A legend grew up around him, which he fostered sedulously, and
it was reported that he had secret vices which could only be whispered
with bated breath. He was said to intoxicate himself with Oriental drugs,
and to haunt the vilest opium-dens in the East of London. He kept the
greatest surprise for the last, since, though he was never seen to work,
he managed, to the universal surprise, to get a first. He went down, and
to the best of my belief was never seen in Oxford again.
I have heard vaguely that he was travelling over the world, and, when
I met in town now and then some of the fellows who had known him at the
'Varsity, weird rumours reached me. One told me that he was tramping
across America, earning his living as he went; another asserted that he
had been seen in a monastry in India; a third assured me that he had
married a ballet-girl in Milan; and someone else was positive that he
had taken to drink. One opinion, however, was common to all my
informants, and this was that he did something out of the common. It
was clear that he was not the man to settle down to the tame life of a
country gentleman which his position and fortune indicated.
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