Chapter Thirteen.

Chapter Thirteen.’Twixt Scylla and Charybdis.Perhaps no epoch of a schoolboy’s life is more critical—especially if he be of the open-hearted nature of Dick and Heathcote—than that which immediately follows his first punishment at the hands of the law.On the one hand he has the sense of disgrace which attends personal chastisement, as well as the discomfort of a forfeited good name, and the feeling of being down on the black books of the school authorities generally. On the other hand, he is sure to meet with a certain number of companions who, if they do not exactly admire what he has done, sympathise with him in what he has suffered; and sympathy at such a time is sweet and seducing. A little too much sympathy will make him feel a martyr, and a little martyrdom will make him feel a hero, and once a hero on account of his misdeeds, he needs a stout heart and a steady head to keep himself from going one step further and becoming a professional evil-doer, and ending a fool and his own worst enemy.Dick and Heathcote ran a serious risk of being shunted on to the road to ruin after the escapade of the Grandcourt match.The former discovered that his popularity with the Den was by no means impaired by adversity. In fact, he jumped at one bound to the hero stage of his ordeal. He was but a boy of flesh and blood, and sympathy is a sweet salve for smarting flesh and blood.After the first burst of contrition it pleased him to hear fellows say—“Hard lines on you, old man. Not another in a hundred would have cheeked it the way you did.”It pleased him, too, to see boys smaller than himself look round as they passed him, and whisper something which made their companions turn round too. Dick grew fond of small boys as the term went on.It pleased him still more to be taken notice of by a few bigger boys, to find himself claimed by Hooker and Duffield as a crony, to be bantered by the aesthetic Wrangham, and patronised by the stout Bull.All this made him go over the adventures of that memorable day often in his mind, and think that after all it wasn’t a bad day’s sport, and that, though he said so who shouldn’t, he had managed things fairly well, and got his money’s worth.His money’s worth, however, reminded him of his lost half-sovereign and his mother’s photograph, and these reflections usually pulled him up short in his reminiscences.Heathcote, in a more philosophical and dismal way, had his perils, and Pledge gave him no help through his difficulty. On the contrary, he encouraged his growing discontent.“Dismals again?” said he, one evening. “That cane of Winter’s must be a stiff one if it cuts you up like that.”“Winter always does lay it on thick to the kids, though,” said Wrangham, who happened to be present. “His lickings are in inverse ratio to the size of the licked.”It did comfort Heathcote to hear his case discussed in such learned and mathematical terms, but that was all the consolation he got.Dick was in far too exalted a frame of mind to give much assistance.“What does it matter?” said he, recklessly. “I don’t mean to fret myself.”And so the matter ended for the present. The two friends were bearing their ordeal in two such different ways that they might almost have parted company, had there not been another common interest of still greater importance to bind them together.One day Heathcote came up from the “Tub” at a canter and caught his friend at the chapel door.“Dick,” he said, “it’s all out! This bill was sticking on one of the posts by the pier. It was wet, so I took it off.”Dick read—“£2reward. Lost or stolen from her moorings, on Templeton Strand, on the 4th inst, a lugger-rigged sailing boat, named theMartha. Any one giving information leading to the recovery of the boat—or if stolen, to the conviction of the thief—will receive the above reward. Police Station, Templeton.”Dick handed the ominous paper back with a long face.“Here, take it. Whatever did you pull it off the post for?”“I thought you’d like to see it,” said Heathcote, putting the despised document into his pocket.“So I did. Thanks, Georgie. We didn’t steal the boat, did we?”“Rather not. Not like what he did to our money.”“No. That was downright robbery.”“With violence,” added Heathcote.“Of course. It was really Tom White’s fault the boat got adrift. It was so carelessly anchored.”“Yes. A puff of wind would have slipped that knot.”There was a pause.“It’s plain he doesn’t guess anything,” said Dick.“Not likely. And he’s not likely to say anything about it, if he does.”“Of course not. It would mean transportation for him.”“After all, some one may have gone off with the boat. We can’t tell. It was there all right when we saw it, wasn’t it?”Dick looked at his friend. He could delude himself up to a certain point, but this plea wouldn’t quite wash.“Most likely they’ll find it. It may have drifted round to Birkens, or some place like that. It’ll be all right, Georgie.”But the thoughts of that unlucky boat haunted their peace. That Tom White had only got his deserts they never questioned; but they would have been more comfortable if that loop had slipped itself.Days went on, and still no tidings reached them. The bills faced them wherever they went, and once, as they passed the boat-house with a crowd of other fellows, they received a shock by seeing Tom White himself sitting and smoking on a bench, and looking contemplatingly out to sea.“There’s Tom White,” said one of the group. “I say,” shouted he, “have you found your boat, Tom?”Tom looked up and scanned the group. Our heroes’ hearts were in their boots as his eyes met theirs. But to their relief he did not know them. A half-tipsy man on a dark night is not a good hand at remembering faces.“Found her? No, I aren’t, young gentleman,” said he.“Hard lines. Hope you’ll get her back,” said the boy. “I say, do you think any one stole her?”“May be, may be not,” replied the boatman.“Jolly rum thing about that boat,” said the spokesman of the party, as the boys continued their walk.“I expect it got adrift somehow,” said another.“I don’t know,” said the first. “I was speaking to a bobby about her: he says they think she was stolen; and fancy they’ve got a clue to the fellow.”Heathcote stumbled for no apparent reason at this particular moment, and it was quite amusing to see the concern on Dick’s face as he went to the rescue.“Jolly low trick,” continued the boy, who appeared to interest himself so deeply in Tom’s loss, “if any one really took the boat away. Tom will be ruined.”“Who do they think went off with her?” asked another.“They don’t say; but they’re rather good at running things down, are our police. Do you recollect the way they bowled out the fellow who tried to burn the boat-house last year, and got him six months?”This police gossip was so alarming to our two heroes, that they gave up taking walks along the beach, and retired to the privacy of the school boundaries, where there was no lack of occupation, indoor and out, to relieve the monotony of life.A week after the Grandcourt match, a boy called Braider came up to Dick and asked to speak to him. Braider was in the Fourth, and Dick knew of him as a racketty, roystering sort of fellow, very popular with his own set—and thought something of by the Den, on account of some recent offences against monitorial authority.“I say,” said he to Dick, confidentially, “what do you say to belonging to our Club?”“What Club?” asked Dick, scenting some new distinction, and getting light-headed in consequence.“You’ll promise not to go telling everybody,” said Braider. “We’re called the ‘Sociables,’ It’s a jolly enough lot. Only twenty of us, and we have suppers and concerts once a week. The thing is, it’sawfullyselect, and a job to get into it. But your name was mentioned the other day, and I fancy you’d get in.”“I suppose Georgie Heathcote isn’t in it?” said Dick.“Rather not!” said the other, mistaking his meaning; “he’d have no chance.”“He’s not a bad fellow,” said Dick. “I wouldn’t mind if he was on.”“Well, there are two vacancies. What do you say for one?”“Do I know the other fellows?”“Most of them,” and Braider repeated a string of names, among which were those of a few well-known heroes of the Fifth and Fourth.“They’re all jolly fellows,” said Braider, “and, back up one another like one o’clock. It was your plucky show up at Grandcourt that made them think of having you; and if you join you’ll just be in time for the next concert. What do you say?”Dick didn’t like to say no; and not being a youth who dallied much between the positive and the negative, he said:“All serene, Braider, if they really want it.”“Of course they do, old man,” said Braider, in tones of satisfaction; “they’ll be jolly glad. Mind you don’t go talking about it to any one, you know. They’re very select, and don’t want all Templeton wanting to join.”“When’s the election?” asked Dick.“Oh! to-day week. There’s one fellow, Culver, up against you; but he’s got no chance. One black ball in six excludes, so it’s always a close run.”“Do you think there would be any chance for young Heathcote?”“Doubt it. But we might try when you’re in. Ta, ta! old man. Mum’s the word.”Dick spent a troubled week. He was uncomfortable with Heathcote, in whom he was bursting to confide. He was uneasy, too, in meeting the few members of the “Sociables” whom he knew, and felt that they were watching him critically, with a view to the election next Thursday. And he was vindictive in the presence of Culver, whose possible rivalry he regarded as little short of an insult.Indeed, the effect of the suspense on him was bad all round. For having somehow picked up the notion from Braider’s hints that “spirit” was a leading qualification for aspiring members of the club, he was very nearly increasing that qualification notoriously, before the week was out, by another row with headquarters.He purposely shirked his work, and behaved disorderly in class, in order to show his patrons what he was made of; and what was worse, he egged the unsuspecting Georgie on to similar excesses by his example. Georgie, as far as “spirit” went, stood better qualified for membership of the club at the week’s end than did the real candidate; for while the latter escaped punishment, the former was dropped upon to the tune of three hundred lines of Virgil, for throwing a book across the room during class.“Just my luck,” said he defiantly to his leader afterwards. “Everybody’s down on me. I’m bound to catch it, so I may as well have my fling.”“You did have your fling, Georgie, and you caught it, too.”Georgie was too out of humour to notice the jest. “You don’t catch me caring twopence about it, though,” said he.But his tones belied the valiant words, and Dick looked curiously at his troubled, harried face.“Why, Georgie,” said he, “you’re down on your luck, old man.”“Blow my luck!” said Georgie, “perhaps I am down on it. It serves me worse than yours.”Dick didn’t say anything more just then. Perhaps because he had nothing to say. But he didn’t like this new state of things in his friend. Georgie was being spoiled, and would have to be looked after.Dick was not the only Templetonian who had made this brilliant discovery. Ponty had dropped a casual eye on him now and then, so had Mansfield; and neither the captain that was, nor the captain that was to be, liked the look of things.“He’s going the way of all—all the Pledgelings,” said Ponty. “Can’t you stop it, Mansfield?”“If I were captain of Templeton, I’d try, old man,” replied the other.“Really, Mansfield, you frighten me when you look so solemn. What can I do?”“Do? Take him away from where he is, to begin with.”“On what grounds? Pledge hasn’t done anything you or I could take hold of. And if the kid is going to the dogs, we can’t connect it with Pledge, any more than we can with Winter himself.”And Ponty yawned, and wished Mansfield would not look as if somebody wanted hanging.“It’s curious, at any rate,” said Mansfield, “that Pledge’s fag should begin to go to the dogs, while his chum, who fags for Cresswell, and is quite as racketty, should keep all right.”“Do you call young Richardson all right?” asked Ponty. “I should say he and his friend are in the same boat, and he’s holding the tiller.”Which was pretty ’cute for a lazy one like Ponty.“Well,” said Mansfield, who, with all his earnestness, felt really baffled over the problem, “things mustn’t go on as they are, surely.”“Certainly not, dear boy, if we can make them better; but I don’t see what’s to be done. I’d bless you if you could put things right.”And he put his feet upon the chair in front, and took up his novel.Mansfield took the hint. Nor did he misunderstand his indolent friend. Ponty’s indolence wasn’t all laziness. It was sometimes a cloak for perplexity; and the captain-to-be, as he said good-night, guessed shrewdly that not many pages of the novel would be skimmed that evening.Ponty did, in fact, wake up a bit those last few weeks of the term. He rambled down once or twice to the Juniors’ tennis court, and terrified the small fry there by sprawling at full length on the grass within sight of the play. It was a crowded corner of the fields and a noisy one, and, if the captain went there for a nap, he had queer notions of a snug berth. If, however, he went there to see life, he knew what he was about.He saw Aspinall there, toughening every day, and working up his screwy service patiently and doggedly, till one or two of the knowing ones found it worth their while to get on the other side of the net and play against him. Culver was there, big of bone, bragging, blustering as ever, but keeping the colour in his cheeks with healthy sport. Gosse was there, forgetting to make himself a nuisance for one hour in twenty-four. The globular Cazenove was there, melting with the heat, but proclaiming that even a big body and short legs can do some good by help of a true eye and a patient spirit. These and twenty others were there, getting good every one of them, and atoning, every time they scored a point and hit out a rally, for something less healthy or less profitable scored elsewhere. And Ponty, as he lay there blinking in the sun, moralised on the matter, and came to the conclusion that there is hope for a boy as long as he loves to don his flannels and roll up his shirt-sleeves, and stand up, with his head in the air, to face his rival like a man. Even a Culver may look a gentleman as he rushes down to his corner and saves his match with a left-hander, and Aspinall himself may appear formidable when, as he stands up to serve, his foeman pulls his cap down and retreats with lengthened face across the service-line.But where were Dick and Heathcote? For a whole week Ponty took his siesta in the Juniors’ corner, blinking now at the cricket, now at the tennis, strolling sometimes into the gymnasium, and sometimes to the fives courts, but nowhere did Basil the son of Richard meet his eyes, and nowhere was Heathcote the Pledgeling.One day he did find the latter wandering like a ghost in the Quadrangle, and saw him bolt like a rat to his hole at sight of a monitor; and once he saw Dick striding at the head of a phalanx of Juniors, with his coat off and his face very much on one side, and the marks of battle on his eye and lip. Ponty sheered off before the triumphal army reached him and shrugged his shoulders.That afternoon he encountered our heroes arm-in-arm in the Quadrangle and hailed them. They obeyed his summons uneasily.“Go and put on your flannels, both of you,” said the captain, “and come back here; I’ll wait for you.”In trepidation they obeyed and went, while Ponty looked about for a cozy seat on which to stretch himself.In five minutes they returned and presented themselves. Ponty eyed them both calmly, and then roused himself and began to walk to the fields.Tennis was in full swing in the Junior corner, where all sorts of play, good, bad and indifferent, was going on at the nets. Ponty, followed by the two bewildered champions, strolled about till he came upon an indifferent set being played by Gosse and Cazenove against Raggles and another boy called Wade.“Stop the game for a bit, you youngsters,” said the captain. “Which two of you are the best?”“I think I and Raggles are,” said Gosse, with his usual modesty.“Oh, then you can sit out. Give your rackets to these two; they’re going to play against Cazenove and Wade.”Dick’s heart sank within him as he took Gosse’s racket and glanced up at the captain’s face.“I’m rather out of practice,” faltered he.“Come, are you ready? I’ll umpire,” said the captain.It was a melancholy exhibition, that scratch match; all the more melancholy that the other courts gradually emptied and a ring of Juniors formed, who stared silently now at the players, then round at Pontifex, and wondered what on earth he found to interest him in a miserable show like this. For our heroes mulled everything. Two faults were not enough for them; the holes in their rackets were legion, and their legs never went the way they wanted. The Den blushed as it looked on and heard Ponty call, game after game, “Love—forty.”Of course the two wretched boys were scared—Ponty knew that well enough—but so were Cazenove and Wade. And yet Cazenove and Wade managed to keep their wind and get over their net, and no one could say they had less to be scared at than their opponents.At length the doleful spectacle was over. “One—six” was the score in games.“You must be proud of your one game,” said Ponty, strolling off.Our heroes watched him go, and felt they were hard hit. It was no use pretending not to understand the captain’s meaning, or not to notice the still lingering blushes of the spectators on their account.So they withdrew sadly from the field of battle, chastened in spirit, yet not without a dawning ambition to make Ponty change his mind concerning them before the term was quite run out.

Perhaps no epoch of a schoolboy’s life is more critical—especially if he be of the open-hearted nature of Dick and Heathcote—than that which immediately follows his first punishment at the hands of the law.

On the one hand he has the sense of disgrace which attends personal chastisement, as well as the discomfort of a forfeited good name, and the feeling of being down on the black books of the school authorities generally. On the other hand, he is sure to meet with a certain number of companions who, if they do not exactly admire what he has done, sympathise with him in what he has suffered; and sympathy at such a time is sweet and seducing. A little too much sympathy will make him feel a martyr, and a little martyrdom will make him feel a hero, and once a hero on account of his misdeeds, he needs a stout heart and a steady head to keep himself from going one step further and becoming a professional evil-doer, and ending a fool and his own worst enemy.

Dick and Heathcote ran a serious risk of being shunted on to the road to ruin after the escapade of the Grandcourt match.

The former discovered that his popularity with the Den was by no means impaired by adversity. In fact, he jumped at one bound to the hero stage of his ordeal. He was but a boy of flesh and blood, and sympathy is a sweet salve for smarting flesh and blood.

After the first burst of contrition it pleased him to hear fellows say—

“Hard lines on you, old man. Not another in a hundred would have cheeked it the way you did.”

It pleased him, too, to see boys smaller than himself look round as they passed him, and whisper something which made their companions turn round too. Dick grew fond of small boys as the term went on.

It pleased him still more to be taken notice of by a few bigger boys, to find himself claimed by Hooker and Duffield as a crony, to be bantered by the aesthetic Wrangham, and patronised by the stout Bull.

All this made him go over the adventures of that memorable day often in his mind, and think that after all it wasn’t a bad day’s sport, and that, though he said so who shouldn’t, he had managed things fairly well, and got his money’s worth.

His money’s worth, however, reminded him of his lost half-sovereign and his mother’s photograph, and these reflections usually pulled him up short in his reminiscences.

Heathcote, in a more philosophical and dismal way, had his perils, and Pledge gave him no help through his difficulty. On the contrary, he encouraged his growing discontent.

“Dismals again?” said he, one evening. “That cane of Winter’s must be a stiff one if it cuts you up like that.”

“Winter always does lay it on thick to the kids, though,” said Wrangham, who happened to be present. “His lickings are in inverse ratio to the size of the licked.”

It did comfort Heathcote to hear his case discussed in such learned and mathematical terms, but that was all the consolation he got.

Dick was in far too exalted a frame of mind to give much assistance.

“What does it matter?” said he, recklessly. “I don’t mean to fret myself.”

And so the matter ended for the present. The two friends were bearing their ordeal in two such different ways that they might almost have parted company, had there not been another common interest of still greater importance to bind them together.

One day Heathcote came up from the “Tub” at a canter and caught his friend at the chapel door.

“Dick,” he said, “it’s all out! This bill was sticking on one of the posts by the pier. It was wet, so I took it off.”

Dick read—“£2reward. Lost or stolen from her moorings, on Templeton Strand, on the 4th inst, a lugger-rigged sailing boat, named theMartha. Any one giving information leading to the recovery of the boat—or if stolen, to the conviction of the thief—will receive the above reward. Police Station, Templeton.”

Dick handed the ominous paper back with a long face.

“Here, take it. Whatever did you pull it off the post for?”

“I thought you’d like to see it,” said Heathcote, putting the despised document into his pocket.

“So I did. Thanks, Georgie. We didn’t steal the boat, did we?”

“Rather not. Not like what he did to our money.”

“No. That was downright robbery.”

“With violence,” added Heathcote.

“Of course. It was really Tom White’s fault the boat got adrift. It was so carelessly anchored.”

“Yes. A puff of wind would have slipped that knot.”

There was a pause.

“It’s plain he doesn’t guess anything,” said Dick.

“Not likely. And he’s not likely to say anything about it, if he does.”

“Of course not. It would mean transportation for him.”

“After all, some one may have gone off with the boat. We can’t tell. It was there all right when we saw it, wasn’t it?”

Dick looked at his friend. He could delude himself up to a certain point, but this plea wouldn’t quite wash.

“Most likely they’ll find it. It may have drifted round to Birkens, or some place like that. It’ll be all right, Georgie.”

But the thoughts of that unlucky boat haunted their peace. That Tom White had only got his deserts they never questioned; but they would have been more comfortable if that loop had slipped itself.

Days went on, and still no tidings reached them. The bills faced them wherever they went, and once, as they passed the boat-house with a crowd of other fellows, they received a shock by seeing Tom White himself sitting and smoking on a bench, and looking contemplatingly out to sea.

“There’s Tom White,” said one of the group. “I say,” shouted he, “have you found your boat, Tom?”

Tom looked up and scanned the group. Our heroes’ hearts were in their boots as his eyes met theirs. But to their relief he did not know them. A half-tipsy man on a dark night is not a good hand at remembering faces.

“Found her? No, I aren’t, young gentleman,” said he.

“Hard lines. Hope you’ll get her back,” said the boy. “I say, do you think any one stole her?”

“May be, may be not,” replied the boatman.

“Jolly rum thing about that boat,” said the spokesman of the party, as the boys continued their walk.

“I expect it got adrift somehow,” said another.

“I don’t know,” said the first. “I was speaking to a bobby about her: he says they think she was stolen; and fancy they’ve got a clue to the fellow.”

Heathcote stumbled for no apparent reason at this particular moment, and it was quite amusing to see the concern on Dick’s face as he went to the rescue.

“Jolly low trick,” continued the boy, who appeared to interest himself so deeply in Tom’s loss, “if any one really took the boat away. Tom will be ruined.”

“Who do they think went off with her?” asked another.

“They don’t say; but they’re rather good at running things down, are our police. Do you recollect the way they bowled out the fellow who tried to burn the boat-house last year, and got him six months?”

This police gossip was so alarming to our two heroes, that they gave up taking walks along the beach, and retired to the privacy of the school boundaries, where there was no lack of occupation, indoor and out, to relieve the monotony of life.

A week after the Grandcourt match, a boy called Braider came up to Dick and asked to speak to him. Braider was in the Fourth, and Dick knew of him as a racketty, roystering sort of fellow, very popular with his own set—and thought something of by the Den, on account of some recent offences against monitorial authority.

“I say,” said he to Dick, confidentially, “what do you say to belonging to our Club?”

“What Club?” asked Dick, scenting some new distinction, and getting light-headed in consequence.

“You’ll promise not to go telling everybody,” said Braider. “We’re called the ‘Sociables,’ It’s a jolly enough lot. Only twenty of us, and we have suppers and concerts once a week. The thing is, it’sawfullyselect, and a job to get into it. But your name was mentioned the other day, and I fancy you’d get in.”

“I suppose Georgie Heathcote isn’t in it?” said Dick.

“Rather not!” said the other, mistaking his meaning; “he’d have no chance.”

“He’s not a bad fellow,” said Dick. “I wouldn’t mind if he was on.”

“Well, there are two vacancies. What do you say for one?”

“Do I know the other fellows?”

“Most of them,” and Braider repeated a string of names, among which were those of a few well-known heroes of the Fifth and Fourth.

“They’re all jolly fellows,” said Braider, “and, back up one another like one o’clock. It was your plucky show up at Grandcourt that made them think of having you; and if you join you’ll just be in time for the next concert. What do you say?”

Dick didn’t like to say no; and not being a youth who dallied much between the positive and the negative, he said:

“All serene, Braider, if they really want it.”

“Of course they do, old man,” said Braider, in tones of satisfaction; “they’ll be jolly glad. Mind you don’t go talking about it to any one, you know. They’re very select, and don’t want all Templeton wanting to join.”

“When’s the election?” asked Dick.

“Oh! to-day week. There’s one fellow, Culver, up against you; but he’s got no chance. One black ball in six excludes, so it’s always a close run.”

“Do you think there would be any chance for young Heathcote?”

“Doubt it. But we might try when you’re in. Ta, ta! old man. Mum’s the word.”

Dick spent a troubled week. He was uncomfortable with Heathcote, in whom he was bursting to confide. He was uneasy, too, in meeting the few members of the “Sociables” whom he knew, and felt that they were watching him critically, with a view to the election next Thursday. And he was vindictive in the presence of Culver, whose possible rivalry he regarded as little short of an insult.

Indeed, the effect of the suspense on him was bad all round. For having somehow picked up the notion from Braider’s hints that “spirit” was a leading qualification for aspiring members of the club, he was very nearly increasing that qualification notoriously, before the week was out, by another row with headquarters.

He purposely shirked his work, and behaved disorderly in class, in order to show his patrons what he was made of; and what was worse, he egged the unsuspecting Georgie on to similar excesses by his example. Georgie, as far as “spirit” went, stood better qualified for membership of the club at the week’s end than did the real candidate; for while the latter escaped punishment, the former was dropped upon to the tune of three hundred lines of Virgil, for throwing a book across the room during class.

“Just my luck,” said he defiantly to his leader afterwards. “Everybody’s down on me. I’m bound to catch it, so I may as well have my fling.”

“You did have your fling, Georgie, and you caught it, too.”

Georgie was too out of humour to notice the jest. “You don’t catch me caring twopence about it, though,” said he.

But his tones belied the valiant words, and Dick looked curiously at his troubled, harried face.

“Why, Georgie,” said he, “you’re down on your luck, old man.”

“Blow my luck!” said Georgie, “perhaps I am down on it. It serves me worse than yours.”

Dick didn’t say anything more just then. Perhaps because he had nothing to say. But he didn’t like this new state of things in his friend. Georgie was being spoiled, and would have to be looked after.

Dick was not the only Templetonian who had made this brilliant discovery. Ponty had dropped a casual eye on him now and then, so had Mansfield; and neither the captain that was, nor the captain that was to be, liked the look of things.

“He’s going the way of all—all the Pledgelings,” said Ponty. “Can’t you stop it, Mansfield?”

“If I were captain of Templeton, I’d try, old man,” replied the other.

“Really, Mansfield, you frighten me when you look so solemn. What can I do?”

“Do? Take him away from where he is, to begin with.”

“On what grounds? Pledge hasn’t done anything you or I could take hold of. And if the kid is going to the dogs, we can’t connect it with Pledge, any more than we can with Winter himself.”

And Ponty yawned, and wished Mansfield would not look as if somebody wanted hanging.

“It’s curious, at any rate,” said Mansfield, “that Pledge’s fag should begin to go to the dogs, while his chum, who fags for Cresswell, and is quite as racketty, should keep all right.”

“Do you call young Richardson all right?” asked Ponty. “I should say he and his friend are in the same boat, and he’s holding the tiller.”

Which was pretty ’cute for a lazy one like Ponty.

“Well,” said Mansfield, who, with all his earnestness, felt really baffled over the problem, “things mustn’t go on as they are, surely.”

“Certainly not, dear boy, if we can make them better; but I don’t see what’s to be done. I’d bless you if you could put things right.”

And he put his feet upon the chair in front, and took up his novel.

Mansfield took the hint. Nor did he misunderstand his indolent friend. Ponty’s indolence wasn’t all laziness. It was sometimes a cloak for perplexity; and the captain-to-be, as he said good-night, guessed shrewdly that not many pages of the novel would be skimmed that evening.

Ponty did, in fact, wake up a bit those last few weeks of the term. He rambled down once or twice to the Juniors’ tennis court, and terrified the small fry there by sprawling at full length on the grass within sight of the play. It was a crowded corner of the fields and a noisy one, and, if the captain went there for a nap, he had queer notions of a snug berth. If, however, he went there to see life, he knew what he was about.

He saw Aspinall there, toughening every day, and working up his screwy service patiently and doggedly, till one or two of the knowing ones found it worth their while to get on the other side of the net and play against him. Culver was there, big of bone, bragging, blustering as ever, but keeping the colour in his cheeks with healthy sport. Gosse was there, forgetting to make himself a nuisance for one hour in twenty-four. The globular Cazenove was there, melting with the heat, but proclaiming that even a big body and short legs can do some good by help of a true eye and a patient spirit. These and twenty others were there, getting good every one of them, and atoning, every time they scored a point and hit out a rally, for something less healthy or less profitable scored elsewhere. And Ponty, as he lay there blinking in the sun, moralised on the matter, and came to the conclusion that there is hope for a boy as long as he loves to don his flannels and roll up his shirt-sleeves, and stand up, with his head in the air, to face his rival like a man. Even a Culver may look a gentleman as he rushes down to his corner and saves his match with a left-hander, and Aspinall himself may appear formidable when, as he stands up to serve, his foeman pulls his cap down and retreats with lengthened face across the service-line.

But where were Dick and Heathcote? For a whole week Ponty took his siesta in the Juniors’ corner, blinking now at the cricket, now at the tennis, strolling sometimes into the gymnasium, and sometimes to the fives courts, but nowhere did Basil the son of Richard meet his eyes, and nowhere was Heathcote the Pledgeling.

One day he did find the latter wandering like a ghost in the Quadrangle, and saw him bolt like a rat to his hole at sight of a monitor; and once he saw Dick striding at the head of a phalanx of Juniors, with his coat off and his face very much on one side, and the marks of battle on his eye and lip. Ponty sheered off before the triumphal army reached him and shrugged his shoulders.

That afternoon he encountered our heroes arm-in-arm in the Quadrangle and hailed them. They obeyed his summons uneasily.

“Go and put on your flannels, both of you,” said the captain, “and come back here; I’ll wait for you.”

In trepidation they obeyed and went, while Ponty looked about for a cozy seat on which to stretch himself.

In five minutes they returned and presented themselves. Ponty eyed them both calmly, and then roused himself and began to walk to the fields.

Tennis was in full swing in the Junior corner, where all sorts of play, good, bad and indifferent, was going on at the nets. Ponty, followed by the two bewildered champions, strolled about till he came upon an indifferent set being played by Gosse and Cazenove against Raggles and another boy called Wade.

“Stop the game for a bit, you youngsters,” said the captain. “Which two of you are the best?”

“I think I and Raggles are,” said Gosse, with his usual modesty.

“Oh, then you can sit out. Give your rackets to these two; they’re going to play against Cazenove and Wade.”

Dick’s heart sank within him as he took Gosse’s racket and glanced up at the captain’s face.

“I’m rather out of practice,” faltered he.

“Come, are you ready? I’ll umpire,” said the captain.

It was a melancholy exhibition, that scratch match; all the more melancholy that the other courts gradually emptied and a ring of Juniors formed, who stared silently now at the players, then round at Pontifex, and wondered what on earth he found to interest him in a miserable show like this. For our heroes mulled everything. Two faults were not enough for them; the holes in their rackets were legion, and their legs never went the way they wanted. The Den blushed as it looked on and heard Ponty call, game after game, “Love—forty.”

Of course the two wretched boys were scared—Ponty knew that well enough—but so were Cazenove and Wade. And yet Cazenove and Wade managed to keep their wind and get over their net, and no one could say they had less to be scared at than their opponents.

At length the doleful spectacle was over. “One—six” was the score in games.

“You must be proud of your one game,” said Ponty, strolling off.

Our heroes watched him go, and felt they were hard hit. It was no use pretending not to understand the captain’s meaning, or not to notice the still lingering blushes of the spectators on their account.

So they withdrew sadly from the field of battle, chastened in spirit, yet not without a dawning ambition to make Ponty change his mind concerning them before the term was quite run out.

Chapter Fourteen.How Dick has one Latin exercise more than he bargained for.Dick did not often feel ashamed of himself. He had a knack of keeping his head above water, even in reverses, which usually stood him in good stead. But after that mournful scratch match with Cazenove and Wade, he certainly did feel ashamed.And, be it said to the credit of his honesty, that he blamed the right offender. Ponty had been rough on him, but it wasn’t Ponty’s fault. Cazenove and Wade had knocked him and his chum into a cocked hat, but it wasn’t Cazenove’s or Wade’s fault. Heathcote had mulled his game dreadfully, and done nothing to save the match, but it wasn’t Heathcote’s fault. Basil the son of Richard was the guilty man, and Basil the son of Richard kicked himself and called himself a fool.Not publicly, though. In the Den, despite the blushes his tennis had caused, he did his best to keep up his swagger and restore confidence by a few acts of special audacity; and the Den was forgiving on the whole. They did feel sore for a day, and showed it; but gradually they came back to their allegiance, and made excuses for their hero of their own accord.If truth must be told, Dick was far more concerned as to the possible effect of his public humiliation on his election at “the Sociables,” which was now only a day off.Braider told him, with rather a long face, that his chances had been rather shaken by the affair, and that there was again some talk of pushing Culver against him. This alarming news drove all immediate projects of virtue out of Dick’s head. Not that membership of the club was his one ideal of bliss; but, being a candidate, he could not bear the idea of being defeated, particularly by a young ruffian like Culver. So he indulged in all sorts of extravagances on the last day of his probation, and led Heathcote on to the very verge of a further punishment in order to recover some of the ground he had lost with the “select” twenty.After school he could settle to nothing till he knew his fate. He dragged the unsuspecting Heathcote up and down the great Quadrangle under pretext of discussing Tom White’s boat, but really in order to keep his eye on the door behind which the select “Sociables” sat in congress.Heathcote saw there was a secret somewhere, and, feeling himself out of it, departed somewhat moodily to Pledge’s study. Dick, however, continued his walk, heedless if every friend on earth deserted him, so long as Culver should not be preferred before him behind that door.He was getting tired of this solitary promenade, and beginning to wonder whether the “Select Sociables” had fallen asleep in the act of voting for him, when a ball pitched suddenly on to the pavement between his feet.He couldn’t tell where it came from—probably from some window above, for no one just then was about in the Quadrangle.He stooped down to pick it up and pitch it back into the first open window, when, greatly to his surprise, he saw his name written across it, and discovered that the ball was not a tennis ball at all, but a round paper box, which came in two as he held it.Dick was not superstitious. He had scoffed at the Templeton ghost when he first heard of it, and made up his mind long since it was a bogey kept for the benefit of new boys.But it certainly gave him a start to find himself, at this late period of the term, when he had almost forgotten he ever was a new boy, pitched upon as the recipient of one of these mysterious missives.The letter inside was written in printed characters, like those addressed to Heathcote.“Dick,” it began.“Hallo,” thought Dick to himself, “rather cheek of a ghost to call a fellow by his Christian name, isn’t it?”“Dick,—Don’t be a fool. You were a fine fellow when you came. What are you now? Don’t let fellows lead you astray. You can be a fine fellow without being a bad one. Let the ‘Sociables’ alone. They’ll teach you to be a cad. If you don’t care for yourself, think of Heathcote, who only needs your encouragement to make a worse failure than he has made already. Save him from Pledge. Then you’ll be a fine fellow, with a vengeance. Your real friend,—“Junius.“P.S.—Translate ‘Dominat qui in se dominatur.’”The first thing that struck Dick about this extraordinary epistle was, that it was odd the ghost should write his letters on Templeton exercise paper. It then occurred to him that it was rather rough to put him through his paces in Latin idioms at a time like this. Couldn’t the ghost get a dictionary, or ask a senior, and find out for himself?It then occurred to him, who on earth was it who had written to him like this? Some one who knew him, that was certain; and he almost fancied it must be some one who liked him, for a fellow wouldn’t take the trouble to tell him he was a fine fellow at the beginning of the term, and all that sort of thing, unless he had a fancy for him.What did he mean by “What are you now?” It sounded as if he meant “You are not a fine fellow now.” Rather a personal remark.“What’s it got to do with him what I am now?” reflected Dick, digging his hands into his pockets, and resuming his promenade. “And what does he mean by fellows leading me astray? Like to catch any one trying it on, that’s all. Like to catchhim, for the matter of that, for his howling cheek!”Dick sat down on one of the stone benches, and pulled out the letter for another perusal.“‘Let the Sociables alone.’ Oh, ah! most likely he’s been blackballed himself, and don’t like any one to—. Humph! wonder if theyarea shady lot or not? What does he mean by saying they’ll teach me to be a cad? Who’ll teach me to be a cad? Not a muff like Braider.”At that moment a door opened at the end of the corridor, and a voice shouted—“Richardson!”It was Braider’s voice, and Dick knew it.He crumpled the letter up in his hand, and the colour came and went from his cheeks.“Richardson! where are you?” called Braider again, for it was dusk, and our hero’s seat was screened from view.Dick coloured again, and bit his lips; and finally got up from the bench, and strolled off in an opposite direction.“Richardson! do you hear?” once more shouted the invisible Braider.Dick walked on in the dusk, wondering to himself whether Braider would get into a row for kicking up that uproar in the Quad.At last, after one final shout, he heard the door slam. Then he quickened his pace, and made for Cresswell’s study.On the staircase he met Aspinall.“I heard some one calling you out in the Quad.,” said the small boy.“Did you?” replied Dick. “I wonder who it can have been? Is Cresswell in his study?”“No.”“All serene. Come back with me. Have you done your swot?”“Yes, I did my lessons an hour ago.”“Oh!” said Dick, and strode on, followed somewhat dubiously by his youngprotégé.“Shut the door,” said Dick, sternly, as they entered the study.“Whatever is going to happen to me?” ejaculated the small boy, inwardly, as he obeyed. Dick had never spoken to him like this before. Had he offended him unwittingly? Had he been disloyal to his sovereignty?Dick walked to the fireplace, and, pulling a letter from his pocket, read it through twice, apparently heedless of his subject’s presence. Then he looked up suddenly, and, crushing the paper viciously back into his pocket, stared hard at his perturbed companion.“Young Aspinall,” said he, sharply, “do you say I’m a fool?”“Oh, no,” replied the boy, staggered by the very suggestion, “I should never think of saying such a thing.”“Should you say I was a blackguard?”“No, indeed, Dick. No one could say that.”The hero’s face brightened. There was a warmth in Aspinall’s voice which touched the most sensitive side of his nature. Dick would have liked the ghost to be near to hear it.“Should you say I’ve let myself be led astray, and made a mess of it here, at Templeton?”“No, Dick, I don’t think so,” said the boy.“What do you mean?don’t think. Have I, or have I not?” demanded Dick.It was a delicate position for the timorous small boy. He had had his misgivings about Dick, and seen a change in him, not, as he thought, for the better. But the idea of telling him so to his face was as much as his peace was worth. Yet he must either tell the truth, or a lie, and when it came to that, Aspinall could not help himself.“You are the best friend I’ve got,” said he, nervously, “and I’d give anything to be as brave as you; but—”“Well, wire in,” said Dick, tearing to bits one of Cresswell’s quill pens with his teeth; “but what?”“You’re so good-natured,” said Aspinall, “fellows make you do things you wouldn’t do of your own accord.”“Who makes me do things?” demanded Dick, sternly.“I don’t know,” pleaded the boy, feeling that this sort of tight-rope dancing was not in his line; “perhaps some of your friends in the Fourth and Fifth. But I may be all wrong.”“What do they make me do?” said Dick.“They make you,” said Aspinall, feeling that it was no use trying to keep his balance any longer, and that he might as well throw down his pole and tumble into the net; “they make you break rules and get into rows, Dick, because you see it goes down with them, and they cheer you for it. You wouldn’t do that of your own accord.”“How do you know that?”“I don’t think you would,” said the boy.If any one had told Aspinall, ten minutes ago, he would be talking to Dick in this strain, he would have scouted the idea as a bit of chaff. As it was, he could hardly believe he had said as much as he had, and waited, in an uncomfortable sort of way, for Dick’s next remark.“Oh! that’s what you think, is it?”“Please don’t be angry,” pleaded the boy, “you asked me.”“What about Heathcote?” demanded Dick, abruptly, after a pause.“What do you mean, Dick?”“I mean, is he making a mess of it, too?”“Oh, Dick; I never said you were making a mess of it.”“Well, then, is Heathcote being led astray?”“I don’t know. He seems different; and talks funnily about things.”“Does what? I never heard Georgie talk funnily about things, and I’ve known him a good bit. Who’s leading him astray? Am I?”Poor Aspinall was on the tight-rope again, at the most ticklish part. For he did think Dick was running Heathcote into mischief, unintentionally, no doubt, but still unmistakably, “Am I?” repeated Dick, rounding on his man, and fixing him with his eyes.“Heathcote’s not so strong-minded as you are, Dick, and when he sees you doing things, I fancy he thinks he can do them too. But he can’t pull up like you, and so he gets into rows.”“Oh!” said Dick, returning to his quill pen, and completing its demolition. Then he pulled out the letter, and read it to himself again, and this time, instead of returning it to his pocket, twisted it up into a spill, and lit the gas with it.“What should you say was the English of ‘Dominat qui in se dominatur,’ young ’un,” he asked, casually, when the operation was complete.“Why, that’s one of the mottoes in the Quad,” said Aspinall, wondering what on earth this had to do with Heathcote’s rows. “I always fancied it meant, ‘He rules best, who knows how to rule himself.’”“Which is the word for best,” asked Dick, critically, rather pleased to have found a flaw in the motto.“Oh, I suppose it’s understood,” said Aspinall.“Why couldn’t he say what he meant, straight out?” said Dick, waxing wondrous wroth at the motto-maker, “there’s plenty of room in the Quad for an extra word.”Aspinall quite blushed at this small explosion, and somehow felt personally implicated in the defects of the motto.“Perhaps I’m wrong,” said he. “Perhaps it means a fellow can’t rule at all, unless he can rule himself.”“That won’t wash,” said Dick, profoundly. “Where’s the ‘nisi?’ Never mind. Good-night, young Aspinall. I’m going to do my work here.”And Aspinall departed, a good deal exercised in his mind as to Dick’s latest humour, but thankful, all the same, that he didn’t appear desperately offended with the answers he had extorted to his very home questions.Dick did not do much “swot” that evening. He couldn’t get the ghost out of his head, nor the slovenly Latin prose of the old Templeton motto-writer.“Qui in se dominatur.” What Latin! Dick pulled down Cresswell’s dictionary and looked up “se” and “dominatur,” and wished he had the fellow there to tell him he ought to be ashamed of himself. Why, it might mean “who is ruled by his inside!” Perhaps it did mean that.But no, Dick couldn’t get out of the hobble he was in. He tried every way, but the right way. He denounced the ghost, he denounced Heathcote, he denounced the Latin grammar, but they always sent him back to where he started; until, finally, in sheer desperation, he had to denounce himself.He was just beginning this congenial occupation, in as comfortable an attitude as he could, in Cresswell’s easy-chair, when the study door opened, and Braider entered.“Hallo! You’re here, are you?” said that youth. “Why ever didn’t you come before? I told you to be in the Quad, and I’d call for you; didn’t I? You’ve got in a nice mess!”Here was another candid friend going to tell him he’d got into a mess!“What mess? Who with?”“Why, with the Club. They elected you by a close shave, and expected you’d come in. I yelled all over the place for you, and couldn’t find you. So they thought you’d skulked, and were nearly going to take Culver after all, when I promised to find you, and bring you. They’re waiting for you now.”“Awfully sorry, Braider,” said Dick, in an embarrassed way. “I can’t come.”“Can’t come, you ass! What do you mean?”This was just what Dick wanted. As long as Braider was civil, Dick had to be rational, but as soon as Braider began to threaten, Dick could let out a bit, and relieve his feelings.“Look here! who are you calling an ass?” said he, starting up.Fortunately for the peace, Cresswell at that moment entered the study.“Hallo!” said he, looking round, “make yourselves at home in my study, youngsters. Can’t you ask a few friends in as well? What’s the row?”“Braider’s the row,” said Dick; “I want him to cut, and he won’t. He wants me to—”“All right,” said Braider, in sudden concern, lest the secret of the “Sociables” was to be divulged, “I’ll cut. And don’t you forget, young Richardson, what you’ve promised.”“Of course I shan’t,” said Dick.The select “Sociables” sat in congress to a late hour that night. What passed, no one outside that worthy body exactly knew. But Braider, on the whole, had a busy time of it.He did not visit Dick again, but he interviewed both Culver and Heathcote, and was extremely confidential with each. And both Culver and Heathcote, after preparation, lounged outside the door, as Dick had lounged two hours before. And the two loungers, neither of them fancying the intrusion of the other, came to words, and from words proceeded to personalities, and from personalities to blows.And as, in the course of the combat, Heathcote made a mighty onslaught and caught his enemy round the body and wrestled a fall with him on the threshold of the “Sociable” door, it so happened that the door, not being securely latched, gave way beneath the weight of the two combatants, and swinging suddenly open, precipitated them both on to the floor of the apartment, just as the Club was proceeding to record its votes.Be it said to their credit, the select “Sociables” had a soul above mere routine, and seeing the contest was even, and that blood was up on both sides, they adjourned the business and hospitably invited the two candidates to fight it out there and then.Which the two candidates did, with the result that, on the whole, Heathcote got rather less of the worst of it than Culver. Then, having politely ejected them both, the Club returned to business, and elected George Heathcote as a fit and proper person to fill the vacancy caused by the unjust expulsion of the late Alan Forbes.Heathcote was thereupon brought in and informed of the honour bestowed upon him; and after being sworn to secrecy, and promising to obey the Club in all things, was called upon for a speech.Heathcote’s speech was short and memorable:—“All serene. Anything you like. I don’t care a hang.”Every sentence of this brilliant oration was cheered to the echo, and Heathcote was installed into his new dignity with loud enthusiasm.He had not a ghost of an idea who the “Sociables” were, what they did, or what they wanted; but he had a rough idea they were a select assembly not favoured by the monitors or the masters, in which a fellow was popular in proportion to his record of “rows.”And Heathcote, whose one ambition it was at present, under Pledge’s influence, not to figure as a prig or a hypocrite, cast his lot in with them, and chanced the rest.It did occur to him to enquire if Dick was a member.“Yes, he’s a member, rather,” said Spokes, the president. “He was elected this evening, wasn’t he, you fellows?”“Rather,” echoed the high-souled club, winking at one another. Whereupon Heathcote asked no more questions, and proceeded to enjoy himself.As the Club was breaking up, Twiss, one of its leading spirits, came up to the new member and said—“Look here, youngster, don’t you forget you’re on your honour not to say a word about the Club outside to anybody. Not to Pledge, or your chum, or anybody.”“But Dick’s a member too,” said Heathcote.“That does not matter. You mayn’t even speak about it to me, or pretend you belong to my set. Do you twig?”“All right,” said Heathcote, “it’s a good job you told me, though, for I was going to tell Dick about my election.”“Well, you know now. You’re on your honour, so are we all.”Noble society! Organised dishonour held together in bonds of honour! If boys were only to cast round what is right the same shield of honour which they so often cast round what is wrong, what a world this would be!When Heathcote and Dick met that evening in the dormitory, they had something more important to talk about or to be silent about than the select “Sociables.”“Look here, old man,” said Dick, thrusting a piece of newspaper into his friend’s hand. “They wrapped up the notepaper I got in town to-day in this. It’s a bit of last week’sTempleton Observer.”Heathcote looked at the paragraph his friend pointed to, and read:—The mysterious disappearance of a boat.—Up to the present no news has been heard of theMarthaof Templeton, which is supposed to have been stolen from its moorings on the night of the 24th ult. The police, however, profess to have a clue to the perpetrators of the robbery. It is stated that late on the evening in question a lad, without shoes or stockings, was seen on the strand in the neighbourhood of the boat, and as the lad has been lost sight of since, it is supposed he may be concerned. At present the police are unable to give a description of the suspected lad, but vigilant enquiries are being prosecuted, and it is hoped that before long the mystery may be solved and the culprit brought to justice.

Dick did not often feel ashamed of himself. He had a knack of keeping his head above water, even in reverses, which usually stood him in good stead. But after that mournful scratch match with Cazenove and Wade, he certainly did feel ashamed.

And, be it said to the credit of his honesty, that he blamed the right offender. Ponty had been rough on him, but it wasn’t Ponty’s fault. Cazenove and Wade had knocked him and his chum into a cocked hat, but it wasn’t Cazenove’s or Wade’s fault. Heathcote had mulled his game dreadfully, and done nothing to save the match, but it wasn’t Heathcote’s fault. Basil the son of Richard was the guilty man, and Basil the son of Richard kicked himself and called himself a fool.

Not publicly, though. In the Den, despite the blushes his tennis had caused, he did his best to keep up his swagger and restore confidence by a few acts of special audacity; and the Den was forgiving on the whole. They did feel sore for a day, and showed it; but gradually they came back to their allegiance, and made excuses for their hero of their own accord.

If truth must be told, Dick was far more concerned as to the possible effect of his public humiliation on his election at “the Sociables,” which was now only a day off.

Braider told him, with rather a long face, that his chances had been rather shaken by the affair, and that there was again some talk of pushing Culver against him. This alarming news drove all immediate projects of virtue out of Dick’s head. Not that membership of the club was his one ideal of bliss; but, being a candidate, he could not bear the idea of being defeated, particularly by a young ruffian like Culver. So he indulged in all sorts of extravagances on the last day of his probation, and led Heathcote on to the very verge of a further punishment in order to recover some of the ground he had lost with the “select” twenty.

After school he could settle to nothing till he knew his fate. He dragged the unsuspecting Heathcote up and down the great Quadrangle under pretext of discussing Tom White’s boat, but really in order to keep his eye on the door behind which the select “Sociables” sat in congress.

Heathcote saw there was a secret somewhere, and, feeling himself out of it, departed somewhat moodily to Pledge’s study. Dick, however, continued his walk, heedless if every friend on earth deserted him, so long as Culver should not be preferred before him behind that door.

He was getting tired of this solitary promenade, and beginning to wonder whether the “Select Sociables” had fallen asleep in the act of voting for him, when a ball pitched suddenly on to the pavement between his feet.

He couldn’t tell where it came from—probably from some window above, for no one just then was about in the Quadrangle.

He stooped down to pick it up and pitch it back into the first open window, when, greatly to his surprise, he saw his name written across it, and discovered that the ball was not a tennis ball at all, but a round paper box, which came in two as he held it.

Dick was not superstitious. He had scoffed at the Templeton ghost when he first heard of it, and made up his mind long since it was a bogey kept for the benefit of new boys.

But it certainly gave him a start to find himself, at this late period of the term, when he had almost forgotten he ever was a new boy, pitched upon as the recipient of one of these mysterious missives.

The letter inside was written in printed characters, like those addressed to Heathcote.

“Dick,” it began.

“Hallo,” thought Dick to himself, “rather cheek of a ghost to call a fellow by his Christian name, isn’t it?”

“Dick,—Don’t be a fool. You were a fine fellow when you came. What are you now? Don’t let fellows lead you astray. You can be a fine fellow without being a bad one. Let the ‘Sociables’ alone. They’ll teach you to be a cad. If you don’t care for yourself, think of Heathcote, who only needs your encouragement to make a worse failure than he has made already. Save him from Pledge. Then you’ll be a fine fellow, with a vengeance. Your real friend,—

“Junius.

“P.S.—Translate ‘Dominat qui in se dominatur.’”

The first thing that struck Dick about this extraordinary epistle was, that it was odd the ghost should write his letters on Templeton exercise paper. It then occurred to him that it was rather rough to put him through his paces in Latin idioms at a time like this. Couldn’t the ghost get a dictionary, or ask a senior, and find out for himself?

It then occurred to him, who on earth was it who had written to him like this? Some one who knew him, that was certain; and he almost fancied it must be some one who liked him, for a fellow wouldn’t take the trouble to tell him he was a fine fellow at the beginning of the term, and all that sort of thing, unless he had a fancy for him.

What did he mean by “What are you now?” It sounded as if he meant “You are not a fine fellow now.” Rather a personal remark.

“What’s it got to do with him what I am now?” reflected Dick, digging his hands into his pockets, and resuming his promenade. “And what does he mean by fellows leading me astray? Like to catch any one trying it on, that’s all. Like to catchhim, for the matter of that, for his howling cheek!”

Dick sat down on one of the stone benches, and pulled out the letter for another perusal.

“‘Let the Sociables alone.’ Oh, ah! most likely he’s been blackballed himself, and don’t like any one to—. Humph! wonder if theyarea shady lot or not? What does he mean by saying they’ll teach me to be a cad? Who’ll teach me to be a cad? Not a muff like Braider.”

At that moment a door opened at the end of the corridor, and a voice shouted—

“Richardson!”

It was Braider’s voice, and Dick knew it.

He crumpled the letter up in his hand, and the colour came and went from his cheeks.

“Richardson! where are you?” called Braider again, for it was dusk, and our hero’s seat was screened from view.

Dick coloured again, and bit his lips; and finally got up from the bench, and strolled off in an opposite direction.

“Richardson! do you hear?” once more shouted the invisible Braider.

Dick walked on in the dusk, wondering to himself whether Braider would get into a row for kicking up that uproar in the Quad.

At last, after one final shout, he heard the door slam. Then he quickened his pace, and made for Cresswell’s study.

On the staircase he met Aspinall.

“I heard some one calling you out in the Quad.,” said the small boy.

“Did you?” replied Dick. “I wonder who it can have been? Is Cresswell in his study?”

“No.”

“All serene. Come back with me. Have you done your swot?”

“Yes, I did my lessons an hour ago.”

“Oh!” said Dick, and strode on, followed somewhat dubiously by his youngprotégé.

“Shut the door,” said Dick, sternly, as they entered the study.

“Whatever is going to happen to me?” ejaculated the small boy, inwardly, as he obeyed. Dick had never spoken to him like this before. Had he offended him unwittingly? Had he been disloyal to his sovereignty?

Dick walked to the fireplace, and, pulling a letter from his pocket, read it through twice, apparently heedless of his subject’s presence. Then he looked up suddenly, and, crushing the paper viciously back into his pocket, stared hard at his perturbed companion.

“Young Aspinall,” said he, sharply, “do you say I’m a fool?”

“Oh, no,” replied the boy, staggered by the very suggestion, “I should never think of saying such a thing.”

“Should you say I was a blackguard?”

“No, indeed, Dick. No one could say that.”

The hero’s face brightened. There was a warmth in Aspinall’s voice which touched the most sensitive side of his nature. Dick would have liked the ghost to be near to hear it.

“Should you say I’ve let myself be led astray, and made a mess of it here, at Templeton?”

“No, Dick, I don’t think so,” said the boy.

“What do you mean?don’t think. Have I, or have I not?” demanded Dick.

It was a delicate position for the timorous small boy. He had had his misgivings about Dick, and seen a change in him, not, as he thought, for the better. But the idea of telling him so to his face was as much as his peace was worth. Yet he must either tell the truth, or a lie, and when it came to that, Aspinall could not help himself.

“You are the best friend I’ve got,” said he, nervously, “and I’d give anything to be as brave as you; but—”

“Well, wire in,” said Dick, tearing to bits one of Cresswell’s quill pens with his teeth; “but what?”

“You’re so good-natured,” said Aspinall, “fellows make you do things you wouldn’t do of your own accord.”

“Who makes me do things?” demanded Dick, sternly.

“I don’t know,” pleaded the boy, feeling that this sort of tight-rope dancing was not in his line; “perhaps some of your friends in the Fourth and Fifth. But I may be all wrong.”

“What do they make me do?” said Dick.

“They make you,” said Aspinall, feeling that it was no use trying to keep his balance any longer, and that he might as well throw down his pole and tumble into the net; “they make you break rules and get into rows, Dick, because you see it goes down with them, and they cheer you for it. You wouldn’t do that of your own accord.”

“How do you know that?”

“I don’t think you would,” said the boy.

If any one had told Aspinall, ten minutes ago, he would be talking to Dick in this strain, he would have scouted the idea as a bit of chaff. As it was, he could hardly believe he had said as much as he had, and waited, in an uncomfortable sort of way, for Dick’s next remark.

“Oh! that’s what you think, is it?”

“Please don’t be angry,” pleaded the boy, “you asked me.”

“What about Heathcote?” demanded Dick, abruptly, after a pause.

“What do you mean, Dick?”

“I mean, is he making a mess of it, too?”

“Oh, Dick; I never said you were making a mess of it.”

“Well, then, is Heathcote being led astray?”

“I don’t know. He seems different; and talks funnily about things.”

“Does what? I never heard Georgie talk funnily about things, and I’ve known him a good bit. Who’s leading him astray? Am I?”

Poor Aspinall was on the tight-rope again, at the most ticklish part. For he did think Dick was running Heathcote into mischief, unintentionally, no doubt, but still unmistakably, “Am I?” repeated Dick, rounding on his man, and fixing him with his eyes.

“Heathcote’s not so strong-minded as you are, Dick, and when he sees you doing things, I fancy he thinks he can do them too. But he can’t pull up like you, and so he gets into rows.”

“Oh!” said Dick, returning to his quill pen, and completing its demolition. Then he pulled out the letter, and read it to himself again, and this time, instead of returning it to his pocket, twisted it up into a spill, and lit the gas with it.

“What should you say was the English of ‘Dominat qui in se dominatur,’ young ’un,” he asked, casually, when the operation was complete.

“Why, that’s one of the mottoes in the Quad,” said Aspinall, wondering what on earth this had to do with Heathcote’s rows. “I always fancied it meant, ‘He rules best, who knows how to rule himself.’”

“Which is the word for best,” asked Dick, critically, rather pleased to have found a flaw in the motto.

“Oh, I suppose it’s understood,” said Aspinall.

“Why couldn’t he say what he meant, straight out?” said Dick, waxing wondrous wroth at the motto-maker, “there’s plenty of room in the Quad for an extra word.”

Aspinall quite blushed at this small explosion, and somehow felt personally implicated in the defects of the motto.

“Perhaps I’m wrong,” said he. “Perhaps it means a fellow can’t rule at all, unless he can rule himself.”

“That won’t wash,” said Dick, profoundly. “Where’s the ‘nisi?’ Never mind. Good-night, young Aspinall. I’m going to do my work here.”

And Aspinall departed, a good deal exercised in his mind as to Dick’s latest humour, but thankful, all the same, that he didn’t appear desperately offended with the answers he had extorted to his very home questions.

Dick did not do much “swot” that evening. He couldn’t get the ghost out of his head, nor the slovenly Latin prose of the old Templeton motto-writer.

“Qui in se dominatur.” What Latin! Dick pulled down Cresswell’s dictionary and looked up “se” and “dominatur,” and wished he had the fellow there to tell him he ought to be ashamed of himself. Why, it might mean “who is ruled by his inside!” Perhaps it did mean that.

But no, Dick couldn’t get out of the hobble he was in. He tried every way, but the right way. He denounced the ghost, he denounced Heathcote, he denounced the Latin grammar, but they always sent him back to where he started; until, finally, in sheer desperation, he had to denounce himself.

He was just beginning this congenial occupation, in as comfortable an attitude as he could, in Cresswell’s easy-chair, when the study door opened, and Braider entered.

“Hallo! You’re here, are you?” said that youth. “Why ever didn’t you come before? I told you to be in the Quad, and I’d call for you; didn’t I? You’ve got in a nice mess!”

Here was another candid friend going to tell him he’d got into a mess!

“What mess? Who with?”

“Why, with the Club. They elected you by a close shave, and expected you’d come in. I yelled all over the place for you, and couldn’t find you. So they thought you’d skulked, and were nearly going to take Culver after all, when I promised to find you, and bring you. They’re waiting for you now.”

“Awfully sorry, Braider,” said Dick, in an embarrassed way. “I can’t come.”

“Can’t come, you ass! What do you mean?”

This was just what Dick wanted. As long as Braider was civil, Dick had to be rational, but as soon as Braider began to threaten, Dick could let out a bit, and relieve his feelings.

“Look here! who are you calling an ass?” said he, starting up.

Fortunately for the peace, Cresswell at that moment entered the study.

“Hallo!” said he, looking round, “make yourselves at home in my study, youngsters. Can’t you ask a few friends in as well? What’s the row?”

“Braider’s the row,” said Dick; “I want him to cut, and he won’t. He wants me to—”

“All right,” said Braider, in sudden concern, lest the secret of the “Sociables” was to be divulged, “I’ll cut. And don’t you forget, young Richardson, what you’ve promised.”

“Of course I shan’t,” said Dick.

The select “Sociables” sat in congress to a late hour that night. What passed, no one outside that worthy body exactly knew. But Braider, on the whole, had a busy time of it.

He did not visit Dick again, but he interviewed both Culver and Heathcote, and was extremely confidential with each. And both Culver and Heathcote, after preparation, lounged outside the door, as Dick had lounged two hours before. And the two loungers, neither of them fancying the intrusion of the other, came to words, and from words proceeded to personalities, and from personalities to blows.

And as, in the course of the combat, Heathcote made a mighty onslaught and caught his enemy round the body and wrestled a fall with him on the threshold of the “Sociable” door, it so happened that the door, not being securely latched, gave way beneath the weight of the two combatants, and swinging suddenly open, precipitated them both on to the floor of the apartment, just as the Club was proceeding to record its votes.

Be it said to their credit, the select “Sociables” had a soul above mere routine, and seeing the contest was even, and that blood was up on both sides, they adjourned the business and hospitably invited the two candidates to fight it out there and then.

Which the two candidates did, with the result that, on the whole, Heathcote got rather less of the worst of it than Culver. Then, having politely ejected them both, the Club returned to business, and elected George Heathcote as a fit and proper person to fill the vacancy caused by the unjust expulsion of the late Alan Forbes.

Heathcote was thereupon brought in and informed of the honour bestowed upon him; and after being sworn to secrecy, and promising to obey the Club in all things, was called upon for a speech.

Heathcote’s speech was short and memorable:—

“All serene. Anything you like. I don’t care a hang.”

Every sentence of this brilliant oration was cheered to the echo, and Heathcote was installed into his new dignity with loud enthusiasm.

He had not a ghost of an idea who the “Sociables” were, what they did, or what they wanted; but he had a rough idea they were a select assembly not favoured by the monitors or the masters, in which a fellow was popular in proportion to his record of “rows.”

And Heathcote, whose one ambition it was at present, under Pledge’s influence, not to figure as a prig or a hypocrite, cast his lot in with them, and chanced the rest.

It did occur to him to enquire if Dick was a member.

“Yes, he’s a member, rather,” said Spokes, the president. “He was elected this evening, wasn’t he, you fellows?”

“Rather,” echoed the high-souled club, winking at one another. Whereupon Heathcote asked no more questions, and proceeded to enjoy himself.

As the Club was breaking up, Twiss, one of its leading spirits, came up to the new member and said—

“Look here, youngster, don’t you forget you’re on your honour not to say a word about the Club outside to anybody. Not to Pledge, or your chum, or anybody.”

“But Dick’s a member too,” said Heathcote.

“That does not matter. You mayn’t even speak about it to me, or pretend you belong to my set. Do you twig?”

“All right,” said Heathcote, “it’s a good job you told me, though, for I was going to tell Dick about my election.”

“Well, you know now. You’re on your honour, so are we all.”

Noble society! Organised dishonour held together in bonds of honour! If boys were only to cast round what is right the same shield of honour which they so often cast round what is wrong, what a world this would be!

When Heathcote and Dick met that evening in the dormitory, they had something more important to talk about or to be silent about than the select “Sociables.”

“Look here, old man,” said Dick, thrusting a piece of newspaper into his friend’s hand. “They wrapped up the notepaper I got in town to-day in this. It’s a bit of last week’sTempleton Observer.”

Heathcote looked at the paragraph his friend pointed to, and read:—

The mysterious disappearance of a boat.—Up to the present no news has been heard of theMarthaof Templeton, which is supposed to have been stolen from its moorings on the night of the 24th ult. The police, however, profess to have a clue to the perpetrators of the robbery. It is stated that late on the evening in question a lad, without shoes or stockings, was seen on the strand in the neighbourhood of the boat, and as the lad has been lost sight of since, it is supposed he may be concerned. At present the police are unable to give a description of the suspected lad, but vigilant enquiries are being prosecuted, and it is hoped that before long the mystery may be solved and the culprit brought to justice.

The mysterious disappearance of a boat.—Up to the present no news has been heard of theMarthaof Templeton, which is supposed to have been stolen from its moorings on the night of the 24th ult. The police, however, profess to have a clue to the perpetrators of the robbery. It is stated that late on the evening in question a lad, without shoes or stockings, was seen on the strand in the neighbourhood of the boat, and as the lad has been lost sight of since, it is supposed he may be concerned. At present the police are unable to give a description of the suspected lad, but vigilant enquiries are being prosecuted, and it is hoped that before long the mystery may be solved and the culprit brought to justice.

Chapter Fifteen.In which our heroes do not distinguish themselves.One result of the alarming paragraph in theTempleton Observerwas, that Dick and Heathcote for the remainder of the term became models of virtue as far as going out of school bounds was concerned.Other boys might stray down the High Street and look at the shops, but they didn’t. Others might go down to the beach and become familiar with the boatmen, but our heroes were far too respectable. Others might “mitch” off for a private cruise round Sprit Rock in quest of whiting, or other treasures of the deep; but Dick and Georgie would not sully their fair fame with any such breach of Templeton rules.They kept up early morning “Tub,” but that was the limit of their wanderings from the fold, and it was often amusing to mark the diligence with which they always took to drying their heads with the towels on the way up, if ever a boatman happened to cross their path.Heathcote on more than one occasion was compelled, politely but firmly, to decline Pledge’s commissions into the town, although it sometimes cost him words, and, worse still, sneers from his patron.Once, however, he had to yield, and a terrible afternoon he spent in consequence.“Youngster,” said the ‘Spider,’ “I want you to go to Webster’s in High Street and get a book for me.”“Afraid I can’t, Pledge,” said Heathcote. “I must swot this afternoon.”“What have you got to do?”“There’s thirty lines of Cicero, and I haven’t looked at them.”“I’ll do it for you before you come back.”“And there are some Latin verses for Westover, too.”“Leave them with me, too.”Heathcote felt uncomfortable, and it occurred to him it was not right to accept another’s help.“I think I ought to do them myself,” said he, “I don’t like having them done for me.”“Quite right, my dear young friend. You’re beginning to find out it pays to be a good little boy, are you? I always said you would. I only hope you’ll make a good thing of it.”Heathcote coloured up violently.“It’s not that at all,” said he, “it’s only— would it do if I went after preparation this evening?”“What! Saint George propose to break rules? Well, I am shocked; after all my pains, too. No, my child, I couldn’t let you do this wicked thing.”“What book am I to ask for?” said Heathcote, giving it up.“Thanks, old man. There’s something better than the saint in you, after all. Tell Webster it’s the book I ordered last week. It is paid for.”Heathcote started on his mission with a heavy heart. He had lost caste, he feared, with Pledge, and he was running into the enemy’s country and perilling not only himself, but Dick, in the venture.He made fearful and wonderful détours to avoid a few straggling policemen, or any figure which in the distance looked remotely like a British seaman. The sight of a shopkeeper sitting at his door and reading theTempleton Observerscared him, and the bill offering a reward for his discovery all but drove him headlong back to the school without accomplishing his mission.At length, after an anxious voyage, he ran into Mr Webster’s harbour, and for a little while breathed again.The bookseller knew quite well what book Pledge had ordered.“Here it is,” said he, handing over a small parcel, “and I’d advise you to get rid of it as soon as you can. It would do you no good to be found in your pocket, or Mr Pledge either,” he added.“He says it’s paid for,” said Heathcote.“Quite right.” Then, noticing that the boy still seemed reluctant to launch forth once more into the High Street, he said—“Perhaps you’d like to look round the shop, Mr Heathcote?”Heathcote thought he would, and spent a quarter of an hour in investigating Mr Webster’s shelves of books.Just as he was about to leave, Duffield and the “sociable” Raggles entered the shop.“Hullo, Georgie!” said the latter; “who’d have thought of seeing you in the town? Everyone says you’re keeping out of the way of the police, don’t they, Duff?”“Yes,” said Duffield, perceiving the joke, “for some burglary, or something like that.”Heathcote breathed again at the word burglary, and made an heroic effort to smile.“Not at all,” said Raggles, nudging his ally; “not a burglary, but boat-stealing, isn’t it, Webster?”“Ah,” said Mr Webster, who was a good man of business and fond of his joke, “they never did find that young party, certainly.”“Shut up and don’t be a fool!” said Heathcote, feeling the colour coming to his face, and longing to be out in the open air.“What’s this the description was?” said Duffield, perching himself on the corner of the counter and reading off the unhappy Heathcote’s personal appearance. “Good-looking boy of fourteen, with fair hair and a slight moustache. Dressed in a grey tweed suit, masher collar, and two tin sleeve-links. Not very intelligent, and usually wears a smudge of ink under his right eye. Isn’t that it?”“That’s something about the mark,” said Mr Webster, laughing.“Think of offering two pounds reward for a chap like that!” said Raggles. “They must be hard up.”“Look here,” said Heathcote, seeing that his only refuge lay in swagger, “I’m not going to have any of your cheek, Raggles. Shut up, or I’ll lick you!”“No fighting here, young gentlemen, please,” said the affable bookseller.“Ha! ha!” said Raggles, enjoying himself under the security of Duffield’s alliance; “he’s in a wax because we said it was only aslightmoustache. He thinks we ought to have said a heavy one!”“He may think it ought to be, but it ain’t,” said Duffield. “I never saw such a slight one in all my days!”It is rarely that any one sees reason to bless his own moustache, but on this particular occasion, when he perceived the welcome controversy to which it was giving rise, Georgie was very near calling down benedictions on his youthful hairs. With great presence of mind he recovered his good-humour, and diverted the talk further and further into its capillary course. He backed his moustache against Duffield’s and Raggles’ spliced together, he upbraided them with envy, and called Webster to witness that the pimple on Raggles’ lip, which he claimed as the forerunner of his crop, had been there for the last six months with never a sign of harvest.Altogether, under shelter of his moustache, Georgie crept out of a very awkward hobble, and finally out of Webster’s shop, greatly to the relief of his palpitating heart.But his trials were not quite over. As he was running headlong round the corner of High Street, determined that no pretext should detain him a moment longer than necessary in this perilous territory, he found himself, to his horror, suddenly confronted with the form of the very British seaman whom, of all others, he hoped to avoid; and, before he could slacken speed or fetch a compass, he had plunged full into Tom White’s arms.Tom White, as usual, I am sorry to say, was half-seas-over. Never steady in his best days, he had, ever since the loss of theMarthamade his headquarters at the bar of the “Dolphin.” Not that the loss of theMarthawas exactly ruin to her late owner. On the contrary, since her disappearance, Tom had had more pocket-money than ever he had when she was his.For sympathetic neighbours, pitying his loss, had contributed trifles towards his solace; theTempleton boys, with many of whom he had been a favourite, had tipped him handsomely in his distress, and it was even rumoured that half of a collection for the poor at the parish church a few Sundays ago had been awarded to poor destitute Tom White.On the whole, Tom felt that if he could lose aMarthatwice a year, he might yet sup off tripe and gin-toddy seven times a week.The “Dolphin” became his banker, and took very particular care of his money.All this the boy, of course, did not know. All he knew was that the waistcoat into which he had run belonged to the man he had wronged, who, if he only suspected his wronger, could make the coming summer holidays decidedly tedious for Georgie and his friend.“Belay there!” hiccupped Tom, reeling back from the collision and catching Heathcote by the arm. “Got yer, young gem’n! and I’ll bash yer!”“I beg your pardon,” said Georgie, terribly scared, and seeing already, in his mind’s eye, the narrowest cell of the county jail.Tom blinked at him stupidly, holding him at arm’s length and cruising round him.“Bust me if it ain’t a schollard!” said he. “What cheer, my hearty? Don’t forget, the poor mariner that’s lost hisMartha. It’s very ’ard on a honest Jack tar.”How Heathcote’s soul went out to the poor British seaman as soon as he discovered that he did not recognise him! He gave him his all—two shillings and one penny—and deemed it a mite to offer to so deserving a cause. He hoped from his heart Tom would find his boat, or, if not, would get a pension from the Government, or be made an Inspector of Coast-guards. Nothing was too good for the sweet, delectable creature, and he told him as much.Whereat Tom, with the 2 shillings 1 penny in his hand and all the boy’s blandishments in his ears, retired to the “Dolphin” to digest both; and once more Heathcote, with the perspiration on his brow and his chest positively sore with the thumping of his heart, sped like a truant shade from the fangs of Cerberus.After that, neither threats, entreaties, or taunts could induce Heathcote to venture either alone or in company into Templeton.Fortunately for him and his leader, the approaching close of the term gave every one at Templeton an excuse for keeping bounds, and sticking steadily to work. Pledge, among others, was in for a scholarship, which five out of six of those who knew him prophesied he would get, if he took a fortnight’s hard work before the examination.A fortnight before the examination, to the day, Pledge began to work, and Templeton put down the Bishop’s scholarship to him, without further parley. Only two men were against him—Cartwright, who, fine fellow as he was, could not desert the cricket field and gymnasium even in the throes of an examination, and Freckleton, the hermit, whom half of Templeton didn’t know by sight, and the other half put down as a harmless lunatic, who divided his time between theological exercises and plodding, but not always successful, study.Our heroes, being new boys, were exempt from the general school examinations—their guerdon of reward being the general proficiency prize for new boys, a vague term, in which good conduct, study, and progress, were all taken into account. Dick sadly admitted that he was out of it. Still he vaguely hoped he might “pull off his remove,” as the phrase went—that is, get raised next term to the serene atmosphere of the lower Fourth, along with the faithful Heathcote.But nowhere was the studious fit more serious than in the upper Fifth, where Birket, Swinstead, Wrangham and one or two others, cast longing eyes on the vacant desk in the Sixth, and strained every nerve to win it. Cricket flagged, and it was hard during that fortnight to make up a set at tennis. The early “Tub” alone retained its attractions, and indeed was never more crowded than when Templeton was heart and soul in study.One fellow regarded the whole scene half sadly, and that was Ponty. Indolent as he seemed to be, he loved the old school, and hated the thought of leaving it. He had friends there that were like brothers to him. There were nooks here and there where he had lounged and enjoyed life, which seemed like so many homes. He knew he had not done anything great for Templeton. He knew he had let the tares grow side by side with the wheat, and made no effort to uproot them. He knew that there were boys there whom he ought to have befriended, and others he ought to have scathed; and it made him sad now to think of all he might have done.“I don’t think they’ll erect a statue to me in the Quad, old man,” said he to Mansfield at the end of the examination.“I know there isn’t a fellow that won’t be sorry to lose you,” said Mansfield.“Ah! no doubt. They’ve had quiet times under easy-going old Saturn, and don’t fancy the prospect of Jove, with his thunderbolts, ruling in his stead. Eh?”“If I could be sure of fellows being as fond of me as they are of you, I should—well, I should get something I don’t expect,” said Mansfield.“Don’t be too sure, old man,” said Ponty. “But, I say, will you take a hint from a failure like me?” added the old captain, digging deep into his pockets, and looking a trifle nervous.“Rather. I’d only be too thankful,” said Mansfield.“Go easy with them at first. Only have one hand in an iron glove. Keep the other for some of those juniors who may turn out all right, if they get a little encouragement and aren’t snuffed out all at once. You’ll have plenty of work for the iron hand with one or two hornet’s nests we know of. Give the little chaps a chance.”This was dear old Ponty’s last will and testament. Templeton looked back upon him after he had gone, as an easy-going, good-natured, let-alone, loveable fellow; but it didn’t know all of what it owed him.The examinations came at length. The new boys having been the last to come, were naturally the first to be examined; and once more the portraits in the long hall looked down upon Basil Richardson and Georgie Heathcote, gnawing at the ends of their pens, and gazing at the ceiling for an inspiration.It was rather a sad spectacle for those portraits. Possibly they barely recognised in the reckless, jaunty, fair boy, and his baffled, almost wrathful companion, the Heathcote and Richardson who four months ago had sat there, fresh, and simple, and rosy, with the world of Templeton before them.It had not been a good term for either. Thank heaven, as they sat there, they had honesty enough left to know it, and hope enough left to feel there might still be a chance. They were not to jump by one leap into the perfect schoolboy; still, with honesty and hope left, who shall say they had lost all?As to their immediate care, the examination—their last lingering expectation of getting their remove slowly vanished before those ruthless questions, all of which they knew they ought to know, but many of which they discovered they knew nothing about.Other boys, like Aspinall, who, with all his tears and terrors, had struggled through the term more of a hero than either of his doughty protectors, found the time only too short to answer all they had to answer; and our two dejected ones, as they looked round, and saw the fluency of every one else, felt themselves, like sediment, gradually sinking to their level. As long as the stir of term life had lasted, they had imagined themselves as well up, even better than most of their contemporaries; but now they began to find out it was not so.The suspense, if they felt any, was not long. Two days after the examination, at the time when the Sixth and Fifth were passing through their ordeal, the new boys’ list came out.Aspinall was first, and got his well-deserved remove, with a compliment from the Doctor into the bargain, which made his pale face glow with pleasure. Dick, with a sturdy effort to look cheerful, waved his congratulations across the Hall, and then settled down to hear the almost interminable string of names before his or Georgie’s broke the monotony.In their own minds, and in the modesty of their own self-abasement, they had fixed on the twentieth place, or thereabouts, for Heathcote, and about the twenty-fifth for Dick. Alas! the singles grew into the teens, and the teens into the twenties, and the twenties into the thirties before the break came. After eighteen every one knew that the removes were exhausted, and that the list which followed was, if not a list of reproach, at any rate one neither of honour nor profit.“31—Richardson,” read the Doctor, making a pause on the announcement which cut the penitent Dick to the quick; “32—Fox; 33—Sumpter; 34—Whiles; 35—Heathcote; 36—Hooker, junior. That is all.”Poor Heathcote! He had buoyed himself up to the last. He had reminded himself that he was not a prig or a saint, that he didn’t go in for conduct that “paid,” that he called a spade a spade, and that he didn’t profess to be what he wasn’t; and yet all this failed to place him higher than last but one of thirty-six boys, among whom, only four months ago, he stood fifteenth! Even Dick had beaten him now, although Dick himself had fallen ten places down the list.The two friends had a dreary walk round the deserted Fields that afternoon.“I can’t make it out,” said Heathcote. “I knew I hadn’t done well, but I expected to be higher than that. I wonder if Winter’s got a spite against me.”“More likely got one against me. Did you hear the way he read out my name?”“Yes; he may have been surprised you came out so high.”“It’s nothing to joke about,” said Dick. “We’ve both made a mess of it.”“I really thought I’d done my lessons pretty steadily,” said Heathcote, loth to part with the idea that there must be a mistake somewhere.“You mean Pledge did them for you. I tell you what, old man—I’ve had enough of this sort of mess. I don’t like it.”“No more do I,” said Heathcote, very truly.“I mean to get my remove at Christmas, if I get brain-fever over it.”“Rather; so do I,” said Heathcote.“I shall have a go in at the irregular verbs during the holidays.”“Eh—will you?” asked Georgie, beginning to stagger a little at the new programme. “All serene; so will I.”“We might begin to-night, perhaps.”“Awfully sorry—I’ve an engagement to-night,” said Heathcote.“Where?”This was the first occasion on which Dick had asked this very awkward question. It was the wind-up supper of the “Select Sociables” for the present term, and to Heathcote one of the chief attractions of the prospect had been that Dick, being a member, would be there too. He was, therefore, startled somewhat at the inquiry.“Oh, you know. We don’t talk about it,” said he.“So it seems,” said Dick; “but it happens I don’t know.”“Don’t you? Then the fellows must have told me a cram.”“What fellows?”“Why, do you mean to say you don’t know, Dick?”“How should I?”“Haven’t they asked you, too? Aren’t you a— I mean, don’t you know?”At this particular moment, Cresswell came across the Quadrangle with a bundle of books in his hands, which he told Dick to take to his study.And before Dick had time to perform his task and return to the Quad, Braider had pounced on Heathcote, and borne him away, in hot haste, to the orgy of the “Select Sociables,” where he spent a very unprofitable evening in trying to square his conscience with all he saw and heard, and in trying to ascertain from every member of the Club he could get hold of, why Dick wasn’t there, too. He was not released without a renewal of his promise of secrecy, and spent a very uncomfortable half-hour in the dormitory that evening, trying, as best he could, to parry the questions of his friend, into whose head it had never entered that the “Select Sociables,” after ejecting him, should dream of such a thing as electing Heathcote. They might have quarrelled over the mystery, had not the approaching holidays, and an opportune note from Coote, announcing that he had just scraped through the pass examination for “second chances,” and would be at Templeton after the recess, driven all other thoughts, for the time being, out of their heads. And the few remaining days of the term were devoted, not to irregular verbs, but to the devising of glorious schemes of welcome to old Coote, and anticipations of the joys of their reformed triple alliance.The great result day found Templeton, as it always did, in the chaos of packing up. At the summons of the great bell, to come and hear the lists read in the Hall, fellows dropped collars and coats, rackets and rods, boots and bookstand rushed for a front seat.Every one turned up to the summer list—even the housekeepers and the school porter. The masters were there in caps and gowns, and the Sixth, in solemn array, occupied the benches on the dais. The rest of the Hall was left to the first comers; and, as all Templeton, on this occasion, arrived first in a body, the scene was usually animated.Dr Winter read the list himself, and every name rang through the Hall, being followed with cheers which made all the more striking the silence with which the next name was listened for.“The Bishop’s Scholarship has been won by Freckleton,” said the Doctor.Amazement, as well as approval, mingled with the applause which followed this most unexpected announcement.“WhichisFreckleton?” asked Dick of Swinstead, who sat in front.“That dark fellow, talking to Mansfield.”“Silence! Pledge was second, and within a few marks. Cartwright was third.”“How pleased Winter must have been to find those marks the right way!” whispered Pledge, with the red spots on his cheeks, to Bull. “It’s a funny thing that Freckleton should be a nephew of Winter’s and yet just get the scholarship, isn’t it? So very unusual, eh?”“The Fifth-form remove has been gained by Swinstead,” said the Doctor (loud cheers). “Wrangham was second, but not very close, and Birket was a few marks below Wrangham.”These announcements were the most interesting on the Doctor’s list, and Templeton listened impatiently to the rest. It waited, however, in its place, in order to give a final cheer for Ponty at the close.Which it did. And the dear old fellow, though he seemed very sleepy, and longed for his arm-chair, couldn’t help hearing it and looking round at the old school, nodding his kindly head. When, however, somebody called out “Speech,” he stretched himself comfortably and shrugged his shoulders; and they knew what that meant, and gave it up.Twenty-four hours later, Templeton was scattered to the four winds, and our heroes’ first term had become a chapter of ancient history.

One result of the alarming paragraph in theTempleton Observerwas, that Dick and Heathcote for the remainder of the term became models of virtue as far as going out of school bounds was concerned.

Other boys might stray down the High Street and look at the shops, but they didn’t. Others might go down to the beach and become familiar with the boatmen, but our heroes were far too respectable. Others might “mitch” off for a private cruise round Sprit Rock in quest of whiting, or other treasures of the deep; but Dick and Georgie would not sully their fair fame with any such breach of Templeton rules.

They kept up early morning “Tub,” but that was the limit of their wanderings from the fold, and it was often amusing to mark the diligence with which they always took to drying their heads with the towels on the way up, if ever a boatman happened to cross their path.

Heathcote on more than one occasion was compelled, politely but firmly, to decline Pledge’s commissions into the town, although it sometimes cost him words, and, worse still, sneers from his patron.

Once, however, he had to yield, and a terrible afternoon he spent in consequence.

“Youngster,” said the ‘Spider,’ “I want you to go to Webster’s in High Street and get a book for me.”

“Afraid I can’t, Pledge,” said Heathcote. “I must swot this afternoon.”

“What have you got to do?”

“There’s thirty lines of Cicero, and I haven’t looked at them.”

“I’ll do it for you before you come back.”

“And there are some Latin verses for Westover, too.”

“Leave them with me, too.”

Heathcote felt uncomfortable, and it occurred to him it was not right to accept another’s help.

“I think I ought to do them myself,” said he, “I don’t like having them done for me.”

“Quite right, my dear young friend. You’re beginning to find out it pays to be a good little boy, are you? I always said you would. I only hope you’ll make a good thing of it.”

Heathcote coloured up violently.

“It’s not that at all,” said he, “it’s only— would it do if I went after preparation this evening?”

“What! Saint George propose to break rules? Well, I am shocked; after all my pains, too. No, my child, I couldn’t let you do this wicked thing.”

“What book am I to ask for?” said Heathcote, giving it up.

“Thanks, old man. There’s something better than the saint in you, after all. Tell Webster it’s the book I ordered last week. It is paid for.”

Heathcote started on his mission with a heavy heart. He had lost caste, he feared, with Pledge, and he was running into the enemy’s country and perilling not only himself, but Dick, in the venture.

He made fearful and wonderful détours to avoid a few straggling policemen, or any figure which in the distance looked remotely like a British seaman. The sight of a shopkeeper sitting at his door and reading theTempleton Observerscared him, and the bill offering a reward for his discovery all but drove him headlong back to the school without accomplishing his mission.

At length, after an anxious voyage, he ran into Mr Webster’s harbour, and for a little while breathed again.

The bookseller knew quite well what book Pledge had ordered.

“Here it is,” said he, handing over a small parcel, “and I’d advise you to get rid of it as soon as you can. It would do you no good to be found in your pocket, or Mr Pledge either,” he added.

“He says it’s paid for,” said Heathcote.

“Quite right.” Then, noticing that the boy still seemed reluctant to launch forth once more into the High Street, he said—

“Perhaps you’d like to look round the shop, Mr Heathcote?”

Heathcote thought he would, and spent a quarter of an hour in investigating Mr Webster’s shelves of books.

Just as he was about to leave, Duffield and the “sociable” Raggles entered the shop.

“Hullo, Georgie!” said the latter; “who’d have thought of seeing you in the town? Everyone says you’re keeping out of the way of the police, don’t they, Duff?”

“Yes,” said Duffield, perceiving the joke, “for some burglary, or something like that.”

Heathcote breathed again at the word burglary, and made an heroic effort to smile.

“Not at all,” said Raggles, nudging his ally; “not a burglary, but boat-stealing, isn’t it, Webster?”

“Ah,” said Mr Webster, who was a good man of business and fond of his joke, “they never did find that young party, certainly.”

“Shut up and don’t be a fool!” said Heathcote, feeling the colour coming to his face, and longing to be out in the open air.

“What’s this the description was?” said Duffield, perching himself on the corner of the counter and reading off the unhappy Heathcote’s personal appearance. “Good-looking boy of fourteen, with fair hair and a slight moustache. Dressed in a grey tweed suit, masher collar, and two tin sleeve-links. Not very intelligent, and usually wears a smudge of ink under his right eye. Isn’t that it?”

“That’s something about the mark,” said Mr Webster, laughing.

“Think of offering two pounds reward for a chap like that!” said Raggles. “They must be hard up.”

“Look here,” said Heathcote, seeing that his only refuge lay in swagger, “I’m not going to have any of your cheek, Raggles. Shut up, or I’ll lick you!”

“No fighting here, young gentlemen, please,” said the affable bookseller.

“Ha! ha!” said Raggles, enjoying himself under the security of Duffield’s alliance; “he’s in a wax because we said it was only aslightmoustache. He thinks we ought to have said a heavy one!”

“He may think it ought to be, but it ain’t,” said Duffield. “I never saw such a slight one in all my days!”

It is rarely that any one sees reason to bless his own moustache, but on this particular occasion, when he perceived the welcome controversy to which it was giving rise, Georgie was very near calling down benedictions on his youthful hairs. With great presence of mind he recovered his good-humour, and diverted the talk further and further into its capillary course. He backed his moustache against Duffield’s and Raggles’ spliced together, he upbraided them with envy, and called Webster to witness that the pimple on Raggles’ lip, which he claimed as the forerunner of his crop, had been there for the last six months with never a sign of harvest.

Altogether, under shelter of his moustache, Georgie crept out of a very awkward hobble, and finally out of Webster’s shop, greatly to the relief of his palpitating heart.

But his trials were not quite over. As he was running headlong round the corner of High Street, determined that no pretext should detain him a moment longer than necessary in this perilous territory, he found himself, to his horror, suddenly confronted with the form of the very British seaman whom, of all others, he hoped to avoid; and, before he could slacken speed or fetch a compass, he had plunged full into Tom White’s arms.

Tom White, as usual, I am sorry to say, was half-seas-over. Never steady in his best days, he had, ever since the loss of theMarthamade his headquarters at the bar of the “Dolphin.” Not that the loss of theMarthawas exactly ruin to her late owner. On the contrary, since her disappearance, Tom had had more pocket-money than ever he had when she was his.

For sympathetic neighbours, pitying his loss, had contributed trifles towards his solace; theTempleton boys, with many of whom he had been a favourite, had tipped him handsomely in his distress, and it was even rumoured that half of a collection for the poor at the parish church a few Sundays ago had been awarded to poor destitute Tom White.

On the whole, Tom felt that if he could lose aMarthatwice a year, he might yet sup off tripe and gin-toddy seven times a week.

The “Dolphin” became his banker, and took very particular care of his money.

All this the boy, of course, did not know. All he knew was that the waistcoat into which he had run belonged to the man he had wronged, who, if he only suspected his wronger, could make the coming summer holidays decidedly tedious for Georgie and his friend.

“Belay there!” hiccupped Tom, reeling back from the collision and catching Heathcote by the arm. “Got yer, young gem’n! and I’ll bash yer!”

“I beg your pardon,” said Georgie, terribly scared, and seeing already, in his mind’s eye, the narrowest cell of the county jail.

Tom blinked at him stupidly, holding him at arm’s length and cruising round him.

“Bust me if it ain’t a schollard!” said he. “What cheer, my hearty? Don’t forget, the poor mariner that’s lost hisMartha. It’s very ’ard on a honest Jack tar.”

How Heathcote’s soul went out to the poor British seaman as soon as he discovered that he did not recognise him! He gave him his all—two shillings and one penny—and deemed it a mite to offer to so deserving a cause. He hoped from his heart Tom would find his boat, or, if not, would get a pension from the Government, or be made an Inspector of Coast-guards. Nothing was too good for the sweet, delectable creature, and he told him as much.

Whereat Tom, with the 2 shillings 1 penny in his hand and all the boy’s blandishments in his ears, retired to the “Dolphin” to digest both; and once more Heathcote, with the perspiration on his brow and his chest positively sore with the thumping of his heart, sped like a truant shade from the fangs of Cerberus.

After that, neither threats, entreaties, or taunts could induce Heathcote to venture either alone or in company into Templeton.

Fortunately for him and his leader, the approaching close of the term gave every one at Templeton an excuse for keeping bounds, and sticking steadily to work. Pledge, among others, was in for a scholarship, which five out of six of those who knew him prophesied he would get, if he took a fortnight’s hard work before the examination.

A fortnight before the examination, to the day, Pledge began to work, and Templeton put down the Bishop’s scholarship to him, without further parley. Only two men were against him—Cartwright, who, fine fellow as he was, could not desert the cricket field and gymnasium even in the throes of an examination, and Freckleton, the hermit, whom half of Templeton didn’t know by sight, and the other half put down as a harmless lunatic, who divided his time between theological exercises and plodding, but not always successful, study.

Our heroes, being new boys, were exempt from the general school examinations—their guerdon of reward being the general proficiency prize for new boys, a vague term, in which good conduct, study, and progress, were all taken into account. Dick sadly admitted that he was out of it. Still he vaguely hoped he might “pull off his remove,” as the phrase went—that is, get raised next term to the serene atmosphere of the lower Fourth, along with the faithful Heathcote.

But nowhere was the studious fit more serious than in the upper Fifth, where Birket, Swinstead, Wrangham and one or two others, cast longing eyes on the vacant desk in the Sixth, and strained every nerve to win it. Cricket flagged, and it was hard during that fortnight to make up a set at tennis. The early “Tub” alone retained its attractions, and indeed was never more crowded than when Templeton was heart and soul in study.

One fellow regarded the whole scene half sadly, and that was Ponty. Indolent as he seemed to be, he loved the old school, and hated the thought of leaving it. He had friends there that were like brothers to him. There were nooks here and there where he had lounged and enjoyed life, which seemed like so many homes. He knew he had not done anything great for Templeton. He knew he had let the tares grow side by side with the wheat, and made no effort to uproot them. He knew that there were boys there whom he ought to have befriended, and others he ought to have scathed; and it made him sad now to think of all he might have done.

“I don’t think they’ll erect a statue to me in the Quad, old man,” said he to Mansfield at the end of the examination.

“I know there isn’t a fellow that won’t be sorry to lose you,” said Mansfield.

“Ah! no doubt. They’ve had quiet times under easy-going old Saturn, and don’t fancy the prospect of Jove, with his thunderbolts, ruling in his stead. Eh?”

“If I could be sure of fellows being as fond of me as they are of you, I should—well, I should get something I don’t expect,” said Mansfield.

“Don’t be too sure, old man,” said Ponty. “But, I say, will you take a hint from a failure like me?” added the old captain, digging deep into his pockets, and looking a trifle nervous.

“Rather. I’d only be too thankful,” said Mansfield.

“Go easy with them at first. Only have one hand in an iron glove. Keep the other for some of those juniors who may turn out all right, if they get a little encouragement and aren’t snuffed out all at once. You’ll have plenty of work for the iron hand with one or two hornet’s nests we know of. Give the little chaps a chance.”

This was dear old Ponty’s last will and testament. Templeton looked back upon him after he had gone, as an easy-going, good-natured, let-alone, loveable fellow; but it didn’t know all of what it owed him.

The examinations came at length. The new boys having been the last to come, were naturally the first to be examined; and once more the portraits in the long hall looked down upon Basil Richardson and Georgie Heathcote, gnawing at the ends of their pens, and gazing at the ceiling for an inspiration.

It was rather a sad spectacle for those portraits. Possibly they barely recognised in the reckless, jaunty, fair boy, and his baffled, almost wrathful companion, the Heathcote and Richardson who four months ago had sat there, fresh, and simple, and rosy, with the world of Templeton before them.

It had not been a good term for either. Thank heaven, as they sat there, they had honesty enough left to know it, and hope enough left to feel there might still be a chance. They were not to jump by one leap into the perfect schoolboy; still, with honesty and hope left, who shall say they had lost all?

As to their immediate care, the examination—their last lingering expectation of getting their remove slowly vanished before those ruthless questions, all of which they knew they ought to know, but many of which they discovered they knew nothing about.

Other boys, like Aspinall, who, with all his tears and terrors, had struggled through the term more of a hero than either of his doughty protectors, found the time only too short to answer all they had to answer; and our two dejected ones, as they looked round, and saw the fluency of every one else, felt themselves, like sediment, gradually sinking to their level. As long as the stir of term life had lasted, they had imagined themselves as well up, even better than most of their contemporaries; but now they began to find out it was not so.

The suspense, if they felt any, was not long. Two days after the examination, at the time when the Sixth and Fifth were passing through their ordeal, the new boys’ list came out.

Aspinall was first, and got his well-deserved remove, with a compliment from the Doctor into the bargain, which made his pale face glow with pleasure. Dick, with a sturdy effort to look cheerful, waved his congratulations across the Hall, and then settled down to hear the almost interminable string of names before his or Georgie’s broke the monotony.

In their own minds, and in the modesty of their own self-abasement, they had fixed on the twentieth place, or thereabouts, for Heathcote, and about the twenty-fifth for Dick. Alas! the singles grew into the teens, and the teens into the twenties, and the twenties into the thirties before the break came. After eighteen every one knew that the removes were exhausted, and that the list which followed was, if not a list of reproach, at any rate one neither of honour nor profit.

“31—Richardson,” read the Doctor, making a pause on the announcement which cut the penitent Dick to the quick; “32—Fox; 33—Sumpter; 34—Whiles; 35—Heathcote; 36—Hooker, junior. That is all.”

Poor Heathcote! He had buoyed himself up to the last. He had reminded himself that he was not a prig or a saint, that he didn’t go in for conduct that “paid,” that he called a spade a spade, and that he didn’t profess to be what he wasn’t; and yet all this failed to place him higher than last but one of thirty-six boys, among whom, only four months ago, he stood fifteenth! Even Dick had beaten him now, although Dick himself had fallen ten places down the list.

The two friends had a dreary walk round the deserted Fields that afternoon.

“I can’t make it out,” said Heathcote. “I knew I hadn’t done well, but I expected to be higher than that. I wonder if Winter’s got a spite against me.”

“More likely got one against me. Did you hear the way he read out my name?”

“Yes; he may have been surprised you came out so high.”

“It’s nothing to joke about,” said Dick. “We’ve both made a mess of it.”

“I really thought I’d done my lessons pretty steadily,” said Heathcote, loth to part with the idea that there must be a mistake somewhere.

“You mean Pledge did them for you. I tell you what, old man—I’ve had enough of this sort of mess. I don’t like it.”

“No more do I,” said Heathcote, very truly.

“I mean to get my remove at Christmas, if I get brain-fever over it.”

“Rather; so do I,” said Heathcote.

“I shall have a go in at the irregular verbs during the holidays.”

“Eh—will you?” asked Georgie, beginning to stagger a little at the new programme. “All serene; so will I.”

“We might begin to-night, perhaps.”

“Awfully sorry—I’ve an engagement to-night,” said Heathcote.

“Where?”

This was the first occasion on which Dick had asked this very awkward question. It was the wind-up supper of the “Select Sociables” for the present term, and to Heathcote one of the chief attractions of the prospect had been that Dick, being a member, would be there too. He was, therefore, startled somewhat at the inquiry.

“Oh, you know. We don’t talk about it,” said he.

“So it seems,” said Dick; “but it happens I don’t know.”

“Don’t you? Then the fellows must have told me a cram.”

“What fellows?”

“Why, do you mean to say you don’t know, Dick?”

“How should I?”

“Haven’t they asked you, too? Aren’t you a— I mean, don’t you know?”

At this particular moment, Cresswell came across the Quadrangle with a bundle of books in his hands, which he told Dick to take to his study.

And before Dick had time to perform his task and return to the Quad, Braider had pounced on Heathcote, and borne him away, in hot haste, to the orgy of the “Select Sociables,” where he spent a very unprofitable evening in trying to square his conscience with all he saw and heard, and in trying to ascertain from every member of the Club he could get hold of, why Dick wasn’t there, too. He was not released without a renewal of his promise of secrecy, and spent a very uncomfortable half-hour in the dormitory that evening, trying, as best he could, to parry the questions of his friend, into whose head it had never entered that the “Select Sociables,” after ejecting him, should dream of such a thing as electing Heathcote. They might have quarrelled over the mystery, had not the approaching holidays, and an opportune note from Coote, announcing that he had just scraped through the pass examination for “second chances,” and would be at Templeton after the recess, driven all other thoughts, for the time being, out of their heads. And the few remaining days of the term were devoted, not to irregular verbs, but to the devising of glorious schemes of welcome to old Coote, and anticipations of the joys of their reformed triple alliance.

The great result day found Templeton, as it always did, in the chaos of packing up. At the summons of the great bell, to come and hear the lists read in the Hall, fellows dropped collars and coats, rackets and rods, boots and bookstand rushed for a front seat.

Every one turned up to the summer list—even the housekeepers and the school porter. The masters were there in caps and gowns, and the Sixth, in solemn array, occupied the benches on the dais. The rest of the Hall was left to the first comers; and, as all Templeton, on this occasion, arrived first in a body, the scene was usually animated.

Dr Winter read the list himself, and every name rang through the Hall, being followed with cheers which made all the more striking the silence with which the next name was listened for.

“The Bishop’s Scholarship has been won by Freckleton,” said the Doctor.

Amazement, as well as approval, mingled with the applause which followed this most unexpected announcement.

“WhichisFreckleton?” asked Dick of Swinstead, who sat in front.

“That dark fellow, talking to Mansfield.”

“Silence! Pledge was second, and within a few marks. Cartwright was third.”

“How pleased Winter must have been to find those marks the right way!” whispered Pledge, with the red spots on his cheeks, to Bull. “It’s a funny thing that Freckleton should be a nephew of Winter’s and yet just get the scholarship, isn’t it? So very unusual, eh?”

“The Fifth-form remove has been gained by Swinstead,” said the Doctor (loud cheers). “Wrangham was second, but not very close, and Birket was a few marks below Wrangham.”

These announcements were the most interesting on the Doctor’s list, and Templeton listened impatiently to the rest. It waited, however, in its place, in order to give a final cheer for Ponty at the close.

Which it did. And the dear old fellow, though he seemed very sleepy, and longed for his arm-chair, couldn’t help hearing it and looking round at the old school, nodding his kindly head. When, however, somebody called out “Speech,” he stretched himself comfortably and shrugged his shoulders; and they knew what that meant, and gave it up.

Twenty-four hours later, Templeton was scattered to the four winds, and our heroes’ first term had become a chapter of ancient history.

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