I sleep in a very nice little cabin all by myself, and always keep the door locked and the key in my pocket. We have coffee and milk for breakfast every morning, very good dinners, also suppers. Most of the boys keep what they call a mess, or drink tea every night, but that is on condition that their fathers pay three shillings a week, and it is sent in the bill every half-year, so that it would come to £3 in a half-year. So I suppose that papa would not let me keep one. Some of them have five shillings a week. There is a sergeant who allows all those that have a mess a pound of sugar, a pound of butter, and a loaf of bread every week, and tea enough, too--sometimes chocolate. One of the boys invited me to drink chocolate with him one night, and I must say it was excellent. The masters here are very strict indeed, but they never flog, only lock them up in a dungeon, and have a soldier to guard it. P.S.--I am now in my little cabin with my door locked. This was some years after Professor Inman persuaded the Admiralty to reintroduce flogging, but possibly it was again abolished; or the "black hole" was instituted and found sufficient. Sir Thomas Pasley's biographer smiles over Mundy's description of punishment, regarding it as a sort of boyish "bogey"; but it was probably strictly true, the technical term being "confinement in cell under sentry's charge." Young Mundy apparently succeeded in obtaining his "mess," and discovered that it could be used to his disadvantage. He writes, March 25th, 1819:-- Yesterday I asked Captain Gifford for my mess, for I suppose you know he stopped it a month for copying last examination. He was in a very good humour, and said that I had behaved very well since I copyed, but that I ought not to lay my head down in church quite so much as I do, so I do not intend to do it any more. On April 28th he writes again:-- Two boys of this college finished their studies the other day; they asked me to what is called a "blow-out," which is something more than common. We had two turkeys, six chickens, a leg of pork, besides vegetables. I do call that a famous dinner. Most of the boys when they leave this college give a blow-out on the last day, to make merry with their best friends. There were twelve of us to demolish it. I know I ate my share. Then follows a suggestive remark, which conveys the impression that the assimilation of the twelfth part of two turkeys, six chickens, and a leg of pork--besides vegetables--cannot be accomplished with impunity. "I was invited to another, but I was in the infirmary, and could not go to it"! Sir George Rodney Mundy was a very well-known man in later years; he finished his active career as Commander-in-Chief at Portsmouth, and afterwards became Admiral of the Fleet. Admiral Sir Bartholomew J. Sulivan speaks in his "Life and Letters" of his College days:--