To a freshman, the etiquette and technique of Oxford abound in real and, still more, in imaginary pitfalls. He may live for years on the same staircase as a man one term his senior, but, unless they have been introduced, he must never bow nor say "good-morning" to him. The senior would, perhaps, leave a card on the freshman, choosing a moment when he was not at home; the freshman must return his call, but it was not enough to leave a card: he must go on calling until he ran him to earth. In all things a freshman must comport himself humbly, taking a distant seat in the junior common room and leaving the arm-chairs in front of the fire to those who better deserved them. There were rules of dress and rules of conduct; there were clubs which a man would feel honoured to join and clubs which he would prudently avoid; there were games worth playing and games that were waste of time. When the appointed day came, the ordeal was refreshingly light and quickly forgotten in the joyous sense of possession which a man's own rooms, with his shining, black name painted over the door, gives him more fully, perhaps, than he ever knows later; the sense of protection, too, at a time when he feels more solitary and unwanted than ever before. Though the carpet were threadbare and the curtains dingy, though sofa and chairs needed recovering and the meagre blankets on one bed bore the name of "Arthur Bourchier" and a date four years before the new owner was born, the rooms belonged to him _de facto_, and within a few hours he would _de jure_ belong to them; it was time to unpack books and pictures and to study the regulations and hints embodied in the brochure libellously known as "The Blue Liar." After luncheon the freshmen were collected in Hall for presentation to the Dean.[6] The Old Westminsters gathered together to discuss their rooms and to exchange whispered confidences. From Hall they were ushered to the Old Schools and admitted members of the university by the vice-chancellor. Then they drew breath. The bond of an identic school held them in small groups which explored one another's rooms and perambulated Oxford to purchase bedroom ware and such other necessaries of life as had not been included in the equipment taken over, at a valuation, from the previous tenants. They made a preliminary inspection of picture shops and turned over the books in Blackwell's; they bought tobacco--and refused to buy pipe-racks and tobacco-jars enriched with the college arms, because these were "freshers' delights" and a mark of juvenility to be avoided. Then they returned to college and discovered that already a few of their senior friends had left cards. And then it was time to discover which were the freshmen's tables in hall.