"I shouldn't go so furious, Brown, if I didn't care about the place so much. I can't bear to think of it as a sort of learning machine, in which I am to grind for three years to get certain degrees which I want. No--this place, and Cambridge, and our great schools, are the heart of dear old England. Did you ever read Secretary Cook's address to the Vice-Chancellor, Doctors, &c. in 1636--more critical times, perhaps, even than ours? No? Well, listen then;" and he went to his bookcase, took down a book, and read; "'The very truth is, that all wise princes respect the welfare of their estates, and consider that schools and universities are (as in a body) the noble and vital parts, which being vigorous and sound send good blood and active spirits into the veins and arteries, which cause health and strength; or, if feeble or ill-affected, corrupt all the vital parts; whereupon grow diseases, and in the end, death itself.' A low standard up here for ten years may corrupt half the parishes in the kingdom." "That's true," said Tom, "but-" "Yes; and so one has a right to be jealous for Oxford. Every Englishman ought to be." "But I really think, Hardy, that you're unreasonable," said Tom, who had no mind to be done out of his chance of lecturing his host. "I am very quick-tempered," said Hardy, "as I told you just now." "But you're not fair on the fast set up here. They can't help being rich men, after all." "No; so one oughtn't to expect them to be going through the eyes of needles, I suppose. But do you mean to say you ever heard of a more dirty, blackguard business than this?" said Hardy; "he ought to be expelled the University." "I admit that," said Tom; "but it was only one of them, you know. I don't believe there's another man in the set who would have done it." "Well, I hope not," said Hardy; "I may be hard on them--as you say, they can't help being rich. But, now, I don't want you to think me a violent one-sided fanatic; shall I tell you some of my experiences up here--some passages from the life of a servitor?" "Do," said Tom, "I should like nothing so well." CHAPTER VIII--HARDY'S HISTORY "My father is an old commander in the Royal Navy. He was a second cousin of Nelson's Hardy, and that, believe, was what led him into the navy, for he had no interest whatever of his own. It was a visit which Nelson's Hardy, then a young lieutenant, paid to his relative, my grandfather, which decided my father, he has told me: but he always had a strong bent to the sea, though he was a boy of very studious habits.