "Have you no greeting for me, Johnny Ludlow?" "I was lost in surprise, sir. I am very glad to see you." "I dare say you are!" he returned, as if he doubted my word. "It's a good half-hour that I have waited here. You've been at a breakfast-party!" He must have got that from the scout. "Not at a party, sir. Gaiton asked us to take our commons up, and breakfast with him in his room." "Who is Gaiton?" "He is Lord Gaiton. One of the students at Christchurch." "Never mind his being a lord. Is he any good?" I could not say Gaiton was particularly good, so passed the question over, and asked Mr. Brandon when he came to Oxford. "I got here at mid-day yesterday. How are you getting on?" "Oh, very well, sir." "Been in any rows?" "No, sir." "And Todhetley? How is he getting on?" I should have said very well to this; it would never have done to say very ill, but Tod and Bill Whitney interrupted the answer. They looked just as much surprised as I had been. After talking a bit, Mr. Brandon left, saying he should expect us all three at the Mitre in the evening when dinner in Hall was over. "What the deuce brings him at Oxford?" cried Tod. Whitney laughed. "I'll lay a crown he has come to look after Johnny and his morals."