The two months' allopathic dose of Experience, which had been administered to Mr. Verdant Green, chiefly through the agency of those skilful professors, Messrs. Larkyns, Fosbrooke, Smalls, and Bouncer, had been so far beneficial to him, that, in the figurative Eastern language of the last-named gentleman, he had not only been "sharpened up no end by being well rubbed against University bricks," but he had, moreover, "become so considerably wide-awake, that he would very soon be able to take the shine out of the old original Weazel, whom the pages of History had recorded as never having been discovered in a state of somnolence." Now, as Mr. Bouncer was a gentleman of considerable experience and was, too, (although addicted to expressions not to be found in "the Polite Preceptor,"), quite free from the vulgar habit of personal flattery, - or, as he thought fit to express it, in words which would have taken away my Lord Chesterfield's appetite, "buttering a party to his face in the cheekiest manner," - we may fairly presume, on this strong evidence, that Mr. Verdant Green had really gained a considerable amount of experience during his freshman's term, although there were still left in his character and conduct many marks of viridity which "Time's effacing fingers," assisted by Mr. Bouncer's instructions, would gradually remove. However, Mr. Verdant Green had, at any rate, ceased to be "a Freshman" in name; and had received that University promotion, which Mr. Charles Larkyns commemorated by the following ~affiche~, which our hero, on his return from his first morning chapel in the Michaelmas term, found in a conspicuous position on his oak, COMMISSION SIGNED BY THE VICE-CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. MR. VERDANT GREEN to be an Oxford Undergraduate, ~vice~ Oxford Freshman, SOLD out. It is generally found to be the case, that the youthful Undergraduate first seeks to prove he is no longer a "Freshman," by endeavouring to impose on the credulity of those young [126 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN] gentlemen who come up as freshmen in his second term. And, in this, there is an analogy between the biped and the quadruped; for, the wild, gambolling, schoolboy elephant, when he has been brought into a new circle, and has been trained to new habits, will take pleasure in ensnaring and deluding his late companions in play.