midnight
The next day found him installed as a pupil and boarder in the college . Don Juan 's position and Spanish predilections naturally made his relation acceptable to the faculty ; but Clarence could not help perceiving that Father Sobriente , the Principal , regarded him at times with a thoughtful curiosity that made him suspect that his cousin had especially bespoken that attention , and that he occasionally questioned him on his antecedents in a way that made him dread a renewal of the old questioning about his progenitor . For the rest , he was a polished , cultivated man ; yet , in the characteristic , material criticism of youth , I am afraid that Clarence chiefly identified him as a priest with large hands , whose soft palms seemed to be cushioned with kindness , and whose equally large feet , encased in extraordinary shapeless shoes of undyed leather , seemed to tread down noiselessly -- rather than to ostentatiously crush -- the obstacles that beset the path of the young student . In the cloistered galleries of the court-yard Clarence sometimes felt himself borne down by the protecting weight of this paternal hand ; in the midnight silence of the dormitory he fancied he was often conscious of the soft browsing tread and snuffly muffled breathing of his elephantine-footed mentor . His relations with his school-fellows were at first far from pleasant . Whether they suspected favoritism ; whether they resented that old and unsympathetic manner which sprang from his habits of association with his elders ; or whether they rested their objections on the broader grounds of his being a stranger , I do not know , but they presently passed from cruel sneers to physical opposition . It was then found that this gentle and reserved youth had retained certain objectionable , rude , direct , rustic qualities of fist and foot , and that , violating all rules and disdaining the pomp and circumstance of school-boy warfare , of which he knew nothing , he simply thrashed a few of his equals out of hand , with or without ceremony , as the occasion or the insult happened .