The owner of the rooms was luckily in no more _outré_ costume than that of Sir Charles Marlow; and having thrown off his wig, and buttoned his coat over a deep-flapped waistcoat, looked tolerably like himself as he proceeded to answer the summons. I confess I rather hoped than otherwise that the gentleman, whoever he was, would walk in, when, if he intended to astonish us, he was very likely to find the tables turned. However, even college dons recognise the principle that every man's house is his castle, and never violate the sanctity of even an undergraduate's rooms. The object of this present visit, however, was rather friendly than otherwise. One of the fellows, deservedly popular, had been with the dean, and had left him in a state of some excitement from the increasing merriment which came somewhat too audibly across the quadrangle from our party. He had called, therefore, to advise Challoner either to keep his friends quiet, or to get rid of them, if he wished to keep out of the dean's jurisdiction. As it was towards three in the morning, we thought it prudent to take this advice as it was meant, and in a few minutes began to wend our respective ways homewards. Leicester and myself, whose rooms lay in the same direction, were steering along, very soberly, under a bright moonlight, when something put it into the heads of some other stragglers of the party to break out, at the top of their voices, into a stanza of that immortal ditty, "We won't go home till morning." Instantly we could hear a window, which we well knew to be the dean's, open above us, and as the unmelodious chorus went on, his wrath found vent in the usual strain--"Who is making that disturbance?" No one volunteering an explanation, he went on. "Who are those in the quadrangle?" Leicester and I walked somewhat faster. I am not sure that our dignity did not condescend to run, as we heard steps coming down from No. 5, at a pace that evidently portended a chase, and remembered for the first time the remarkable costume which, to common observers, would indicate that there was a visitor of an unusual character enjoying the moonlight in the quadrangle. When we reached the "thoroughfare," the passage from the inner to the outer quadrangle, we fairly bolted; and as the steps came pretty fast after us, and Leicester's rooms were the nearest, we both made good our retreat thither, and sported oak. The porter's lodge was in the next number; and hearing a knocking in that quarter, Leicester gently opened the window, and we could catch the following dialogue:-- "Solomon! open this door directly--it is I, the dean." "Good dear sir!" said Solomon, apparently asleep, and fumbling for the keys of the college gates--"let you out? O yes, sir--directly." "Listen to me, Solomon: I am not going out. Did you let any one out just now--just before I called you?" "No, sir; nobody whatsomdever." "Solomon! I ask you, did you not, just now, let a _woman_ out?"