To both tutors, scholars, scouts, gyps, and others, by their blunders.
They will not unfrequently, upon the first tingle of the college bell
(though it always rings a quarter of an hour, by way of warning, on
ordinary occasions, and half an hour on saints' days, in Cambridge,)
hurry off to hall or chapel, with their gowns the wrong side outwards,
or, their caps reversed, walk unconsciously along with the hind part
before, as I once heard a _soph_ observe, "the peak smelling thunder."
They are also very apt to mistake characters and functionaries:--I
have seen a freshman _cap_ the college-butler, taking him for _bursar_
at least. The persons to be so complimented are the Chancellor, the
Vice-Chancellor, the Proctors, the head of your college, and your
tutors. When the late Bishop Mansell was Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge,
he one day met two freshmen in Trumpington-street, who passed him
unheeded. The Bishop was not a man to '_bate_ an iota of his due, and
stopped them and asked, "If they knew he was the Vice-Chancellor?"
They blushingly replied, they did not, and begged his pardon for
omitting to _cap_ him, observing they _were freshmen_. "How long have
you been in Cambridge?" asked the witty Bishop. "Only eight days," was
the reply. "In that case I must excuse you; puppies never see till
they are _nine_ days old."
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