Chapter Four.

Chapter Four.Brushing-up the Classics.My guardian, I am bound to say, disappointed me. I had rather hoped, as I travelled home, that I would be able to put my conduct before him in such a way that he would think me rather a fine young fellow, and consider himself honoured in being my guardian. That my mother would take on, I felt sure.“Women,” said I to myself—I was thirteen, and therefore was supposed to know what women thought about things—“women can’t see below the surface of things. But old Girdler was a boy himself once, and knows what it is for a fellow to get into a row for being a brick.”My sage prognostications were falsified doubly. My mother, though she wept to see me come home in this style, did me justice at once. To think I could ever have doubted her!“Of course, sonny dear,” said she, kissing me, “it was very hard. Still, I am sure it would have been a shabby thing to tell tales.”“I wasn’t going to do it, at any rate,” said I, growing a little cocky, and deciding that some women, at any rate, can see more than meets the eye.But Mr Girdler, when he called in during the evening, was most disappointing.“So this is what you call being a comfort to your mother?” began he, without so much as giving me a chance to say a word.“Oh, but you don’t understand, sir,” began I.“Don’t understand!” said he. “I understand you are a naughty little boy”—to think that I should live to be called a little boy!—“and that the mischief about your schooling is that you’ve not been smacked as often as you ought. Understand, indeed! What do you suppose your mother’s to do with a boy like you, that’s wasted his time, and then tells people they don’t understand?”“I don’t think Tommy meant—” began my mother; but my guardian was too quick for her.“No, that’s just it. They never do, and yet you pay fifty pounds a year to teach him. It doesn’t matter to some children who else is troubled as long as they enjoy themselves.”Children! And I had once caught Parkin at cover-point! “Go up to bed now,” said my guardian. “Your mother and I must see what’s to be done with you. Don’t I understand, indeed?”The conceit was fairly taken out of me now. To be called a little boy was bad enough; to be referred to as a child was even worse; but to be sent to bed at a quarter to eight on a summer evening was the crowning stroke. Certainly, Plummer’s itself was better than this.What my mother and guardian said to one another I do not know. My mother, I think, had great faith in Mr Girdler’s wisdom; and although she tried not to think ill of me, would probably feel that he knew better than she did.I knew my fate next morning—it was worse than my most hideous forebodings.I was to work at my guardian’s office every morning, and in the afternoon I was to go up and learn Latin and arithmetic at—oh, how shall I say it?—a girls’ school!For an hour after this discovery I candidly admit that I was sorry, unfeignedly sorry, I had not turned sneak and informed against Harry Tempest. I think even he would have wished me to do it rather than suffer this awful humiliation.I had serious thoughts of running away, of going to sea, or sweeping a London crossing. But there were difficulties in the way; the chief of them being my mother.“You mustn’t worry about it, Tommy,” said she. “Mr Girdler says it will be the best thing for you. It will be good for you to learn some business, you know, and then in the afternoon you will find Miss Bousfield very nice and clever.”“It’s not the work I mind, mother,” said I; “it’s—it’s going to a girls’ school.”“There’s nothing very dreadful about it, I’m sure,” said my mother, with a smile. “I was at one myself once.”“But,” argued I, “you are only a—”No—that wouldn’t quite do to one’s own mother. So I stopped short.“Besides,” said she, “Mr Girdler thinks it the best thing, and he is your guardian.”This was unanswerable, and I gave it up.But I was not at all consoled. The bare idea of Tempest, or Brown, or any of the other fellows getting to know that I, Thomas Jones, aged thirteen, who had held my own at Plummer’s, and played in my day in the third Eleven, was going to attend a girls’ school, and be taught Latin and sums by a—a female, was enough to make my hair stand on end. How they would laugh and wax merry at my expense! How they would draw pictures of me in the book covers with long curls and petticoats! How they would address me as “Jemima,” and talk to one another about me in a high falsetto voice! How they would fall into hysterics when they met me, and weep copiously, and ask me to lend them hairpins and parasols! I knew what it would be like only too well, and I quaked as I imagined it.My one hope was that at Fallowfield nobody knew me; at least, nobody who mattered.“At least,” said I to myself, “if I am to go and herd with a parcel of girls, I’ll let them see I’m something better than a girl myself.”When I presented myself at my guardian’s office on the appointed morning in order to start on my commercial career, I met with a reception even less flattering than I had pictured to myself.Mr Girdler was out, and had left no instructions about me. So for two hours I sat in the waiting-room, balancing my cap on my knee, and trying to work up the spots on the dingy wall-paper into geometrical figures.When at last he came, so far from commending my patience, he had the face to reproach me for sitting there idle instead of getting some one to set me to work.“You are not at school here, remember,” said he, by way of being sarcastic; “you come here to work.”“I worked at school,” said I meekly.“So I hear,” said he. “Now go to Mr Evans, and tell him you want a job.”Whereupon my genial guardian quitted me. But he came back a moment after.“Remember you are to be at the girls’ school at 2:30. Tell Miss Bousfield you are the little boy I spoke to her about, and mind you behave yourself up there.”Was ever a young man in such a shameful disgrace?Three days ago I had imagined myself everybody; two days ago I had at least imagined myself somebody; yesterday I had discovered with pain that I was nobody; and to-day I was destined to wonder if I was even that.Mr Evans raised his eyebrows when I delivered my message to him.“Are you the governor’s little ward,” he inquired, “who’s just finished his education? All right, my little man, we’ll find a job for you. Run up High Street and bring me the time by the market clock, and here’s a halfpenny to buy yourself sweets on the way.”It occurred to me as odd that Mr Evans should want to know the time by a clock which was quite ten minutes’ walk from the office. Still, perhaps he had to set the office clocks by it, so I set off, wondering whether I ought to take the halfpenny, but taking it all the same.I decided that the dignified course would be to buy the sweets, but to take them all back to him, so as to impress him with the fact that I was not as devoted to juvenile creature comforts as he evidently thought me.“Is that all you have left?” said he, when, after accomplishing my errand, I presented them to him. “My eye! you’ve made good use of your time, and no mistake.”“I’ve not eaten a single one,” said I.“It would have been better for your digestion if you had only eaten a single one, instead of swallowing half the lot. I know the ways of you boys. Well, what’s the time?”“It was twenty-five past ten.”“I didn’t ask you what it was—I want to know what it is.”It then occurred to me for the first time that Mr Evans was a humourist. It seemed to me a feeble joke, but he evidently thought it a good one, as did also the other clerks to whom he communicated it.The worst of it was that the more I tried to explain that, not having a watch of my own, I could not answer for the time by the market clock at any moment but that at which I saw it, the more they seemed to be amused. Some suggested I should go back with a bag and bring the time in it. Others, that I should put it on ten minutes, and then come back, so as to arrive at the exact moment it was when I left it. Others were of opinion that the best way would be for me to go and fetch the market clock with me.Mr Evans, however, decided that my talents were not equal to the task of bringing the time in any shape or form, and that the best thing I could do was to sit down and lick up envelopes. Which I accordingly did, feeling rather small. I cut my tongue and spoiled my appetite over the operation, and was heartily glad when, after a couple of hours, Mr Evans said—“Master Tommy, we’re going to lunch. You’ve had yours, so you can stop here, and keep shop till we return.”“I have to go to Miss Bousfield’s at 2:30,” said I.“To go where?” they all inquired. And as I blushed very red, and tried to explain myself away, they made a great deal out of my unlucky admission.“You’re young for that sort of thing,” said one. “I didn’t go courting myself before I was fifteen.”“I’d made up my mind Sarah Bousfield was going to be an old maid,” said another. “Heigho! it’s never too late to mend.”“I hear she keeps sugar-plums for good little girls,” said another.“And the bad little ones get whipped and put in the corner.”“He mustn’t go like that, anyhow,” said Mr Evans, who, for a responsible head clerk of a big business, was the most flippant person I had ever met; “look at his hair—all out of curl! Come here, little girl, and be made tidy.”Once at Plummer’s I had come in second for the half-mile under fourteen, and been captain of my side in the junior tug of war! Now I was to have my hair curled publicly!It was no use resisting. I was held fast while Evans with a long penholder made ringlets of my back hair, and Scroop, with his five fingers, made a fringe of my front. My hat, moreover, was decorated with quills by way of feathers, and a fan made of blotting-paper was thrust into my hands. Then I was pronounced to be nice and tidy, and fit to go and join the other little girls.I fear that the energy with which, as soon as I was released, I deranged my locks and flung the feathers from my hat, amused my persecutors as much as it solaced me. I was conscious of their hilarious greetings as I strolled up the street, trying to walk in a straight masculine way, but hideously conscious of blushing cheeks and nervous gait. I so far forgot myself that, in my eagerness to display my male superiority, I jostled against a lady, and disgraced myself by swaggering on without even apologising for my rudeness—when, to my consternation, the lady uttered my name, “Tommy.”It was my mother! I was still within sight of the office. How Evans and his lot would make merry over thiscontretemps! They wouldn’t know who it was who was putting her hand on my shoulder. And yet I am glad to say that I was spared that day the disgrace of being ashamed of my own dear mother. Let the fellows think what they liked. If they had mothers like mine they wouldn’t be the cads they were!So, with almost unnecessary pomp, I raised my hat to my parent, and put my hand in her arm.“You’re going up to Miss Bousfield’s,” said she; “I thought I should meet you. What a hurry you were in!”“Yes; I’m sorry I knocked against you, mother.”“I’m glad you did. I’m longing to hear how you got on to-day.”“Oh, pretty well.”“Was it very hard work?”“Not particularly.”“You’ll soon be quite a man of business.”It occurred to me that if my business career was to be based on no better experience than that I had hitherto had in my guardian’s office, I should not rank as a merchant prince in a hurry.“Would you like me to go with you to Miss Bousfield’s?”“If you like, mother. But I can go alone all right.” She was a brick. She guessed what I hoped she would say, and she said it.“Well, I’ll be looking out for you at tea-time, dear boy,” said she. And she patted my arm lovingly as I started on.I wished those fellows could have heard her voice and seen her kind face.Shetreated me like a man—which was more than could be said for them.I went on my way soothed in my ruffled spirits. But my perturbation revived when I stood on the doorstep of the Girls’ High School, and rang the head mistress’s bell. It was a bitter pill, I can tell you, for a fellow who had once been caned by Plummer for practising on the horizontal bar without the mattress underneath to fall on.Miss Bousfield was a shrewd, not disagreeable-looking little body, who saved me all the trouble of self-introduction by knowing who I was and why I came.“Well, Jones,” said she—I liked that, I had dreaded she would call me Tommy—“here you are. How is your mother? Why, what a state your hair is in! I really think you’d like to go into the cloak room; you’ll find a brush and comb there. It looks as if your hair were standing on end with horror at me, you know.”Little she knew what my hair was on end about. I was almost grateful to her for the way she put it, and meekly retired to the cloak room, where—I confess it—with a long-tailed girl’s comb, and a soft brush, and a big looking-glass, I contrived to restore my truant locks to their former masculine order.When I returned to the room. Miss Bousfield was sitting at a table, at which was also seated a young lady of about twenty, with an exercise book and dictionary in front of her.Was it a trap? Was I to be taught along with the girls after all? Miss Bousfield evidently divined my perturbation and hastened to explain.“Miss Steele, this is Master Jones, who is going to read Latin with us. Miss Steele is one of my teachers, Jones, and we three are going to brush up our classics together, you see.”Oh, all right. That wasn’t so bad. I had no objection to assist Miss Steele, or Miss Bousfield, for the matter of that, in brushing-up their classics, as long as the girls at large were kept out of the way.I acknowledged Miss Steele’s greeting in a patronising way, and then looked about for a chair. I wished Mr Evans and his lot could see how far removed I was from the common schoolgirl; here were two females actually going to pick my brains for their own good. If women must learn Latin at all, they could hardly do better than secure a public schoolboy to brush them up.“Now, let us see,” said Miss Bousfield, “how far we have all got. Miss Steele, you have read some Cicero, I know, already.”Cicero! That girl read Cicero, when I had barely begun Caesar! This was a crusher for me. How about the brushing-up now?“And you, Jones, have you begun Cicero yet?”“Well, no,” I said, “not yet.”“Caesar, then; I think we shall both be ready to take that up again. How far were you—or shall we begin at the beginning?”“Better begin at the beginning,” said I, anxious not to have to confess that I had not yet got through the first chapter.But before we had gone many lines, Miss Bousfield, I could see, began to have her doubts about my syntax; and after a little conference about syntax, the question of verbs came up, unpleasantly for me; and after deciding we had a little brushing-up to do there, the conversation turned on declensions, a subject on which I had very little definite information to afford to these two females in distress.I verily believe we should have come to exchanging views on the indefinite article itself, had not Miss Bousfield taken the bull by the horns, and said—“I think the best thing, Jones, will be for us to assume we know nothing, to begin with, and start at the beginning. We shall easily get over the ground then, and it will be all the better to be sure of our footing. Let us take Exercise 1. in the grammar.”Miss Steele pouted a little, as if to indicate it was hardly worth her while, as a reader of Cicero, to waste her time over “a high tree,” “a bad boy,” “a beautiful table,” and so on. But I felt sure the exercise would do her good, and was glad Miss Bousfield set her to it.She irritated me by having it all written down in a twinkling, and going on with Cicero on her own account, while I plodded on up the “high tree” and around the “beautiful table.” I hoped Miss Bousfield would rebuke her for insubordination, but she did not, and I began to think much less of both ladies as the afternoon went on.It did not add to my satisfaction to get my exercise back with fifteen corrections scored across it in bold red pencil—whereas Miss Steele’s was not even looked at.I thought of suggesting that it would be only fair that she and I should be treated alike, when Miss Bousfield capped all by saying to her governess—“Perhaps, Miss Steele, you will go through the exercise with Jones and show him where he has gone wrong. Then he can write it out again for you, and try not to have any mistake this time.”This was really too much! To be passed on to a girl who was learning Latin herself, and for her to score about my exercises! It was a conspiracy to degrade me in the eyes of myself and my fellow-mortals.But protest was rendered impossible by Miss Bousfield quitting the room and leaving me to the mercies of her deputy.“Why,” said Miss Steele, not at all unkindly, but with a touch of raillery in her voice—“why were you such a goose, Jones, as to pretend you knew what you didn’t?”“I didn’t; I forgot, that’s all,” said I.“Well, look here, Jones,” said she, in a friendly way—and, by the way, she was not at all bad-looking—“if you really want to get up Latin, and mean to work, I’ll do my best to coach you; but if you’re only playing at learning, I’ve something better to do.”“I’m not playing,” said I. “I don’t know why I’ve got to come and learn Latin at all.”“I suppose you are going to a school some day, aren’t you?”“I’ve been to one, and I’ve left,” said I.“Left?” said she, with a little laugh.“Well, then, I was expelled,” said I.“Tell me all about it.”And I did, and found her not only interested and sympathetic, but decidedly indignant on my account.“It was a great shame,” said she, “especially as your friend never shot the dog at all.”“He’s all right, lucky chap,” said I; “he’s got an exhibition to Low Heath, and is going there after the holidays.”“Why don’t you get an exhibition too, Jones?”The question astounded me. I get an exhibition! I who had been licked once a week for bad copies, and had been told by every teacher I had had anything to do with that I was a hopeless dunce.“Why not?” said the siren at my side. “You’re not a dunce. I can tell that by the way you picked up some of the Caesar just now. You’re lazy, that’s all. That’s easily cured.”“But I’d have no chance at Low Heath. Tempest was a dab at lessons.”“He’s older than you. Besides, the junior exhibitions are not as hard to get. When will you be fourteen?”“July next year.”“Just twelve months. Why not try, Jones? I’ll back you up. I’ve coached my young brother, and he got into Rugby. You needn’t tell any one—so if you miss nobody will be any the wiser. It will make all the difference to have an exam, to aim at.”I stared in wonder at Miss Steele. That young woman could have twisted me round her finger.“I’ll try,” said I.“Not unless you mean to work like a horse,” said she.“All serene,” said I; “honour bright.”“Then it’s a bargain. Mark my word, we’ll pull through.”Whereat we fell hammer and tongs on Exercise Number 1. of the grammar.

My guardian, I am bound to say, disappointed me. I had rather hoped, as I travelled home, that I would be able to put my conduct before him in such a way that he would think me rather a fine young fellow, and consider himself honoured in being my guardian. That my mother would take on, I felt sure.

“Women,” said I to myself—I was thirteen, and therefore was supposed to know what women thought about things—“women can’t see below the surface of things. But old Girdler was a boy himself once, and knows what it is for a fellow to get into a row for being a brick.”

My sage prognostications were falsified doubly. My mother, though she wept to see me come home in this style, did me justice at once. To think I could ever have doubted her!

“Of course, sonny dear,” said she, kissing me, “it was very hard. Still, I am sure it would have been a shabby thing to tell tales.”

“I wasn’t going to do it, at any rate,” said I, growing a little cocky, and deciding that some women, at any rate, can see more than meets the eye.

But Mr Girdler, when he called in during the evening, was most disappointing.

“So this is what you call being a comfort to your mother?” began he, without so much as giving me a chance to say a word.

“Oh, but you don’t understand, sir,” began I.

“Don’t understand!” said he. “I understand you are a naughty little boy”—to think that I should live to be called a little boy!—“and that the mischief about your schooling is that you’ve not been smacked as often as you ought. Understand, indeed! What do you suppose your mother’s to do with a boy like you, that’s wasted his time, and then tells people they don’t understand?”

“I don’t think Tommy meant—” began my mother; but my guardian was too quick for her.

“No, that’s just it. They never do, and yet you pay fifty pounds a year to teach him. It doesn’t matter to some children who else is troubled as long as they enjoy themselves.”

Children! And I had once caught Parkin at cover-point! “Go up to bed now,” said my guardian. “Your mother and I must see what’s to be done with you. Don’t I understand, indeed?”

The conceit was fairly taken out of me now. To be called a little boy was bad enough; to be referred to as a child was even worse; but to be sent to bed at a quarter to eight on a summer evening was the crowning stroke. Certainly, Plummer’s itself was better than this.

What my mother and guardian said to one another I do not know. My mother, I think, had great faith in Mr Girdler’s wisdom; and although she tried not to think ill of me, would probably feel that he knew better than she did.

I knew my fate next morning—it was worse than my most hideous forebodings.

I was to work at my guardian’s office every morning, and in the afternoon I was to go up and learn Latin and arithmetic at—oh, how shall I say it?—a girls’ school!

For an hour after this discovery I candidly admit that I was sorry, unfeignedly sorry, I had not turned sneak and informed against Harry Tempest. I think even he would have wished me to do it rather than suffer this awful humiliation.

I had serious thoughts of running away, of going to sea, or sweeping a London crossing. But there were difficulties in the way; the chief of them being my mother.

“You mustn’t worry about it, Tommy,” said she. “Mr Girdler says it will be the best thing for you. It will be good for you to learn some business, you know, and then in the afternoon you will find Miss Bousfield very nice and clever.”

“It’s not the work I mind, mother,” said I; “it’s—it’s going to a girls’ school.”

“There’s nothing very dreadful about it, I’m sure,” said my mother, with a smile. “I was at one myself once.”

“But,” argued I, “you are only a—”

No—that wouldn’t quite do to one’s own mother. So I stopped short.

“Besides,” said she, “Mr Girdler thinks it the best thing, and he is your guardian.”

This was unanswerable, and I gave it up.

But I was not at all consoled. The bare idea of Tempest, or Brown, or any of the other fellows getting to know that I, Thomas Jones, aged thirteen, who had held my own at Plummer’s, and played in my day in the third Eleven, was going to attend a girls’ school, and be taught Latin and sums by a—a female, was enough to make my hair stand on end. How they would laugh and wax merry at my expense! How they would draw pictures of me in the book covers with long curls and petticoats! How they would address me as “Jemima,” and talk to one another about me in a high falsetto voice! How they would fall into hysterics when they met me, and weep copiously, and ask me to lend them hairpins and parasols! I knew what it would be like only too well, and I quaked as I imagined it.

My one hope was that at Fallowfield nobody knew me; at least, nobody who mattered.

“At least,” said I to myself, “if I am to go and herd with a parcel of girls, I’ll let them see I’m something better than a girl myself.”

When I presented myself at my guardian’s office on the appointed morning in order to start on my commercial career, I met with a reception even less flattering than I had pictured to myself.

Mr Girdler was out, and had left no instructions about me. So for two hours I sat in the waiting-room, balancing my cap on my knee, and trying to work up the spots on the dingy wall-paper into geometrical figures.

When at last he came, so far from commending my patience, he had the face to reproach me for sitting there idle instead of getting some one to set me to work.

“You are not at school here, remember,” said he, by way of being sarcastic; “you come here to work.”

“I worked at school,” said I meekly.

“So I hear,” said he. “Now go to Mr Evans, and tell him you want a job.”

Whereupon my genial guardian quitted me. But he came back a moment after.

“Remember you are to be at the girls’ school at 2:30. Tell Miss Bousfield you are the little boy I spoke to her about, and mind you behave yourself up there.”

Was ever a young man in such a shameful disgrace?

Three days ago I had imagined myself everybody; two days ago I had at least imagined myself somebody; yesterday I had discovered with pain that I was nobody; and to-day I was destined to wonder if I was even that.

Mr Evans raised his eyebrows when I delivered my message to him.

“Are you the governor’s little ward,” he inquired, “who’s just finished his education? All right, my little man, we’ll find a job for you. Run up High Street and bring me the time by the market clock, and here’s a halfpenny to buy yourself sweets on the way.”

It occurred to me as odd that Mr Evans should want to know the time by a clock which was quite ten minutes’ walk from the office. Still, perhaps he had to set the office clocks by it, so I set off, wondering whether I ought to take the halfpenny, but taking it all the same.

I decided that the dignified course would be to buy the sweets, but to take them all back to him, so as to impress him with the fact that I was not as devoted to juvenile creature comforts as he evidently thought me.

“Is that all you have left?” said he, when, after accomplishing my errand, I presented them to him. “My eye! you’ve made good use of your time, and no mistake.”

“I’ve not eaten a single one,” said I.

“It would have been better for your digestion if you had only eaten a single one, instead of swallowing half the lot. I know the ways of you boys. Well, what’s the time?”

“It was twenty-five past ten.”

“I didn’t ask you what it was—I want to know what it is.”

It then occurred to me for the first time that Mr Evans was a humourist. It seemed to me a feeble joke, but he evidently thought it a good one, as did also the other clerks to whom he communicated it.

The worst of it was that the more I tried to explain that, not having a watch of my own, I could not answer for the time by the market clock at any moment but that at which I saw it, the more they seemed to be amused. Some suggested I should go back with a bag and bring the time in it. Others, that I should put it on ten minutes, and then come back, so as to arrive at the exact moment it was when I left it. Others were of opinion that the best way would be for me to go and fetch the market clock with me.

Mr Evans, however, decided that my talents were not equal to the task of bringing the time in any shape or form, and that the best thing I could do was to sit down and lick up envelopes. Which I accordingly did, feeling rather small. I cut my tongue and spoiled my appetite over the operation, and was heartily glad when, after a couple of hours, Mr Evans said—

“Master Tommy, we’re going to lunch. You’ve had yours, so you can stop here, and keep shop till we return.”

“I have to go to Miss Bousfield’s at 2:30,” said I.

“To go where?” they all inquired. And as I blushed very red, and tried to explain myself away, they made a great deal out of my unlucky admission.

“You’re young for that sort of thing,” said one. “I didn’t go courting myself before I was fifteen.”

“I’d made up my mind Sarah Bousfield was going to be an old maid,” said another. “Heigho! it’s never too late to mend.”

“I hear she keeps sugar-plums for good little girls,” said another.

“And the bad little ones get whipped and put in the corner.”

“He mustn’t go like that, anyhow,” said Mr Evans, who, for a responsible head clerk of a big business, was the most flippant person I had ever met; “look at his hair—all out of curl! Come here, little girl, and be made tidy.”

Once at Plummer’s I had come in second for the half-mile under fourteen, and been captain of my side in the junior tug of war! Now I was to have my hair curled publicly!

It was no use resisting. I was held fast while Evans with a long penholder made ringlets of my back hair, and Scroop, with his five fingers, made a fringe of my front. My hat, moreover, was decorated with quills by way of feathers, and a fan made of blotting-paper was thrust into my hands. Then I was pronounced to be nice and tidy, and fit to go and join the other little girls.

I fear that the energy with which, as soon as I was released, I deranged my locks and flung the feathers from my hat, amused my persecutors as much as it solaced me. I was conscious of their hilarious greetings as I strolled up the street, trying to walk in a straight masculine way, but hideously conscious of blushing cheeks and nervous gait. I so far forgot myself that, in my eagerness to display my male superiority, I jostled against a lady, and disgraced myself by swaggering on without even apologising for my rudeness—when, to my consternation, the lady uttered my name, “Tommy.”

It was my mother! I was still within sight of the office. How Evans and his lot would make merry over thiscontretemps! They wouldn’t know who it was who was putting her hand on my shoulder. And yet I am glad to say that I was spared that day the disgrace of being ashamed of my own dear mother. Let the fellows think what they liked. If they had mothers like mine they wouldn’t be the cads they were!

So, with almost unnecessary pomp, I raised my hat to my parent, and put my hand in her arm.

“You’re going up to Miss Bousfield’s,” said she; “I thought I should meet you. What a hurry you were in!”

“Yes; I’m sorry I knocked against you, mother.”

“I’m glad you did. I’m longing to hear how you got on to-day.”

“Oh, pretty well.”

“Was it very hard work?”

“Not particularly.”

“You’ll soon be quite a man of business.”

It occurred to me that if my business career was to be based on no better experience than that I had hitherto had in my guardian’s office, I should not rank as a merchant prince in a hurry.

“Would you like me to go with you to Miss Bousfield’s?”

“If you like, mother. But I can go alone all right.” She was a brick. She guessed what I hoped she would say, and she said it.

“Well, I’ll be looking out for you at tea-time, dear boy,” said she. And she patted my arm lovingly as I started on.

I wished those fellows could have heard her voice and seen her kind face.Shetreated me like a man—which was more than could be said for them.

I went on my way soothed in my ruffled spirits. But my perturbation revived when I stood on the doorstep of the Girls’ High School, and rang the head mistress’s bell. It was a bitter pill, I can tell you, for a fellow who had once been caned by Plummer for practising on the horizontal bar without the mattress underneath to fall on.

Miss Bousfield was a shrewd, not disagreeable-looking little body, who saved me all the trouble of self-introduction by knowing who I was and why I came.

“Well, Jones,” said she—I liked that, I had dreaded she would call me Tommy—“here you are. How is your mother? Why, what a state your hair is in! I really think you’d like to go into the cloak room; you’ll find a brush and comb there. It looks as if your hair were standing on end with horror at me, you know.”

Little she knew what my hair was on end about. I was almost grateful to her for the way she put it, and meekly retired to the cloak room, where—I confess it—with a long-tailed girl’s comb, and a soft brush, and a big looking-glass, I contrived to restore my truant locks to their former masculine order.

When I returned to the room. Miss Bousfield was sitting at a table, at which was also seated a young lady of about twenty, with an exercise book and dictionary in front of her.

Was it a trap? Was I to be taught along with the girls after all? Miss Bousfield evidently divined my perturbation and hastened to explain.

“Miss Steele, this is Master Jones, who is going to read Latin with us. Miss Steele is one of my teachers, Jones, and we three are going to brush up our classics together, you see.”

Oh, all right. That wasn’t so bad. I had no objection to assist Miss Steele, or Miss Bousfield, for the matter of that, in brushing-up their classics, as long as the girls at large were kept out of the way.

I acknowledged Miss Steele’s greeting in a patronising way, and then looked about for a chair. I wished Mr Evans and his lot could see how far removed I was from the common schoolgirl; here were two females actually going to pick my brains for their own good. If women must learn Latin at all, they could hardly do better than secure a public schoolboy to brush them up.

“Now, let us see,” said Miss Bousfield, “how far we have all got. Miss Steele, you have read some Cicero, I know, already.”

Cicero! That girl read Cicero, when I had barely begun Caesar! This was a crusher for me. How about the brushing-up now?

“And you, Jones, have you begun Cicero yet?”

“Well, no,” I said, “not yet.”

“Caesar, then; I think we shall both be ready to take that up again. How far were you—or shall we begin at the beginning?”

“Better begin at the beginning,” said I, anxious not to have to confess that I had not yet got through the first chapter.

But before we had gone many lines, Miss Bousfield, I could see, began to have her doubts about my syntax; and after a little conference about syntax, the question of verbs came up, unpleasantly for me; and after deciding we had a little brushing-up to do there, the conversation turned on declensions, a subject on which I had very little definite information to afford to these two females in distress.

I verily believe we should have come to exchanging views on the indefinite article itself, had not Miss Bousfield taken the bull by the horns, and said—

“I think the best thing, Jones, will be for us to assume we know nothing, to begin with, and start at the beginning. We shall easily get over the ground then, and it will be all the better to be sure of our footing. Let us take Exercise 1. in the grammar.”

Miss Steele pouted a little, as if to indicate it was hardly worth her while, as a reader of Cicero, to waste her time over “a high tree,” “a bad boy,” “a beautiful table,” and so on. But I felt sure the exercise would do her good, and was glad Miss Bousfield set her to it.

She irritated me by having it all written down in a twinkling, and going on with Cicero on her own account, while I plodded on up the “high tree” and around the “beautiful table.” I hoped Miss Bousfield would rebuke her for insubordination, but she did not, and I began to think much less of both ladies as the afternoon went on.

It did not add to my satisfaction to get my exercise back with fifteen corrections scored across it in bold red pencil—whereas Miss Steele’s was not even looked at.

I thought of suggesting that it would be only fair that she and I should be treated alike, when Miss Bousfield capped all by saying to her governess—

“Perhaps, Miss Steele, you will go through the exercise with Jones and show him where he has gone wrong. Then he can write it out again for you, and try not to have any mistake this time.”

This was really too much! To be passed on to a girl who was learning Latin herself, and for her to score about my exercises! It was a conspiracy to degrade me in the eyes of myself and my fellow-mortals.

But protest was rendered impossible by Miss Bousfield quitting the room and leaving me to the mercies of her deputy.

“Why,” said Miss Steele, not at all unkindly, but with a touch of raillery in her voice—“why were you such a goose, Jones, as to pretend you knew what you didn’t?”

“I didn’t; I forgot, that’s all,” said I.

“Well, look here, Jones,” said she, in a friendly way—and, by the way, she was not at all bad-looking—“if you really want to get up Latin, and mean to work, I’ll do my best to coach you; but if you’re only playing at learning, I’ve something better to do.”

“I’m not playing,” said I. “I don’t know why I’ve got to come and learn Latin at all.”

“I suppose you are going to a school some day, aren’t you?”

“I’ve been to one, and I’ve left,” said I.

“Left?” said she, with a little laugh.

“Well, then, I was expelled,” said I.

“Tell me all about it.”

And I did, and found her not only interested and sympathetic, but decidedly indignant on my account.

“It was a great shame,” said she, “especially as your friend never shot the dog at all.”

“He’s all right, lucky chap,” said I; “he’s got an exhibition to Low Heath, and is going there after the holidays.”

“Why don’t you get an exhibition too, Jones?”

The question astounded me. I get an exhibition! I who had been licked once a week for bad copies, and had been told by every teacher I had had anything to do with that I was a hopeless dunce.

“Why not?” said the siren at my side. “You’re not a dunce. I can tell that by the way you picked up some of the Caesar just now. You’re lazy, that’s all. That’s easily cured.”

“But I’d have no chance at Low Heath. Tempest was a dab at lessons.”

“He’s older than you. Besides, the junior exhibitions are not as hard to get. When will you be fourteen?”

“July next year.”

“Just twelve months. Why not try, Jones? I’ll back you up. I’ve coached my young brother, and he got into Rugby. You needn’t tell any one—so if you miss nobody will be any the wiser. It will make all the difference to have an exam, to aim at.”

I stared in wonder at Miss Steele. That young woman could have twisted me round her finger.

“I’ll try,” said I.

“Not unless you mean to work like a horse,” said she.

“All serene,” said I; “honour bright.”

“Then it’s a bargain. Mark my word, we’ll pull through.”

Whereat we fell hammer and tongs on Exercise Number 1. of the grammar.

Chapter Five.A “Coach” Drive!If any one had told me two days ago that it would be reserved to an assistant teacher in a girls’ school to inspire me with an ardent interest in Latin and arithmetic I should have laughed him to scorn.Miss Steele, however, succeeded in achieving the impossible. I am bound to confess that my new-born ardour was not mainly due to affection for the dead language in question, or even to esteem for my preceptress. But the idea of taking Low Heath, so to speak, by storm, had fairly roused my ambition. The glory of rising superior to my fate, of shaking off the ill-tutored Mr Evans and his works, and rejoining my old school-comrade with all the prestige of a fellow-exhibitioner, captivated my imagination and steeled me to the endurance of hardships of which I had hitherto conceived myself utterly incapable.Miss Steele had no notion of letting me off my bargain. She procured particulars of the examinations, and very formidable appeared the list of subjects as we conned them. Still she was firm in her belief that I could do it if I only worked, and since her eagerness fully equalled my own, there was not much chance of my work dropping slack.If any other incentive was wanted it was the supreme discomfort of my position at my guardian’s office.My comrades there persistently misunderstood me.They put me down as an opiniated young prig, with whom all sorts of liberties might be taken, and out of whom it was lawful, for their own amusement, to take unlimited “rise.”I was, of course, unmercifully chaffed about the girls’ school.“He’s getting on,” said one of them, on the very morning after mydébut. “They walk out together.”“That was not Miss Bousfield you saw me with at all,” I explained. “That was my mother.”“Quite time she came to look after you, too. How did she like your curls? You should put them in papers overnight, then we shouldn’t have to do them every day.”Where upon I was seized, and had my locks tied up in wads of blotting-paper, and ordered to sit down and lick envelopes, and not dare to put my hand to my head till leave was accorded me from headquarters.In this plight my guardian came in and discovered me.“Please, Mr Girdler—” said I, not waiting for him to remark on my curious appearance.But Mr Girdler, who was not ordinarily given to mirth, abruptly left the room with a smile on his face before I could proceed.When he re-entered he was stern and severe.“Make yourself decent at once, sir,” said he. “No, I don’t want any of your explanations. No doubt they are highly satisfactory. I begin to understand now why you were sent away from school. It strikes me an idiot asylum is the proper place for you.”I dismally tore my curl-papers out of my hair and went on with my work till the blessed hour of release came.Then I hied straight to the nearest barber.“I want my hair as short as you can cut it,” said I.“Very good, sir; we can give you the county crop, if you like.”“Is that the shortest you do?” inquired I, not knowing what the “county crop” was.“Well, sir, we ain’t asked to take more off as a rule, unless it is a clean shave you want.”“No, the county crop will do,” said I.And, to do the barber justice, I got it. I barely knew myself in the glass when the operation was over. I had some misgivings as to the remarks of Evans & Company in the morning—at any rate, they wouldn’t curl my hair any more.Miss Bousfield and Miss Steele regarded me with something like dismay when they saw me, but were polite enough to make no remark beyond giving me permission to wear my hat if I felt a draught.“Miss Steele has been telling me of your plan of work,” said Miss Bousfield; “and I fully approve, on the understanding you are serious about it. I am not so sanguine as Miss Steele is; still, I do not wish to discourage you, Jones. But understand, it means a year’s hard work.”I assured her I was prepared for any amount of work, and Miss Steele, whose ambition was as keenly aroused as mine, gave a general promise on my behalf that I would work like a horse.“Now,” said she, when Miss Bousfield had left us, “you’re in for it, Jones. If you don’t work, mind, it will be a disgrace to me as well as you.”I fear, during the months that followed, this ardent young “coach” was frequently on the point of disgrace. For a week or two I surprised myself with my industry. Then I caught myself wondering at odd times whether I was really as sure of passing as I fancied, and whether, if I failed, it would not be a horrible sell to have worked so hard for nothing.Then for a day or so I came in a little late, and took to grumbling over my tasks.“Now, look here, Jones,” said she, one day, “you were five minutes late on Monday, ten minutes late on Tuesday and Wednesday, and a quarter of an hour late to-day. How much is that in the week?”“Forty minutes,” said I; mental arithmetic was a strong point with me.“Very good; there’s forty minutes lost. The examination may turn on the very lesson you might have learned in that time. Now, I’m not going to threaten you, but what should you say if I were to call at the office and fetch you every day?”I nearly jumped out of my chair.“Oh, don’t, please don’t, Miss Steele!” said I. “I’ll be here to the second, in future, I promise.”“All right,” said she, with a smile, and the subject dropped.This dreadful threat kept me up to the mark for the next few weeks, but even it lost its terrors in time, and my preceptress had to apply the spur in other ways as the time went on.Once, after I had been particularly slack, and had, moreover, been so rude to her that she ended the lesson abruptly, I thought it was all up. For, when I presented myself next day, I was informed by the servant that Miss Steele was busy, and had no time to see me.I was locked out! My dismay knew no bounds. Suppose she had “chucked” me altogether, what would become of my chance of getting into Low Heath?I retired home in great perturbation, and confided the state of the case to my mother, who advised me there and then to sit down and write an apology.I had never done such a thing in my life. Once I had verbally begged Tempest’s pardon for some error; but to commit myself in writing to a girl!“My dear Miss Steele,” I wrote,—“I’m sorry. Yours truly, T. Jones.”“That will do very well,” said my mother. “It’s not too long, at the same time it says what you want to say.”I wasn’t altogether pleased with it myself, but allowed the maid to take it up to the school, with instructions to wait for an answer.In due time she returned with a missive from Miss Steele.“My dear Jones,—To-morrow as usual. Yours truly, M. Steele.”I am sure no model letter-writer ever said as much in as few words.This little correspondence cleared the air for the time. No reference was made to it when I turned up as usual the next day; but from the way I worked, and the way she taught, it was evident we had both had a shake.My next relapse was even more serious. It came early in the spring, after our work had proceeded for about nine months.I really had made good progress all round. Not in Latin only, but in Greek grammar, arithmetic, and English, and was naturally inclined to feel a little cocky of the result.“Don’t crow, Jones,” she said; “you’ve a lot to do yet.”But I did not altogether agree with her, and was inclined to indulge myself a little of an evening when I was supposed to be preparing my work. In an evil day I fell across an old book-shop, and found two books, which helped to undo me. One was a rollicking story of a pirate who swept the Western Main, and captured treasure, and seized youths and maidens, and ran blockades, and was finally brought to book in a sportsmanlike manner by a jolly young English middy, amid scenes of terrific slaughter amidships. That was one purchase. The other was even more disturbing. It was a “crib” to the arithmetic I was doing, with all the sums beautifully worked out and the answers given.So—I must make the confession—I astonished Miss Steele greatly for a while by my extraordinary proficiency in arithmetic, and during the same time spent my evenings in imagination on the high seas, flying aloft the black flag, and shooting across the bows of Her Majesty’s ships wherever I sighted them.This career of duplicity could not be expected to last long. One afternoon Miss Steele brought matters to a crisis by calling upon me to work a sum on the spot which was not in the book.I failed egregiously.“That’s singular,” said she; “it’s far simpler than those you brought with you to-day. How long did it take you to do them?”I looked hard at Miss Steele, and she looked hard at me. The pirate game was up at last.“About two minutes each,” said I.“Twominutes?”“Yes—as fast as I could copy them out of the crib. I’m sorry, Miss Steele.”She shut up her book abruptly.“I didn’t expect it of you, Jones,” said she; “you’ve been making a fool of me. I’ve lost confidence in you; now you can go.”“Oh, I say. Miss Steele, I’m so awfully—”“Be quiet, sir, and go!” said she, more fiercely than I had ever known her.I took up my cap and went. She was in no humour to listen to explanations, but it was clear I had done for myself now. After what had happened she was not likely to give me another chance.I did not care to tell my mother how matters stood this time. It would be difficult to put my case in a favourable light, and I was quite sure my mother could not help me out of my difficulty.I solemnly burned my crib that night in the parlour fire, after every one was in bed. It took ages to consume, and nearly set the chimney on fire in the operation. But when that was done I was as far off a solution of my difficulty as ever.I hardly slept a wink, and in the morning my mother added to my discomfort by remarking on my looks.“You’re working too hard, dear boy,” said she. “I must ask Miss Steele to give you a little holiday, or you’ll be quite knocked up.”“Please don’t,” said I. “I’m all right.”Here the postman’s knock caused a diversion.“A letter for you, Tommy,” said my mother.It was from Tempest, of all people—the first he had condescended to write me since we had parted company in Plummer’s hall nearly a year ago.It was a rambling, patronising effusion, in his usual style; but every word of it, in my present plight, had a sting for me.“It’s a pity you’re not here,” wrote he; “it’s a ripping place. Everything about the place is ripping except the drilling master and the dumplings on Mondays, which are both as vile as vile can be. I’m in the upper fifth, and shall probably get my ribbon and perhaps my house after summer. Plummer’s was regular tomfooling to this. We’ve a match on with Rugby this term, and I’m on the reserve for the Eleven. I suppose you know young Brown is coming here; though I’m sorry to say as a day boy. His people are going to live in the town, so he’ll be able to come on the cheap. I shall do what I can for him, but I expect he’ll have a hot time, for the day boys are rather small beer. The exhibitioners have the best time of it. If Brown could get a junior exhibition and live in school, he could fag for me and have a jolly time. But poor Dicky hasn’t got it in him. I got rather lammed after I got home from Plummer’s; but it was all right when Plummer wrote to say that a burglar had shot the dog, and he was sorry there had been a mistake, and hoped I’d go back. Catch me! It’s better fun here—as much cricket as you like, and a river, and gymnasium, and all sorts of sprees. It wouldn’t be half bad if you were here, kid; but I suppose you’re a young gent with a topper and a bag at your guardian’s office. I hope it suits you—wouldn’t me—” and so on.How this letter made me long to be at Low Heath, and how it made me realise what an ass I had been to go in for that crib! I really felt too bad to go that day to Miss Steele, even if she would have let me! and wandered about cudgelling my brains how on earth I could get her to take me back again.She wouldn’t believe my protestations, I knew; but she might believe deeds, not words.So I shut myself up in my room and took down my arithmetic, and worked out sum after sum all off my own bat, till my brain reeled and I could hardly distinguish one figure from another. Some I knew were wrong, others I hoped were right; all werebonâ fide. I stuck to it till nearly midnight, and then, merely writing my name on the top, put them into an envelope, under the flap of which I wrote, “I’ve burnt the crib. Try me this once,” and posted them to my offended teacher.No answer came for twenty-four hours, which I spent on pins and needles, working away frantically during my leisure hours, and occupying part of my business time in personally avenging an insult offered to Miss Steele’s name by one of my guardian’s junior clerks. I wished she could have seen me. I got a terrible blow on the eye, but I gave him two, and caused him to regret audibly that he had spoken disparagingly of my cruel fair.Next morning a note came to my mother.“Please tell your boy I shall be in this afternoon.”In fear and trembling I presented myself, and confronted not Miss Steele but Miss Bousfield, who addressed me in terse and forcible language, and gave me to understand that I was a person of extremely second-rate character and attainments. I acknowledged it, but hoped for an opportunity of improving her impressions.“I shall leave it to Miss Steele to do as she thinks best,” said the head mistress. “I am sorry indeed her time has been wasted over a worthless pupil. You had better wait till she comes.”I waited grimly, like a culprit for the jury. When she came in and saw, as I suppose, my woebegone face, I read hope in her manner.“I got your note, Jones,” said she.“Oh! I say, Miss Steele, I’m really frightfully sorry. I know it was a caddish thing to do, especially when you had been so kind. Look here, I did all those sums myself, without help; and here’s another batch I’ve done since; and—and—” (here I resolved to play a trump card) “and I got this black eye sticking up for you.”That settled it. She smiled once more and said, “Well, Jones, I’ll say no more about it this once. I had made up my mind it was no use our going on together; but I’ll try, if you will.”“Try—I’ll kill myself working,” said I, “to make up.”“That wouldn’t do much good,” said she; “but I’ll try to forget all this ever happened, and we’ll go on just where we left off.”“That was page 72,” said I eagerly; “and, I say, Miss Steele, you remember my telling you about Tempest, and Dicky Brown, you know; well—”“Is that on page 72, or is it something which we can talk about when work is done?”So I got my chance once again, and this time I stuck to it.The nearer the time came, the more desperately we worked. Sometimes Miss Steele had positively to hunt me out for a walk, or, if I would not go alone, to drag me along with her to some place where, regardless of our possible detection by Evans and his friends, we could combine fresh air and education.The fatal day came at last when I had to go off to my ordeal. I was obliged at the last moment to disclose my well-kept secret to my mother and my guardian. The former fell on my neck, the latter grunted incredulously and embarrassed me by presenting me with a five-shilling piece.Miss Steele came down to see me off at the station. “Keep cool,” said she; “sit where you can see the clock, and don’t try to answer two questions at once.”Never did tyro get better advice!I was too excited to heed much of the big stately building I was so eager some day to claim as my own school. It was holiday time, and only a little band of combatants like myself huddled into one corner of the big hall, and gazed up in an awestruck way at the portrait of the Jacobean knight to whom Low Heath owed its foundation.To me it was all like a dream. I woke to discover a paper on the desk before me; a paper bristling with questions, each of them challenging me to get into the school if I could. Then I remember dashing my pen into the ink and beginning to write.“Keep cool. Keep your eye on the clock. Try one question at a time,” echoed a voice in my ear.How lonely I felt there all by myself! How I wished I could turn and seeherat my side!The clock crawled round from eleven to three, and I went on writing. Then I remember a hand coming along the desk and taking the papers out of my sight. Then a bewildered train journey home, and a hundred questions at the other end.I went on dreaming for a week, conscious sometimes of my mother’s face, sometimes of Miss Steele’s, sometimes of Mr Evans’s. But what I did with myself in the interval I should be sorry to be called upon to tell.At last, one morning, I woke with a vengeance, as I held in my hand a paper on which were printed a score or so of names, third among which I made out the words—“Jones, T.—(Miss M. Steele, High School, Fallowfield): Exhibition, £40.”So I was a Low Heathen at last!

If any one had told me two days ago that it would be reserved to an assistant teacher in a girls’ school to inspire me with an ardent interest in Latin and arithmetic I should have laughed him to scorn.

Miss Steele, however, succeeded in achieving the impossible. I am bound to confess that my new-born ardour was not mainly due to affection for the dead language in question, or even to esteem for my preceptress. But the idea of taking Low Heath, so to speak, by storm, had fairly roused my ambition. The glory of rising superior to my fate, of shaking off the ill-tutored Mr Evans and his works, and rejoining my old school-comrade with all the prestige of a fellow-exhibitioner, captivated my imagination and steeled me to the endurance of hardships of which I had hitherto conceived myself utterly incapable.

Miss Steele had no notion of letting me off my bargain. She procured particulars of the examinations, and very formidable appeared the list of subjects as we conned them. Still she was firm in her belief that I could do it if I only worked, and since her eagerness fully equalled my own, there was not much chance of my work dropping slack.

If any other incentive was wanted it was the supreme discomfort of my position at my guardian’s office.

My comrades there persistently misunderstood me.

They put me down as an opiniated young prig, with whom all sorts of liberties might be taken, and out of whom it was lawful, for their own amusement, to take unlimited “rise.”

I was, of course, unmercifully chaffed about the girls’ school.

“He’s getting on,” said one of them, on the very morning after mydébut. “They walk out together.”

“That was not Miss Bousfield you saw me with at all,” I explained. “That was my mother.”

“Quite time she came to look after you, too. How did she like your curls? You should put them in papers overnight, then we shouldn’t have to do them every day.”

Where upon I was seized, and had my locks tied up in wads of blotting-paper, and ordered to sit down and lick envelopes, and not dare to put my hand to my head till leave was accorded me from headquarters.

In this plight my guardian came in and discovered me.

“Please, Mr Girdler—” said I, not waiting for him to remark on my curious appearance.

But Mr Girdler, who was not ordinarily given to mirth, abruptly left the room with a smile on his face before I could proceed.

When he re-entered he was stern and severe.

“Make yourself decent at once, sir,” said he. “No, I don’t want any of your explanations. No doubt they are highly satisfactory. I begin to understand now why you were sent away from school. It strikes me an idiot asylum is the proper place for you.”

I dismally tore my curl-papers out of my hair and went on with my work till the blessed hour of release came.

Then I hied straight to the nearest barber.

“I want my hair as short as you can cut it,” said I.

“Very good, sir; we can give you the county crop, if you like.”

“Is that the shortest you do?” inquired I, not knowing what the “county crop” was.

“Well, sir, we ain’t asked to take more off as a rule, unless it is a clean shave you want.”

“No, the county crop will do,” said I.

And, to do the barber justice, I got it. I barely knew myself in the glass when the operation was over. I had some misgivings as to the remarks of Evans & Company in the morning—at any rate, they wouldn’t curl my hair any more.

Miss Bousfield and Miss Steele regarded me with something like dismay when they saw me, but were polite enough to make no remark beyond giving me permission to wear my hat if I felt a draught.

“Miss Steele has been telling me of your plan of work,” said Miss Bousfield; “and I fully approve, on the understanding you are serious about it. I am not so sanguine as Miss Steele is; still, I do not wish to discourage you, Jones. But understand, it means a year’s hard work.”

I assured her I was prepared for any amount of work, and Miss Steele, whose ambition was as keenly aroused as mine, gave a general promise on my behalf that I would work like a horse.

“Now,” said she, when Miss Bousfield had left us, “you’re in for it, Jones. If you don’t work, mind, it will be a disgrace to me as well as you.”

I fear, during the months that followed, this ardent young “coach” was frequently on the point of disgrace. For a week or two I surprised myself with my industry. Then I caught myself wondering at odd times whether I was really as sure of passing as I fancied, and whether, if I failed, it would not be a horrible sell to have worked so hard for nothing.

Then for a day or so I came in a little late, and took to grumbling over my tasks.

“Now, look here, Jones,” said she, one day, “you were five minutes late on Monday, ten minutes late on Tuesday and Wednesday, and a quarter of an hour late to-day. How much is that in the week?”

“Forty minutes,” said I; mental arithmetic was a strong point with me.

“Very good; there’s forty minutes lost. The examination may turn on the very lesson you might have learned in that time. Now, I’m not going to threaten you, but what should you say if I were to call at the office and fetch you every day?”

I nearly jumped out of my chair.

“Oh, don’t, please don’t, Miss Steele!” said I. “I’ll be here to the second, in future, I promise.”

“All right,” said she, with a smile, and the subject dropped.

This dreadful threat kept me up to the mark for the next few weeks, but even it lost its terrors in time, and my preceptress had to apply the spur in other ways as the time went on.

Once, after I had been particularly slack, and had, moreover, been so rude to her that she ended the lesson abruptly, I thought it was all up. For, when I presented myself next day, I was informed by the servant that Miss Steele was busy, and had no time to see me.

I was locked out! My dismay knew no bounds. Suppose she had “chucked” me altogether, what would become of my chance of getting into Low Heath?

I retired home in great perturbation, and confided the state of the case to my mother, who advised me there and then to sit down and write an apology.

I had never done such a thing in my life. Once I had verbally begged Tempest’s pardon for some error; but to commit myself in writing to a girl!

“My dear Miss Steele,” I wrote,—“I’m sorry. Yours truly, T. Jones.”

“That will do very well,” said my mother. “It’s not too long, at the same time it says what you want to say.”

I wasn’t altogether pleased with it myself, but allowed the maid to take it up to the school, with instructions to wait for an answer.

In due time she returned with a missive from Miss Steele.

“My dear Jones,—To-morrow as usual. Yours truly, M. Steele.”

I am sure no model letter-writer ever said as much in as few words.

This little correspondence cleared the air for the time. No reference was made to it when I turned up as usual the next day; but from the way I worked, and the way she taught, it was evident we had both had a shake.

My next relapse was even more serious. It came early in the spring, after our work had proceeded for about nine months.

I really had made good progress all round. Not in Latin only, but in Greek grammar, arithmetic, and English, and was naturally inclined to feel a little cocky of the result.

“Don’t crow, Jones,” she said; “you’ve a lot to do yet.”

But I did not altogether agree with her, and was inclined to indulge myself a little of an evening when I was supposed to be preparing my work. In an evil day I fell across an old book-shop, and found two books, which helped to undo me. One was a rollicking story of a pirate who swept the Western Main, and captured treasure, and seized youths and maidens, and ran blockades, and was finally brought to book in a sportsmanlike manner by a jolly young English middy, amid scenes of terrific slaughter amidships. That was one purchase. The other was even more disturbing. It was a “crib” to the arithmetic I was doing, with all the sums beautifully worked out and the answers given.

So—I must make the confession—I astonished Miss Steele greatly for a while by my extraordinary proficiency in arithmetic, and during the same time spent my evenings in imagination on the high seas, flying aloft the black flag, and shooting across the bows of Her Majesty’s ships wherever I sighted them.

This career of duplicity could not be expected to last long. One afternoon Miss Steele brought matters to a crisis by calling upon me to work a sum on the spot which was not in the book.

I failed egregiously.

“That’s singular,” said she; “it’s far simpler than those you brought with you to-day. How long did it take you to do them?”

I looked hard at Miss Steele, and she looked hard at me. The pirate game was up at last.

“About two minutes each,” said I.

“Twominutes?”

“Yes—as fast as I could copy them out of the crib. I’m sorry, Miss Steele.”

She shut up her book abruptly.

“I didn’t expect it of you, Jones,” said she; “you’ve been making a fool of me. I’ve lost confidence in you; now you can go.”

“Oh, I say. Miss Steele, I’m so awfully—”

“Be quiet, sir, and go!” said she, more fiercely than I had ever known her.

I took up my cap and went. She was in no humour to listen to explanations, but it was clear I had done for myself now. After what had happened she was not likely to give me another chance.

I did not care to tell my mother how matters stood this time. It would be difficult to put my case in a favourable light, and I was quite sure my mother could not help me out of my difficulty.

I solemnly burned my crib that night in the parlour fire, after every one was in bed. It took ages to consume, and nearly set the chimney on fire in the operation. But when that was done I was as far off a solution of my difficulty as ever.

I hardly slept a wink, and in the morning my mother added to my discomfort by remarking on my looks.

“You’re working too hard, dear boy,” said she. “I must ask Miss Steele to give you a little holiday, or you’ll be quite knocked up.”

“Please don’t,” said I. “I’m all right.”

Here the postman’s knock caused a diversion.

“A letter for you, Tommy,” said my mother.

It was from Tempest, of all people—the first he had condescended to write me since we had parted company in Plummer’s hall nearly a year ago.

It was a rambling, patronising effusion, in his usual style; but every word of it, in my present plight, had a sting for me.

“It’s a pity you’re not here,” wrote he; “it’s a ripping place. Everything about the place is ripping except the drilling master and the dumplings on Mondays, which are both as vile as vile can be. I’m in the upper fifth, and shall probably get my ribbon and perhaps my house after summer. Plummer’s was regular tomfooling to this. We’ve a match on with Rugby this term, and I’m on the reserve for the Eleven. I suppose you know young Brown is coming here; though I’m sorry to say as a day boy. His people are going to live in the town, so he’ll be able to come on the cheap. I shall do what I can for him, but I expect he’ll have a hot time, for the day boys are rather small beer. The exhibitioners have the best time of it. If Brown could get a junior exhibition and live in school, he could fag for me and have a jolly time. But poor Dicky hasn’t got it in him. I got rather lammed after I got home from Plummer’s; but it was all right when Plummer wrote to say that a burglar had shot the dog, and he was sorry there had been a mistake, and hoped I’d go back. Catch me! It’s better fun here—as much cricket as you like, and a river, and gymnasium, and all sorts of sprees. It wouldn’t be half bad if you were here, kid; but I suppose you’re a young gent with a topper and a bag at your guardian’s office. I hope it suits you—wouldn’t me—” and so on.

How this letter made me long to be at Low Heath, and how it made me realise what an ass I had been to go in for that crib! I really felt too bad to go that day to Miss Steele, even if she would have let me! and wandered about cudgelling my brains how on earth I could get her to take me back again.

She wouldn’t believe my protestations, I knew; but she might believe deeds, not words.

So I shut myself up in my room and took down my arithmetic, and worked out sum after sum all off my own bat, till my brain reeled and I could hardly distinguish one figure from another. Some I knew were wrong, others I hoped were right; all werebonâ fide. I stuck to it till nearly midnight, and then, merely writing my name on the top, put them into an envelope, under the flap of which I wrote, “I’ve burnt the crib. Try me this once,” and posted them to my offended teacher.

No answer came for twenty-four hours, which I spent on pins and needles, working away frantically during my leisure hours, and occupying part of my business time in personally avenging an insult offered to Miss Steele’s name by one of my guardian’s junior clerks. I wished she could have seen me. I got a terrible blow on the eye, but I gave him two, and caused him to regret audibly that he had spoken disparagingly of my cruel fair.

Next morning a note came to my mother.

“Please tell your boy I shall be in this afternoon.”

In fear and trembling I presented myself, and confronted not Miss Steele but Miss Bousfield, who addressed me in terse and forcible language, and gave me to understand that I was a person of extremely second-rate character and attainments. I acknowledged it, but hoped for an opportunity of improving her impressions.

“I shall leave it to Miss Steele to do as she thinks best,” said the head mistress. “I am sorry indeed her time has been wasted over a worthless pupil. You had better wait till she comes.”

I waited grimly, like a culprit for the jury. When she came in and saw, as I suppose, my woebegone face, I read hope in her manner.

“I got your note, Jones,” said she.

“Oh! I say, Miss Steele, I’m really frightfully sorry. I know it was a caddish thing to do, especially when you had been so kind. Look here, I did all those sums myself, without help; and here’s another batch I’ve done since; and—and—” (here I resolved to play a trump card) “and I got this black eye sticking up for you.”

That settled it. She smiled once more and said, “Well, Jones, I’ll say no more about it this once. I had made up my mind it was no use our going on together; but I’ll try, if you will.”

“Try—I’ll kill myself working,” said I, “to make up.”

“That wouldn’t do much good,” said she; “but I’ll try to forget all this ever happened, and we’ll go on just where we left off.”

“That was page 72,” said I eagerly; “and, I say, Miss Steele, you remember my telling you about Tempest, and Dicky Brown, you know; well—”

“Is that on page 72, or is it something which we can talk about when work is done?”

So I got my chance once again, and this time I stuck to it.

The nearer the time came, the more desperately we worked. Sometimes Miss Steele had positively to hunt me out for a walk, or, if I would not go alone, to drag me along with her to some place where, regardless of our possible detection by Evans and his friends, we could combine fresh air and education.

The fatal day came at last when I had to go off to my ordeal. I was obliged at the last moment to disclose my well-kept secret to my mother and my guardian. The former fell on my neck, the latter grunted incredulously and embarrassed me by presenting me with a five-shilling piece.

Miss Steele came down to see me off at the station. “Keep cool,” said she; “sit where you can see the clock, and don’t try to answer two questions at once.”

Never did tyro get better advice!

I was too excited to heed much of the big stately building I was so eager some day to claim as my own school. It was holiday time, and only a little band of combatants like myself huddled into one corner of the big hall, and gazed up in an awestruck way at the portrait of the Jacobean knight to whom Low Heath owed its foundation.

To me it was all like a dream. I woke to discover a paper on the desk before me; a paper bristling with questions, each of them challenging me to get into the school if I could. Then I remember dashing my pen into the ink and beginning to write.

“Keep cool. Keep your eye on the clock. Try one question at a time,” echoed a voice in my ear.

How lonely I felt there all by myself! How I wished I could turn and seeherat my side!

The clock crawled round from eleven to three, and I went on writing. Then I remember a hand coming along the desk and taking the papers out of my sight. Then a bewildered train journey home, and a hundred questions at the other end.

I went on dreaming for a week, conscious sometimes of my mother’s face, sometimes of Miss Steele’s, sometimes of Mr Evans’s. But what I did with myself in the interval I should be sorry to be called upon to tell.

At last, one morning, I woke with a vengeance, as I held in my hand a paper on which were printed a score or so of names, third among which I made out the words—

“Jones, T.—(Miss M. Steele, High School, Fallowfield): Exhibition, £40.”

So I was a Low Heathen at last!

Chapter Six.Up to Form.I have reason to fear that for a fortnight after I received the astounding news of my scholastic success I was an intolerable nuisance to my friends and a ridiculous spectacle to my enemies.I may have had some excuse. I had worked hard, and got myself into a “tilted” state of mind altogether. Still, that was no reason why I should consider that the whole world was standing still to look on at my triumph; still less why I should patronise my mother and Miss Steele and Miss Bousfield as three well-intentioned persons who had just had an object-lesson in the inferiority of their sex.My mother and Miss Steele were too delighted to mind my airs. They were really proud—one to be my mother, the other to be my “coach.” And when I strutted in and talked as if they barely knew how honoured they were by my company, they laughed good-humouredly, and said to one another,—“No wonder he’s pleased with himself, dear boy.”Miss Bousfield was less disposed to bow the knee.“I hope you won’t forget what you owe to Miss Steele,” said she. “I never hoped she could make as much as she did of such unpromising material. It’s what I always have said—good teaching can make a scholar of a dunce.”“Ah,” said I, “you thought I was a dunce. I determined you should see I wasn’t. I am glad your school gets the credit of the exhibition.”“I’ll wait and see how you turn out, before I am glad,” said she. “I hope the High School will not get a reputation for turning out prigs, Jones.”I couldn’t quite understand Miss Bousfield. She was not as cordial as I thought she might be, considering the honour I had brought upon her school.My guardian’s clerks were even less impressed by my distinction than she.“What’s the matter this morning?” said Mr Evans on the day of my triumph, as I sat smiling inwardly at my desk.“Nothing particular,” said I.“It looks as if it was bad stomach-ache—I’d try camomile pills, if I were you.”“Thank you—I don’t require pills. If you want to know, I’ve been up for an exam, and passed.”“Been up where?”“Up for an exam.—an examination,” said I, surprised at their density.“Where, at the girls’ school?”“Girls’ school, no; at Low Heath.” Mr Evans looked grave, and beckoned his comrades a little nearer.“Awfully sad, isn’t it?” said he, with a seriousness which surprised me.“Yes. It’s a good institution, though. My uncle tried to get a case in there once, but failed.” I wasn’t surprised to hear that.“They only let theverydotty ones in,” said Mr Evans. “Besides, it’ll be a part payment case—at least, I should think the governor will plank down something.”“It’s worth £40 a year for four years,” said I, understanding very imperfectly the drift of these remarks, but pleased at least to find I had succeeded in impressing my fellow-clerks.“Ah, so much?—they can’t treat cases like yours for nothing. When are you going in?”“In September. It’s a splendid place—five hundred fellows there.”“So many! It’s rather sad to think about, isn’t it, Hodges? Five hundred! What a lot of trouble there is in the world, to be sure!”“I can’t say I shall be sorry—I know one or two chaps there already.”“Very likely, if it runs in the family at all.”“What runs?” said I, not taking him.Mr Evans tapped his forehead.“Never mind,” said he, “it’s not your fault. I expect four years will do marvels with you. We’ll come and see you sometimes, on visiting days.”“Ah, I don’t suppose there are visiting days, except for parents,” said I.“I know one or two of the staff, though,” said one of the party. “I shall be able to hear about you from them.”“Oh, all right,” said I. “I hope things here will go on all right when I’m at school.”“School?” said Mr Evans, stooping with his hands on his knees, and looking into my face. “Did you say school? Is Low Heath a school?”“Rather. What did you think it was?”“We thought it was an idiot asylum,” said Mr Evans. And a shout of laughter at my expense confirmed his statement.I did not deign to explain; and for the few days I remained at the office I made no further reference to my academic triumphs, though my comrades rarely failed to make merry over the asylum.At the end of a fortnight I began to come to myself, and realise that I had not exactly borne my honours blushingly. And I was glad when my mother proposed a week or two at the seaside, to brace up before plunging into the ocean of public school fife.My guardian, who had of late grown fairly civil to me, in the prospect of getting me off his hands, was good enough to release me from the office; and I shook the dust of that detestable place off my feet with unfeigned thankfulness.Mr Evans wanted to get up a farewell supper for me, and I was very near allowing myself the honour, when I accidentally discovered that all the provisions were to be ordered in my name and the bill sent to me. Whereupon I declined the invitation with thanks, and regretted that a previous engagement would prevent my having the pleasure of joining their party.Once in the quiet of the seaside, with my mother for companion, I recovered my proper frame of mind, and began to take sober views of the prospect before me.I wrote to Tempest—rather a cocky letter, perhaps, but one full of delight at the prospect of joining him at Low Heath, and claiming his patronage and support.His reply was characteristic to say the least.“The examiners for exhibitions here are the biggest muffs out. They plough the only men worth having and let in no end of scugs. The consequence is. Low Heath is packed full of asses, as you’ll find out. I’m glad they let you in, though, as it will be sport having you here and making you sing small. I do hope, though, it won’t get out that you’ve been coached by a female, or there’ll be a terrific lark. I’m getting quite a dab at photography, and shall have my camera up next term. Mind you get the right-shaped boiler, or I shall cut you. The kids are to be stopped wearing round tops like their betters, so you’d best cut yours square. Brown was too ’cute to try for an exhibition. It’s bad enough for him to be a day boy, but it would be a jolly sight worse to be an exhibitioner as well. When you come up, mind you’re not to collar me. It’s bad form for a kid to collar a senior. Wait till I speak to you, or else get some chap to bring you and introduce you. Fellows who shirk form get jolly well lammed; so you’d better go easy at first. Bring plenty of pocket-money, and some thick boots for kicking chaps back.—Yours truly, H.T. Tempest.”This letter both gratified and perturbed me. It was pleasing to be hailed as one of the inner circle of a fellow like Tempest; but it made me suspect that I should not be taken into the fold at my own valuation, but that of my betters, which in a public school is a very different thing. The little details, too, about dress and manners rather startled me. For supposing I had gone up not knowing these things, what mistakes I should have made! Suppose, for instance, I had gone up in a billycock with a round instead of a square top; or suppose I had hailed Tempest without his first speaking to me, what would have become of me? I trembled to think of it, and was glad to feel I had a friend at court who would see I didn’t “shirk form.”What made me still more uneasy was the reference to my connection with a girl’s school. The prize list had made it appear, to any one who did not know better, that I was a pupil from Miss Steele’s, High School, Fallowfield. Suppose this list should get into the hands of any of the fellows, or that some other new boy should carelessly leave his copy about! I wished I had had more sense than to mention the High School at all. This came of my chivalrous desire, said I to myself, to give Miss Steele and her principal the benefit of my distinction. Now I might have to thank them for endless trouble. I did my best to hope the worst would not happen.“Fellows never read prize lists of exams, they’ve not been in for,” thought I; “and when they have been in, they never trouble themselves about any one’s name but their own. Why, I haven’t even noticed where a single other chap comes from. They may all be girls’ schools, for all I know. It’s not likely any one has noticed mine.”And to avoid all accident I dropped mine into the fire, and had to stand my mother’s reproaches for destroying a document she had intended to treasure till her dying day.As the time for my going to Low Heath approached, I began to turn my attention seriously to mytrousseau.My first care was to get the square-topped boiler, and a rare job I had to procure it. None of the hatters in Fallowfield knew of such a shape in young gents’ hats; and the shopkeepers in Wynd, whither I went over on purpose, were equally benighted. My mother, too, protested that she had never heard of such a kind of hat, and that it would be hideous when I got it.That was no fault of mine. It was the Low Heath form, and that was enough for me.At length I heard of a hat of the kind at Deercut, five miles off, and walked thither. It had been made, said the hatter, for a young sporting party who attended to a gentleman’s stables, and knew a thing or two. He had got into trouble, it was explained, and was “doing his time on the circular staircase,” which I took to mean the treadmill. That was the reason the article had been thrown on the maker’s hands. It seemed just the thing Tempest described. The top was as flat as the lid of a work-box; indeed, it was precisely like a somewhat broad-brimmed chimney-pot-hat cut down to half height; and after a little pinching in at the sides fitted me beautifully. The maker was delighted to be able to suit me, and smiled most graciously when I paid him my five shillings and walked out of the shop with my junior exhibitioner’s “boiler” on my head.I set down to envy or ignorance the jeers of the village youths who encountered me on my way home. Some people will laugh at anything they do not understand. My mother’s protests, when she saw me, however, were not so easy to dispose of.“Why, Tommy, it makes you look like a common cheap-jack,” said she. “It’s not a gentleman’s hat at all. I’m sure they would not tolerate it at Low Heath.”“On the contrary,” said I, “it’s the form there. You might say the same of mortar boards or blue-coat dresses. It all depends on the school.”“But are you sure Tempest was not exaggerating?”“Tempest is the most particular chap about form I know,” said I.“Well, dear, promise me you won’t wear this dreadful hat till you go to school. Wear your nice cap that suits you so well till then.”I humoured her. Indeed, I was a little shy myself of meeting Mr Evans, or any of that set, in my new garb. They would be sure to pass their nasty personal remarks upon it. It would be better to preserve it in its virgin purity for my entrance to Low Heath.I took the precaution to write to Tempest and mention that I had got it, appending to my letter a rough sketch of the hat, so that, if there were anything wrong about it, he would be able to correct me.He wrote back in great good spirits.“Just the thing, kid. It’ll take the shine out of all the boilers up here. Did I tell you about gloves? The knowing ones mostly sport lavender; but the outsiders don’t wear any, except at the first call-over in the term, when of course it’s compulsory. One muff last term got pretty well lammed because he only had two-button gloves instead of six. I believe one or two others were just as bad, only they didn’t get kotched; but it was a lesson to them. I wonder if young Brown will be up to the tips, or whether he’ll turn up in black boots instead of tan. I sha’n’t write to him, because he’s a town-boy, and it would be low. Ta-ta. Don’t forget to wear your collar outside your great-coat, or I sha’n’t speak to you.—Yours, till then, H.T.”I kept this letter carefully from my mother. I knew it would only distress her, and suggest all sorts of difficulties. For, dear soul, it would be so hard to explain to her the exigencies of school form. What would have become of me without old Tempest? I should have come utterly to grief, I felt. My only fear was that he might have forgotten something which it was as important I should be made aware of as the hat, or the six-button lavender gloves, or the tan boots.I am afraid I must plead guilty to a little duplicity in the matter of purchasing these highly necessary articles of my kit. I had to persuade my mother to allow me to choose my own gloves and boots; and expended the money in such a manner that I could show her an ordinary pair of each, while the special articles were carefully concealed in my box. She thought the cheap black shoes and dog-skin gloves I paraded before her dear at the price; but she little knew that I had safely stowed away an elegant pair of light lavender gloves and a pair of tan boots of the most fashionable appearance.I had some difficulty about the former. For six-button gloves for young gents was not a “stock-line” in any of the shops. I had finally to get a lady’s twelve-button pair and cut them down to suit my requirements. The tan boots were more easily procured, although it grated somewhat against my feelings to be sent over to the ladies’ side of the shop to get them, as they were not kept for boys on the men’s side. As it was, I feared they did not come up to Tempest’s description of “thick boots for kicking back in,” but they were the thickest I could procure.At length my preparations were all complete. My mother had been an angel about them all. She had let me have my own way, and forborne criticism when my taste—or rather my conjecture as to what the Low Heath form might demand—ran counter to hers. On this account she made no remark about my check shirts, or the steel chain which, after the most approved fashion, came out from under the side of my waistcoat and supported the weight of my keys in my side trouser pocket. I confess it was an inconvenient arrangement. It was impossible to unlock my portmanteau without either half undressing, or kneeling down so as to bring the end of the chain on a level with the keyhole, or else standing the portmanteau on a chair or table to bring it up to the key. But it was undoubtedly the smart way of carrying keys. So the tailor said, and so one or two friends in whom I confided also assured me.I was really quite glad when I had sat down on the floor beside my trunk for the last time, and knew I should not have to perform with the key again till I was unpacking at Low Heath.My handbag, for certain reasons, I carried with me unlocked. It contained, to tell the truth, the hat and gloves and tan boots and otherarticles de rigueurwhich I did not exactly like to start off in, but which I was resolved to don during the journey, so as to dawn on the Low Heath horizon altogether “up to Cocker,” as Tempest would say.At the last moment my spirits failed me a little. I had been so taken up with my own plans that I had almost forgotten I was leaving my mother solitary, and turning my back on the sunshine of affection which during the last year had come to be such a natural and soothing feature of my surroundings.“Don’t forget the old home, Tommy,” she said. “God bless you and keep you good, and innocent, and honest! Don’t be led astray by bad companions, but try to help others to be good. And, Tommy dear, don’t try to be a man just yet—be the dear boy you are—don’t try to be anything else, and—” But here the train began to move, and there was barely time for a farewell kiss.What she said ran rather in my head, especially the last exhortation, which I was sorry she had uttered. For I was quite sure she was referring to my nervous desire to do everything correctly at the new school; and it grieved me that she should speak of it as trying to be something I was not.Of course I would remember all she said. There was not much fear of my being led astray; it was much more likely that I, as an exhibitioner, would be looked up to by some of the ordinary small boys to show them a lead. What with Tempest to befriend me at headquarters, and my prestige as a scholar, and the fact that I knew a pretty good deal about school already, it was as likely as not I might be instrumental in helping one or two lame dogs over the stiles of their first term.My only travelling companion was a motherly sort of person of the farmer class, who eyed me affectionately—too affectionately to please me—and attempted to condole with me on the sorrow of leaving home.“Never mind, dearie,” said she—Cheek! for a stranger to call a chap “dearie.”“You’ll be a bit lonely at first, so you will; but you’ll get used to it, and it won’t be so long to holiday time, and then you’ll see mamma again.”I wished she wouldn’t. She misunderstood me. I wasn’t thinking about the holidays at all. The fact was, I was thinking about my boots and hat in the bag, and wondering when I should put them on.Bother it! Why should I mind her or her remarks? Some other new chap might get in at the next station, and I couldn’t change before him. I’d better get myself up to form now, and so be ready.So, to the old lady’s surprise, I proceeded to take off my shoes and put on the thick tan boots in their place. She watched me in mingled admiration and surprise—no doubt the fresh yellow was very imposing, and made me look as if I was shod in gold. But the High Street at Low Heath would presently be sparkling with a hundred pairs of such boots, so what mattered an old lady’s temporary astonishment? It was the same about the hat—indeed worse. For at the sight of that particularly sporting adornment, she threw up her hands and exclaimed,—“What a funny little fellow, to be sure!”I tried to look grave, and as if I had not heard her, but I felt very conscious of the hat all the same, and only hoped another new boy would get in presently, so that she might see that a thing might be the fashion and yet she not know it.I was a good deal perplexed about the lavender gloves. Of course, I had not to wear these until call-over that afternoon, or possibly next morning. But I might as well try them on now. And the difficulty was that it was very difficult to button the six buttons all the way up without baring my arm half-way at least to the elbow. I made a feeble attempt, but it presented so many difficulties, and evidently so seriously perturbed my companion, that I abandoned the attempt, resolving to try them on under the bedclothes that night.At the first station a youth of about my own age, with a hat-box and bag, got into the carriage. Was he, I wondered, a Low Heath chap? Evidently not. He wore a straw hat, and boots of the ordinary colour, and — Whew! what a lucky thing I had not forgotten it! He wore his white collar inside the velvet of his great-coat. And so should I have continued to do, had not the sight of him called Tempest’s injunction to wear it outside to my memory. I availed myself of the next tunnel to rectify this serious omission, and had the satisfaction, when we emerged into daylight, of noticing that neither of my fellow-travellers appeared to pay much heed to the change. They both stared at me now and then; but the boy evidently grew tired of that, and curled himself up in a corner of the carriage and read aBoy’s Own Paper.I presently followed his example, and what with reading, and speculating on my coming entry into Low Heath, and an occasional thought for the little home at Fallowfield, the time went quickly by.“Is this Low Heath station?” inquired I, as the train began to slacken speed.“Yes,” said the boy, regarding me from head to foot with evidently increased curiosity. “Are you a new kid at the school?”“Yes,” said I.“Oh my! What a lark!” said he.I was glad he thought it so.“Are you at the school?” inquired I.“Looks like it,” said he, getting together his traps hurriedly, and bounding from the carriage with what I fancied was a broad grin on his face.So here I was at last!

I have reason to fear that for a fortnight after I received the astounding news of my scholastic success I was an intolerable nuisance to my friends and a ridiculous spectacle to my enemies.

I may have had some excuse. I had worked hard, and got myself into a “tilted” state of mind altogether. Still, that was no reason why I should consider that the whole world was standing still to look on at my triumph; still less why I should patronise my mother and Miss Steele and Miss Bousfield as three well-intentioned persons who had just had an object-lesson in the inferiority of their sex.

My mother and Miss Steele were too delighted to mind my airs. They were really proud—one to be my mother, the other to be my “coach.” And when I strutted in and talked as if they barely knew how honoured they were by my company, they laughed good-humouredly, and said to one another,—

“No wonder he’s pleased with himself, dear boy.”

Miss Bousfield was less disposed to bow the knee.

“I hope you won’t forget what you owe to Miss Steele,” said she. “I never hoped she could make as much as she did of such unpromising material. It’s what I always have said—good teaching can make a scholar of a dunce.”

“Ah,” said I, “you thought I was a dunce. I determined you should see I wasn’t. I am glad your school gets the credit of the exhibition.”

“I’ll wait and see how you turn out, before I am glad,” said she. “I hope the High School will not get a reputation for turning out prigs, Jones.”

I couldn’t quite understand Miss Bousfield. She was not as cordial as I thought she might be, considering the honour I had brought upon her school.

My guardian’s clerks were even less impressed by my distinction than she.

“What’s the matter this morning?” said Mr Evans on the day of my triumph, as I sat smiling inwardly at my desk.

“Nothing particular,” said I.

“It looks as if it was bad stomach-ache—I’d try camomile pills, if I were you.”

“Thank you—I don’t require pills. If you want to know, I’ve been up for an exam, and passed.”

“Been up where?”

“Up for an exam.—an examination,” said I, surprised at their density.

“Where, at the girls’ school?”

“Girls’ school, no; at Low Heath.” Mr Evans looked grave, and beckoned his comrades a little nearer.

“Awfully sad, isn’t it?” said he, with a seriousness which surprised me.

“Yes. It’s a good institution, though. My uncle tried to get a case in there once, but failed.” I wasn’t surprised to hear that.

“They only let theverydotty ones in,” said Mr Evans. “Besides, it’ll be a part payment case—at least, I should think the governor will plank down something.”

“It’s worth £40 a year for four years,” said I, understanding very imperfectly the drift of these remarks, but pleased at least to find I had succeeded in impressing my fellow-clerks.

“Ah, so much?—they can’t treat cases like yours for nothing. When are you going in?”

“In September. It’s a splendid place—five hundred fellows there.”

“So many! It’s rather sad to think about, isn’t it, Hodges? Five hundred! What a lot of trouble there is in the world, to be sure!”

“I can’t say I shall be sorry—I know one or two chaps there already.”

“Very likely, if it runs in the family at all.”

“What runs?” said I, not taking him.

Mr Evans tapped his forehead.

“Never mind,” said he, “it’s not your fault. I expect four years will do marvels with you. We’ll come and see you sometimes, on visiting days.”

“Ah, I don’t suppose there are visiting days, except for parents,” said I.

“I know one or two of the staff, though,” said one of the party. “I shall be able to hear about you from them.”

“Oh, all right,” said I. “I hope things here will go on all right when I’m at school.”

“School?” said Mr Evans, stooping with his hands on his knees, and looking into my face. “Did you say school? Is Low Heath a school?”

“Rather. What did you think it was?”

“We thought it was an idiot asylum,” said Mr Evans. And a shout of laughter at my expense confirmed his statement.

I did not deign to explain; and for the few days I remained at the office I made no further reference to my academic triumphs, though my comrades rarely failed to make merry over the asylum.

At the end of a fortnight I began to come to myself, and realise that I had not exactly borne my honours blushingly. And I was glad when my mother proposed a week or two at the seaside, to brace up before plunging into the ocean of public school fife.

My guardian, who had of late grown fairly civil to me, in the prospect of getting me off his hands, was good enough to release me from the office; and I shook the dust of that detestable place off my feet with unfeigned thankfulness.

Mr Evans wanted to get up a farewell supper for me, and I was very near allowing myself the honour, when I accidentally discovered that all the provisions were to be ordered in my name and the bill sent to me. Whereupon I declined the invitation with thanks, and regretted that a previous engagement would prevent my having the pleasure of joining their party.

Once in the quiet of the seaside, with my mother for companion, I recovered my proper frame of mind, and began to take sober views of the prospect before me.

I wrote to Tempest—rather a cocky letter, perhaps, but one full of delight at the prospect of joining him at Low Heath, and claiming his patronage and support.

His reply was characteristic to say the least.

“The examiners for exhibitions here are the biggest muffs out. They plough the only men worth having and let in no end of scugs. The consequence is. Low Heath is packed full of asses, as you’ll find out. I’m glad they let you in, though, as it will be sport having you here and making you sing small. I do hope, though, it won’t get out that you’ve been coached by a female, or there’ll be a terrific lark. I’m getting quite a dab at photography, and shall have my camera up next term. Mind you get the right-shaped boiler, or I shall cut you. The kids are to be stopped wearing round tops like their betters, so you’d best cut yours square. Brown was too ’cute to try for an exhibition. It’s bad enough for him to be a day boy, but it would be a jolly sight worse to be an exhibitioner as well. When you come up, mind you’re not to collar me. It’s bad form for a kid to collar a senior. Wait till I speak to you, or else get some chap to bring you and introduce you. Fellows who shirk form get jolly well lammed; so you’d better go easy at first. Bring plenty of pocket-money, and some thick boots for kicking chaps back.—Yours truly, H.T. Tempest.”

This letter both gratified and perturbed me. It was pleasing to be hailed as one of the inner circle of a fellow like Tempest; but it made me suspect that I should not be taken into the fold at my own valuation, but that of my betters, which in a public school is a very different thing. The little details, too, about dress and manners rather startled me. For supposing I had gone up not knowing these things, what mistakes I should have made! Suppose, for instance, I had gone up in a billycock with a round instead of a square top; or suppose I had hailed Tempest without his first speaking to me, what would have become of me? I trembled to think of it, and was glad to feel I had a friend at court who would see I didn’t “shirk form.”

What made me still more uneasy was the reference to my connection with a girl’s school. The prize list had made it appear, to any one who did not know better, that I was a pupil from Miss Steele’s, High School, Fallowfield. Suppose this list should get into the hands of any of the fellows, or that some other new boy should carelessly leave his copy about! I wished I had had more sense than to mention the High School at all. This came of my chivalrous desire, said I to myself, to give Miss Steele and her principal the benefit of my distinction. Now I might have to thank them for endless trouble. I did my best to hope the worst would not happen.

“Fellows never read prize lists of exams, they’ve not been in for,” thought I; “and when they have been in, they never trouble themselves about any one’s name but their own. Why, I haven’t even noticed where a single other chap comes from. They may all be girls’ schools, for all I know. It’s not likely any one has noticed mine.”

And to avoid all accident I dropped mine into the fire, and had to stand my mother’s reproaches for destroying a document she had intended to treasure till her dying day.

As the time for my going to Low Heath approached, I began to turn my attention seriously to mytrousseau.

My first care was to get the square-topped boiler, and a rare job I had to procure it. None of the hatters in Fallowfield knew of such a shape in young gents’ hats; and the shopkeepers in Wynd, whither I went over on purpose, were equally benighted. My mother, too, protested that she had never heard of such a kind of hat, and that it would be hideous when I got it.

That was no fault of mine. It was the Low Heath form, and that was enough for me.

At length I heard of a hat of the kind at Deercut, five miles off, and walked thither. It had been made, said the hatter, for a young sporting party who attended to a gentleman’s stables, and knew a thing or two. He had got into trouble, it was explained, and was “doing his time on the circular staircase,” which I took to mean the treadmill. That was the reason the article had been thrown on the maker’s hands. It seemed just the thing Tempest described. The top was as flat as the lid of a work-box; indeed, it was precisely like a somewhat broad-brimmed chimney-pot-hat cut down to half height; and after a little pinching in at the sides fitted me beautifully. The maker was delighted to be able to suit me, and smiled most graciously when I paid him my five shillings and walked out of the shop with my junior exhibitioner’s “boiler” on my head.

I set down to envy or ignorance the jeers of the village youths who encountered me on my way home. Some people will laugh at anything they do not understand. My mother’s protests, when she saw me, however, were not so easy to dispose of.

“Why, Tommy, it makes you look like a common cheap-jack,” said she. “It’s not a gentleman’s hat at all. I’m sure they would not tolerate it at Low Heath.”

“On the contrary,” said I, “it’s the form there. You might say the same of mortar boards or blue-coat dresses. It all depends on the school.”

“But are you sure Tempest was not exaggerating?”

“Tempest is the most particular chap about form I know,” said I.

“Well, dear, promise me you won’t wear this dreadful hat till you go to school. Wear your nice cap that suits you so well till then.”

I humoured her. Indeed, I was a little shy myself of meeting Mr Evans, or any of that set, in my new garb. They would be sure to pass their nasty personal remarks upon it. It would be better to preserve it in its virgin purity for my entrance to Low Heath.

I took the precaution to write to Tempest and mention that I had got it, appending to my letter a rough sketch of the hat, so that, if there were anything wrong about it, he would be able to correct me.

He wrote back in great good spirits.

“Just the thing, kid. It’ll take the shine out of all the boilers up here. Did I tell you about gloves? The knowing ones mostly sport lavender; but the outsiders don’t wear any, except at the first call-over in the term, when of course it’s compulsory. One muff last term got pretty well lammed because he only had two-button gloves instead of six. I believe one or two others were just as bad, only they didn’t get kotched; but it was a lesson to them. I wonder if young Brown will be up to the tips, or whether he’ll turn up in black boots instead of tan. I sha’n’t write to him, because he’s a town-boy, and it would be low. Ta-ta. Don’t forget to wear your collar outside your great-coat, or I sha’n’t speak to you.—Yours, till then, H.T.”

I kept this letter carefully from my mother. I knew it would only distress her, and suggest all sorts of difficulties. For, dear soul, it would be so hard to explain to her the exigencies of school form. What would have become of me without old Tempest? I should have come utterly to grief, I felt. My only fear was that he might have forgotten something which it was as important I should be made aware of as the hat, or the six-button lavender gloves, or the tan boots.

I am afraid I must plead guilty to a little duplicity in the matter of purchasing these highly necessary articles of my kit. I had to persuade my mother to allow me to choose my own gloves and boots; and expended the money in such a manner that I could show her an ordinary pair of each, while the special articles were carefully concealed in my box. She thought the cheap black shoes and dog-skin gloves I paraded before her dear at the price; but she little knew that I had safely stowed away an elegant pair of light lavender gloves and a pair of tan boots of the most fashionable appearance.

I had some difficulty about the former. For six-button gloves for young gents was not a “stock-line” in any of the shops. I had finally to get a lady’s twelve-button pair and cut them down to suit my requirements. The tan boots were more easily procured, although it grated somewhat against my feelings to be sent over to the ladies’ side of the shop to get them, as they were not kept for boys on the men’s side. As it was, I feared they did not come up to Tempest’s description of “thick boots for kicking back in,” but they were the thickest I could procure.

At length my preparations were all complete. My mother had been an angel about them all. She had let me have my own way, and forborne criticism when my taste—or rather my conjecture as to what the Low Heath form might demand—ran counter to hers. On this account she made no remark about my check shirts, or the steel chain which, after the most approved fashion, came out from under the side of my waistcoat and supported the weight of my keys in my side trouser pocket. I confess it was an inconvenient arrangement. It was impossible to unlock my portmanteau without either half undressing, or kneeling down so as to bring the end of the chain on a level with the keyhole, or else standing the portmanteau on a chair or table to bring it up to the key. But it was undoubtedly the smart way of carrying keys. So the tailor said, and so one or two friends in whom I confided also assured me.

I was really quite glad when I had sat down on the floor beside my trunk for the last time, and knew I should not have to perform with the key again till I was unpacking at Low Heath.

My handbag, for certain reasons, I carried with me unlocked. It contained, to tell the truth, the hat and gloves and tan boots and otherarticles de rigueurwhich I did not exactly like to start off in, but which I was resolved to don during the journey, so as to dawn on the Low Heath horizon altogether “up to Cocker,” as Tempest would say.

At the last moment my spirits failed me a little. I had been so taken up with my own plans that I had almost forgotten I was leaving my mother solitary, and turning my back on the sunshine of affection which during the last year had come to be such a natural and soothing feature of my surroundings.

“Don’t forget the old home, Tommy,” she said. “God bless you and keep you good, and innocent, and honest! Don’t be led astray by bad companions, but try to help others to be good. And, Tommy dear, don’t try to be a man just yet—be the dear boy you are—don’t try to be anything else, and—” But here the train began to move, and there was barely time for a farewell kiss.

What she said ran rather in my head, especially the last exhortation, which I was sorry she had uttered. For I was quite sure she was referring to my nervous desire to do everything correctly at the new school; and it grieved me that she should speak of it as trying to be something I was not.

Of course I would remember all she said. There was not much fear of my being led astray; it was much more likely that I, as an exhibitioner, would be looked up to by some of the ordinary small boys to show them a lead. What with Tempest to befriend me at headquarters, and my prestige as a scholar, and the fact that I knew a pretty good deal about school already, it was as likely as not I might be instrumental in helping one or two lame dogs over the stiles of their first term.

My only travelling companion was a motherly sort of person of the farmer class, who eyed me affectionately—too affectionately to please me—and attempted to condole with me on the sorrow of leaving home.

“Never mind, dearie,” said she—Cheek! for a stranger to call a chap “dearie.”

“You’ll be a bit lonely at first, so you will; but you’ll get used to it, and it won’t be so long to holiday time, and then you’ll see mamma again.”

I wished she wouldn’t. She misunderstood me. I wasn’t thinking about the holidays at all. The fact was, I was thinking about my boots and hat in the bag, and wondering when I should put them on.

Bother it! Why should I mind her or her remarks? Some other new chap might get in at the next station, and I couldn’t change before him. I’d better get myself up to form now, and so be ready.

So, to the old lady’s surprise, I proceeded to take off my shoes and put on the thick tan boots in their place. She watched me in mingled admiration and surprise—no doubt the fresh yellow was very imposing, and made me look as if I was shod in gold. But the High Street at Low Heath would presently be sparkling with a hundred pairs of such boots, so what mattered an old lady’s temporary astonishment? It was the same about the hat—indeed worse. For at the sight of that particularly sporting adornment, she threw up her hands and exclaimed,—

“What a funny little fellow, to be sure!”

I tried to look grave, and as if I had not heard her, but I felt very conscious of the hat all the same, and only hoped another new boy would get in presently, so that she might see that a thing might be the fashion and yet she not know it.

I was a good deal perplexed about the lavender gloves. Of course, I had not to wear these until call-over that afternoon, or possibly next morning. But I might as well try them on now. And the difficulty was that it was very difficult to button the six buttons all the way up without baring my arm half-way at least to the elbow. I made a feeble attempt, but it presented so many difficulties, and evidently so seriously perturbed my companion, that I abandoned the attempt, resolving to try them on under the bedclothes that night.

At the first station a youth of about my own age, with a hat-box and bag, got into the carriage. Was he, I wondered, a Low Heath chap? Evidently not. He wore a straw hat, and boots of the ordinary colour, and — Whew! what a lucky thing I had not forgotten it! He wore his white collar inside the velvet of his great-coat. And so should I have continued to do, had not the sight of him called Tempest’s injunction to wear it outside to my memory. I availed myself of the next tunnel to rectify this serious omission, and had the satisfaction, when we emerged into daylight, of noticing that neither of my fellow-travellers appeared to pay much heed to the change. They both stared at me now and then; but the boy evidently grew tired of that, and curled himself up in a corner of the carriage and read aBoy’s Own Paper.

I presently followed his example, and what with reading, and speculating on my coming entry into Low Heath, and an occasional thought for the little home at Fallowfield, the time went quickly by.

“Is this Low Heath station?” inquired I, as the train began to slacken speed.

“Yes,” said the boy, regarding me from head to foot with evidently increased curiosity. “Are you a new kid at the school?”

“Yes,” said I.

“Oh my! What a lark!” said he.

I was glad he thought it so.

“Are you at the school?” inquired I.

“Looks like it,” said he, getting together his traps hurriedly, and bounding from the carriage with what I fancied was a broad grin on his face.

So here I was at last!

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