To appreciate this comical parade of scholarly enthusiasm, readers must remember how much time the undergraduate consumed in playing with paper boats and 'making ducks-and-drakes' at the pond under Shotover Hill. Why did the freshman, so prodigal of precious hours, thus affect the part of a student set on turning every minute of his time to the best account? What was his motive in figuring under the public gaze in a character so widely different from his real character? In answering these questions, readers should forget, as far as possible, the freshman's subsequent greatness, and thinking of him as the Eton scatter-brain, judge him precisely as they would judge any youngster, who should behave in the same absurd fashion in this present year of grace. The freshman, who read the Latin and Greek classics as he paced 'the High,' had other ways of calling attention to himself in the public places of Oxford. On their return from a stroll, in cap and gown, Shelley and Hogg were holding high discourse on certain Platonic questions, when they encountered on Magdalen Bridge, a woman with a child in her arms,--an infant that might have been taken clean out of her arms, had the eccentric freshman encountered no resistance from the lawful owner of the baby. 'Will your baby tell us anything about pre-existence, Madam?' the excited disputant asked in a piercing voice, as he suddenly caught hold of the long-robed infant. The woman was still in the act of recovering the self-possession, of which so singular an assault had deprived her for a few moments; when Shelley repeated the question in the same penetrating tone and with unabated earnestness. 'He cannot speak, Sir,' the woman replied with respectful seriousness. 'Worse and worse!' cried the eccentric undergraduate, shaking his long locks in a manner that must have heightened the woman's perplexity and alarm. 'But surely, Madam, the babe can speak if it will, for he is only a few weeks old. He may fancy, perhaps, that he cannot, but it is only a silly whim; he cannot have forgotten entirely the use of speech in so short a time; the thing is absolutely impossible.' 'It is not for me,' replied the woman, eyeing the two youthful gownsmen, with mingled deference and consternation, 'to dispute with you, Gentlemen, but I can safely declare that I never heard him speak, nor any child, indeed, of his age.'