Sell or no sell, the affair was definitively settled. “All the king's money and all the king's men” could not give me the chance over again. The first effect of my disappointment was that it made me resolve to leave Cambridge at once. I packed up my books—a couple of trunks contained with ease the rest of my effects—sent them in charge to a bookseller, and waited on our College tutor to resign my Scholarship. He refused to present my resignation, and begged me to wait awhile, intimating his expectation that I would stay and read for a Fellowship, and his belief that there were not more than four men in the year who stood a better chance (there were ultimately but four Fellows out of our year). After my Classical degree, this seemed a mere compliment and façon de parler; still, as there was no pressing necessity for my resignation, I consented to withdraw it, and went off on a fortnight's run through Belgium and France. Before that fortnight was over, my feelings underwent a change. The first impulse passed away, and I found myself attracted back to the old place.