Page:Passages from the Life of a Philosopher.djvu/409

Rh at a quarter past eight; 8⋅20 had arrived, but still no waistcoat. At last, at half-past eight, the squire of the faithless knight of the thimble arrived with the vest.

Thus equipped, I rushed to the hall, and found that my college friends had waited for my arrival. I explained to the Dean that I had been detained by an unpunctual tailor, who had not brought home my waistcoat until half an hour after the appointed time. We then commenced the serious business which assembled us together. The breakfast was superb, and the society delightful. I enjoyed them both, being fortunately quite unconscious that every eye was examining the artistic and aesthetic garment with which I had been so recently invested. I thus acquired for a time the character of a dandy of the first water. It has not unfrequently been my fate in life to have gained a character for worth or worthlessness upon grounds quite as absurd, which I have afterwards seldom taken the trouble to explain.

The Dean, however, quickly saw through the outer covering, and before the meeting was over I felt that a friendship had commenced which time could only strengthen. One day, whilst we were walking together, MacLean told me that he had heard with great interest from one of his colleagues of some views of mine relative to miracles, which he wished much to hear from my own lips.

I remarked that the explanation of them would require much more time than we could afford during the bustle of the Association; but that I should afterwards, at any quiet time, be delighted to discuss them with him.

After the meeting of the British Association terminated, I made a short tour to visit some of my friends in the North of Ireland. On my return to Dublin I again found MacLean,