If the hero is a modern young man, and has not got a father, or has
only something not worth calling a father, then he comes across a
library--anybody's library does for him. He passes Sir Walter Scott
and the "Arabian Nights," and makes a bee-line for Plato; it seems to
be an instinct with him. By help of a dictionary he worries it out
in the original Greek. This gives him a passion for Greek.

When he has romped through the Greek classics he plays about among
the Latins. He spends most of his spare time in that library, and
forgets to go to tea.

[Because he always "gets there," without any trouble.]

That is the sort of boy he is. How I used to hate him! If he has a
proper sort of father, then he goes to college. He does no work:
there is no need for him to work: everything seems to come to him.
That was another grievance of mine against him. I always had to work
a good deal, and very little came of it. He fools around doing
things that other men would be sent down for; but in his case the
professors love him for it all the more. He is the sort of man who
can't do wrong. A fortnight before the examination he ties a wet
towel round his head. That is all we hear about it. It seems to be
the towel that does it. Maybe, if the towel is not quite up to its
work, he will help things on by drinking gallons of strong tea. The
tea and the towel combined are irresistible: the result is always
the senior wranglership.

I used to believe in that wet towel and that strong tea. Lord! the
things I used to believe when I was young. They would make an