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34

IX months had passed. To me it was one of the most eventful periods of my life. I had gone in for my degree. My honours were not so high as I had once hoped for, as my Paris adventure had thrown my reading back terribly. I took a second, however, and found some of the brilliant and fresh thoughts of my mysterious friend of value to me in the examination. "We have had to examine you for a first class, for some of your answers were so remarkable," said one of the examiners to me afterwards. "Where did you read these extraordinary ideas?"

"I never read them," I said, "I only heard them from a very singular and eccentric genius whom I met in Paris. I think they seemed true, though where he got them I cannot say.

After leaving Oxford, I went as private tutor