These undergraduates abused one another's crockery as their
own: the joint stock of breakables had just dwindled very low, and Mrs.
Dodd's bountiful contribution was a godsend.
The new comer soon found that his views of a learned university had been
narrow. Out of place in it? why, he could not have taken his wares to a
better market; the modern Athens, like the ancient, cultivates muscle as
well as mind. The captain of the university eleven saw a cricket-ball
thrown all across the ground; he instantly sent a professional bowler to
find out who that was; through the same ambassador the thrower was
invited to play on club days; and proving himself an infallible catch and
long-stop, a mighty thrower, a swift runner, and a steady, though not
very brilliant bat, he was, after one or two repulses, actually adopted
into the university eleven. He communicated this ray of glory by letter
to his mother and sister with genuine delight, coldly and clumsily
expressed; they replied with feigned and fluent rapture. Advancing
steadily in that line of academic study towards which his genius lay, he
won a hurdle race, and sent home a little silver hurdle; and soon after
brought a pewter pot, with a Latin inscription recording the victory at
"Fives" of Edward Dodd: but not too arrogantly; for in the centre of the
pot was this device, "The Lord Is My Illumination.
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