“Who is that who has just come in, in beaver?” said Tom, touching the next man to him.

“Oh, don’t you know? That’s Blake; he’s the most wonderful fellow in Oxford,” answered his neighbor.

“How do you mean?” said Tom.

“Why, he can do everything better than almost anybody, and without any trouble at all. Miller was obliged to have him in the boat last year though he never trained a bit. Then he’s in the eleven, and is a wonderful rider, and tennis-player, and shot.”

“Aye, and he’s so awfully clever with it all,” joined in the man on the other side. “He’ll be a safe first, though I don’t believe he reads more than you or I. He can write songs, too, as fast as you can talk nearly, and sings them wonderfully.”

“Is he of our College, then?”

“Yes, of course, or he couldn’t have been in our boat last year.”

“But I don’t think I ever saw him in chapel or hall.”

“No, I dare say not. He hardly ever goes to either, and yet he manages never to get hauled up much, no[204] one knows how. He never gets up now till the afternoon, and sits up nearly all night playing cards with the fastest fellows, or going round singing glees at three or four in the morning.”

Tom looked with great interest at the admirable Crichton of St. Ambrose’s; and, after watching him a few minutes, said in a low tone to his neighbor:

“How wretched he looks! I never saw a sadder face.”

Poor Blake! one can’t help calling him “poor,” although he himself would have winced at it more than at any other name you could have called him. You might have admired, feared, or wondered at him, and he would have been pleased; the object of his life was to raise such feelings in his neighbors; but pity was the last which he would have liked to excite.

He was indeed a wonderfully gifted fellow, ............