We reached Winchester late in the evening of the day before the election, putting up, not at “The George,” or at “The White Hart,” as most people would have done, but at the “Fleur de Lys,” pronounced “Flower de Luce,” a very ancient, but then third-rate hostelry, which my father preferred, partly probably because he thought the charges might be less there, but mainly because it is situated in the vicinity of the college, and he had known and used it of old. We spent the evening at the house of Dr. Gabell, the head master, an old friend of my father’s, where his eldest daughter, an intimate friend of my mother’s, who had often been a visitor in Keppel Street, made much of me. And the next day I became a Wykehamist! And the manner of so becoming was in this wise. The real serious business of the six electors--three sent from New College, and three belonging to Winchester, as has been set forth on a previous page--consisted in the examination of those scholars, who, standing at the top of the school, were in that year candidates for New College. All the eighteen “prefects,” who formed the highest class in the school, were examined; but the most serious part of the business was the examination of the first half dozen or so, who were probably superannuated at the age of eighteen that year, and who might have a fair chance of finding a vacancy at New College (if there were not one at that present moment) in the course of the ensuing twelve months. And this was a very fateful and serious examination, for the examiners in “the election chamber” would, if the examination disclosed due cause, change the order of the roll as it came up to them, placing a boy, who had distinguished himself, before another, who had not done so. And as the roll thus settled was the order in which vacancies at New College were taken, the work in “the chamber” was of life-long importance to the subjects of it. Very different was the “election” of the children, who were to go into Winchester. Duly instructed as to the part we were to play, we went marvelling up the ancient stone corkscrew stair to the mysterious chamber situated over the “middle gate,” _i.e._ the gateway between the outer court and the second quadrangle where the chapel, the hall, and the chambers are. The “election chamber” always maintained a certain character of mystery to us, because it was never opened or used save on the great occasion of the annual election. In that chamber we found the six solemn electors in their gowns waiting for us; especially the Bishop of Hereford, who was then Warden of Winchester College, an aged man with his peculiar wig and gown was an object of awe. No Bishop had in those days dreamed as yet of discarding the episcopal wig.