To stand thus, expectant of the opening doors, troubled him with a sense of shame.  To be sure, he was in the spiritual company of Charles Lamb, and of many another man of brains who has waited under the lamp.  But contact with the pittites of Kingsmill offended his instincts; he resented this appearance of inferiority to people who came at their leisure, and took seats in the better parts of the house.  When a neighbour addressed him with a meaningless joke which defied grammar, he tried to grin a friendly answer, but inwardly shrank.  The events of the day had increased his sensibility to such impressions.  Had he triumphed over Bruno Chilvers, he could have behaved this evening with a larger humanity.

The fight for entrance—­honest British stupidity, crushing ribs and rending garments in preference to seemly order of progress—­ enlivened him somewhat, and sent him laughing to his conquered place; but before the curtain rose he was again depressed by the sight of a familiar figure in the stalls, a fellow-student who sat there with mother and sister, black-uniformed, looking very much a gentleman.  ‘I, of course, am not a gentleman,’ he said to himself, gloomily.  Was there any chance that he might some day take his ease in that orthodox fashion?  Inasmuch as it was conventionality, he scorned it; but the privileges which it represented had strong control of his imagination.  That lady and her daughter would follow the play with intelligence.  To exchange comments with them would be a keen delight.  As for him—­he had a shop-boy on one hand and a grocer’s wife on the other.

By the end he had fallen into fatigue.  Amid clamour of easily-won applause he made his way into the street, to find himself in a heavy downpour of rain.  Having no umbrella, he looked about for a sheltered station, and the glare of a neighbouring public-house caught his eye; he was thirsty, and might as well refresh body and spirit with a glass of beer, an unwonted indulgence which had the pleasant semblance of dissipation.  Arrived at the bar he came upon two acquaintances, who, to judge by their flushed cheeks and excited voices, had been celebrating jovially the close of their academic labours.  They hailed him.

‘Hollo, Peak!  Come and help us to get sober before bedtime!’

They were not exactly studious youths, but neither did they belong to the class that Godwin despised, and he had a comrade-like feeling for them.  In a few minutes his demeanour was wholly changed.  A glass of hot whisky acted promptly upon his nervous system, enabled him to forget vexations, and attuned him to kindred sprightliness.  He entered merrily into the talk of a time of life which is independent of morality—­talk distinct from that of the blackguard, but equally so from that of the reflective man.  His first glass had several successors.  The trio rambled arm in arm from one place of refreshment to another, and presently sat down in hearty fellowship to a supper of such viands as recommend themselves at bibulous midnight.  Peak was drawing recklessly upon the few coins that remained to him; he must leave his landlady’s claim undischarged, and send the money from home.  Prudence be hanged!  If one cannot taste amusement once in a twelvemonth, why live at all?