Besides these out-of-door sports, our hero also devoted a good deal of his time to acquiring in-door games, being quickly initiated into the mysteries of billiards, and plunging headlong into pool. It was in the billiard-room that Verdant first formed his acquaintance with Mr. Fluke of Christ Church, well known to be the best player in the University, and who, if report spoke truly, always made his five hundred a year by his skill in the game. Mr. Fluke kindly put our hero "into the way to become a player;" and Verdant soon found the apprenticeship was attended with rather heavy fees. At the wine-parties also that he attended he became rather a greater adept at cards than he had formerly been. "Van John" was the favourite game; and he was not long in discovering that [s]taking shillings and half-crowns, instead of counters and "fish," and going odds on the colours, and losing five pounds before he was aware of it, was a very different thing to playing ~vingt-et-un~ at home with his sisters for "love" - [AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 107] (though perhaps cards afford the only way in which young ladies at twenty-one will ~play~ for love). In returning to Brazenface late from these parties, our hero was sometimes frightfully alarmed by suddenly finding himself face to face with a dreadful apparition, to which, by constant familiarity, he gradually became accustomed, and learned to look upon as the proctor with his marshal and bulldogs. At first, too, he was on such occasions greatly alarmed <VG107.JPG> at finding the gates of Brazenface closed, obliging him thereby to "knock-in;" and not only did he apologize to the porter for troubling him to open the wicket, but he also volunteered elaborate explanations of the reasons that had kept him out after time, - explanations that were not received in the spirit with which they were tendered. When our freshman became aware of the mysteries of a gate-bill, he felt more at his ease. Mr. Verdant Green learned many things during his freshman's term, and, among others, he discovered that the quiet retirement of college-rooms, of which he had heard so much, was in many cases an unsubstantial idea, founded on imagination, and built up by fancy. One day that he had been writing a letter in Mr. Smalls' rooms, which were on the ground-floor, Verdant congratulated himself that his own rooms were on the third floor, [108 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]