"Please to follow me, gentlemen," he said; "it's only just across the quad. Third floor, No. 4 staircase, fust quad; that's about the mark, ~I~ think, sir." Mr. Verdant Green glanced curiously round the Quadrangle, with its picturesque irregularity of outline, its towers and turrets and battlements, its grey time-eaten walls, its rows of mullioned heavy-headed windows, and the quiet cloistered air that spoke of study and reflection; and perceiving on one side a row of large windows, with great buttresses between, and a species of steeple on the high-pitched roof, he made bold (just to try the effect) to address Mr. Filcher by the name assigned to him at an early period of his life by his godfathers and godmothers, and inquired if that building was the chapel. "No, sir," replied Robert, "that there's the 'All, sir, ~that~ is, - where you dines, sir, leastways when you ain't 'AEger,' or elseweer. That at the top is the lantern, sir, ~that~ is; called so because it never has no candle in it. The chapel's the hopposite side, sir. -Please not to walk on the grass, sir; there's a fine agen it, unless you're a Master. This way if ~you~ please, gentlemen!" Thus the scout beguiled them, as he led them to an open doorway with a large 4 painted over it; inside was a door on either hand, while a coal-bin displayed its black face from under a staircase that rose immediately before them. Up this they went, following the scout (who had vanished for a moment with the boots and beer), and when they had passed the first floor they found the ascent by no means easy to the body, or pleasant to the sight. The once white-washed walls were coated with the uncleansed dust of the three past terms; and where the plaster had not been chipped off by flying porter-bottles, or the heels of Wellington boots, its surface had afforded an irresistible temptation to those imaginative undergraduates who displayed their artistic genius in candle-smoke cartoons of the heads of the University, and other popular and unpopular characters. All Mr. Green's caution, as he crept up the [AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 37] dark, twisting staircase, could not prevent him from crushing his hat against the low, cobwebbed ceiling, and he gave vent to a very strong but quiet anathema, which glided quietly and audibly into the remark, "Confounded awkward staircase, I think!" "Just what Mr. Bouncer says," replied the scout, "although he don't reach so high as you, sir; but he ~do~ say, sir, when he, comes home pleasant at night from some wine-party, that it ~is~ the aukardest staircase as was ever put before a gentleman's <VG037.JPG> legs. And he ~did~ go so far, sir, as to ask the Master, if it wouldn't be better to have a staircase as would go up of hisself, and take the gentlemen up with it, like one as they has at some public show in London - the Call-and-see-em, I think he said." "The Colosseum, probably," suggested Mr. Green. "And what did Dr. Portman say to that, pray?"