Among the bad threepenny
pieces which had been passed off upon him, and which he kept for small
hourly disbursement, was a remark that poor people were much nicer
than the richer and better educated. Ernest now said that he always
travelled third class not because it was cheaper, but because the
people whom he met in third class carriages were so much pleasanter
and better behaved. As for the young men who attended Ernest's evening
classes, they were pronounced to be more intelligent and better
ordered generally than the average run of Oxford and Cambridge men.
Our foolish young friend, having heard Pryer talk to this effect,
caught up all he said and reproduced it more suo.
One evening, however, about this time, whom should he see coming
along a small street not far from his own but, of all persons in the
world, Towneley, looking as full of life and good spirits as ever, and
if possible even handsomer than he had been at Cambridge. Much as
Ernest liked him he found himself shrinking from speaking to him,
and was endeavouring to pass him without doing so when Towneley saw
him and stopped him at once, being pleased to see an old Cambridge
face.
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