He found Mr. Larkyns lolling on a couch, in dressing-gown and slippers.  Opposite to him was a gentleman whose face was partly hidden by a pewter pot, out of which he was draining the last draught.  Mr. Larkyns turned his head, and saw dimly through the clouds of tobacco smoke that filled his room a tall, thin, spectacled figure, with a hat in one hand, and an envelope in the other.

“It’s no use,” he said, “stealing a march on me in this way.  I don’t owe you anything; and if I did it is not convenient to pay it.  Hang you Oxford tradesmen!  You really make a man thoroughly bill-ious.  Tell your master that I can’t get any money out of my governor till I’ve got my degree.  Now make yourself scarce!  You know where the door lies!”

Mr. Verdant Green was so confounded at this unusual reception that he lost the power of motion and speech.  But as Mr. Larkyns advanced towards him in a threatening attitude, he managed to gasp out:  “Why, Charles Larkyns, don’t you remember me, Verdant Green?”

“’Pon my word, old fellow,” said his friend, “I thought you were a dun.  There are so many wretched tradesmen in this place who labour under the impression that because a man buys a thing he means to pay for it, that my life is mostly spent in dodging their messengers.  Allow me,” he added, “to introduce you to Mr. Smalls.  You will find him very useful in helping you in your studies.  He himself reads so hard that he is called a fast man.”

Mr. Smalls put down his pewter pot, and said that he had much pleasure in forming the acquaintance of a freshman like Mr. Verdant Green; which was undoubtedly true.  And he then showed his absorbing interest in literary studies by neglecting the society of Mr. Verdant Green and immersing himself in the perusal of one of those vivid accounts of “a rattling set-to between Nobby Buffer and Hammer Sykes” which make “Bell’s Life” the favourite reading of many Oxford scholars.

“I heard from my governor,” said Mr. Larkyns, “that you were coming up, and in the course of the morning I should have come to look you up.  Have a cigar, old chap?”

“Er—­er—­thank you very much,” said Verdant, in a frightened way; “but I have never smoked.”

“Never smoked!” exclaimed Mr. Smalls, holding up “Bell’s Life,” and making private signals to Mr. Larkyns.  “You’ll soon get the better of that weakness!  As you are a freshman, let me give you a little advice.  You know what deep readers the Germans are.  That is because they smoke more than we do.  I should advise you to go at once to the vice-chancellor and ask him for a box of good cigars.  He will be delighted to find you are beginning to set to work so soon.”

Mr. Verdant Green thanked Mr. Smalls for his kind advice, and said that he would go without delay to the vice-chancellor.  And Mr. Smalls was so delighted with the joke, for the vice-chancellor took severe steps to prevent undergraduates from indulging in the fragrant weed, that he invited Verdant to wine with him that evening.