But as soon as I entered college I became sufficiently absorbed in the actual. Neither Holt nor Dart had changed in the slightest degree, except that Jack wore trim English whiskers and looked quite middle-aged, and Harry was engaged in nursing the incipient down of a moustache, and was the tallest, handsomest, cleverest fellow in his class. Jack had always been the closest of students, and his old diligence had not abated here: he kept up with the rest by dint of solid hard work. Harry flung scholarship to the winds of course, but made a special career for himself which won him more admiration from everybody except the faculty than any amount of legitimate industry. He was a fluent and ready debater; he wrote for the college journal; his high animal spirits brought everybody about him, and his mind seemed ever eager and poised for flight: he was ready in wit; decried trifling subjects, yet would dispute for two hours over an absurdity; was dexterous and unanswerable in his syllogisms; would advance the crudest and most untenable theory, defend it, reducing the arguments of his opponents to meaningless folly, conquer apparently by both wit and reason, then turn his own hypothesis inside out, confute it, dash it into senseless atoms, and dismiss it as unworthy of a thought. In short, among us lads, busy with books and full of admiration of our own cleverness, he was delightful; and among other ostentatious pedantries such as prevail at college his passed unrebuked. When he tried his wits with Mr. Floyd, that gentleman implored him for God's sake to hold his tongue and to consult Carlyle's _Sartor Resartus_, book 2, chapter 4, and discover the opinion of sensible men concerning youthful intellects like his own. I appeared to poor enough advantage at first, and was almost afraid to speak in the curious and motley society which thronged our rooms. The quick wit, the ready epigram and squib, the oppressive and multitudinous puns in every language,--all served to stun and confuse me, fixed as I was in grave and quiet habits of mind and thought. It was amazing to me at first with what ease many of the boys had acquired clear ideas upon every question of the day, and with what brilliancy they could advance them, while I was tongue-tied from modesty or reserve. Presently, however, I discovered that these promising young gentlemen were not so wondrous wise after all. I dismissed my fears, felt less fastidious about the emphatic utterance of a thoughtless opinion, and soon was as loud-tongued as any in my demand that the world should be made over at once to suit men of our calibre. At first they were all very tender and patient with me, but when I grew a trifle bolder my little gravities became the target for everybody's wit, and I dare say I was much improved by having my mannerisms and elegancies knocked rudely off from me.