and shed his skin of newness. The period is, of course, longer in the case of some and shor

witness the following. Mr Strudwick, the regular master of the form, happened on one occasion to be away for a couple of days, and a stop-gap was put in in his place. The name of the stop-gap was Mr Somerville Smith. He and Farnie exchanged an unspoken declaration of war almost immediately. The first round went in Mr Smith's favour. He contrived to catch Farnie in the act of performing some ingenious breach of the peace, and, it being a Wednesday and a half-holiday, sent him into extra lesson. On the following morning, more by design than accident, Farnie upset an inkpot. Mr Smith observed icily that unless the stain was wiped away before the beginning of afternoon school, there would be trouble. Farnie observed (to himself) that there would be trouble in any case, for he had hit upon the central idea for the most colossal 'rag' that, in his opinion, ever was. After morning school he gathered the form around him, and disclosed his idea. The floor of the form-room, he pointed out, was some dozen inches below the level of the door. Would it not be a pleasant and profitable notion, he asked, to flood the floor with water to the depth of those dozen inches? On the wall outside the form-room

. He had a rooted conviction that he did everything a shade better than anybody else. This belief did not make him arrogant at all, and certainly not offensive, for he was exceedingly popular in the School. But still there were people who thought that he might occasionally draw the line somewhere. Watson, the ground-man, for example, thought so when Pringle primed him with advice on the subject of preparing a wicket. And Langdale, who had been captain of the

to picture him as a total failure in the practical side of all the subjects in which he was so brilliant a theorist. Strangely enough, however, this was not the case. There

otal of three hundred odd. But Norris had made a century, which had rather diverted the public eye from this performance. Then the School had played the Emeriti, and had won again quite comfortably. This time his score had been forty-one, useful, but still not phenomenal. Then in the t

study companion, appeared to be in an entirely different frame of mind to his own. Lorimer was in the Upper Fifth, Pringle in the Remove. Lorimer sat at the study table gnawing a pen in a fev

up?' h

poem thing,'

to be devoted to providing the Upper Fifth with an annual prize for the best poem on a subject to be selected by the Headmaster. Entrance was compulsory. The wily authorities knew very well that if it had not been, the entries for the prize would have been somewhat small. Why the Upper Fifth were so favoured in preference to the Sixth or Remove is doubtful. Possibly it was felt that,

get on?' as

N

the su

h of

be got out of

u'd tell

of t

r well-earned tomb at this time of day. I've looked her up in the Dic. of Antiquities, and it appears t

im or he to Hecuba?

ooking puzzled, 'What's H

' said Pringle, with

evote your energies to helping me with these

down. Then you go on in a sort of rag-time metre. In the "Coon Drum-Major" style. Besides, you see, the beauty

of an inch of his pen. 'You need

immensely, 'what on earth is the good of my o

He bit off another m

u're so keen on the business. Put down anything. The

voice, as if someone had been insinuating that he had committed some

exam, part

s a bit of a pro at verse in his day, I believe

n all its aspects. 'Can't you ge

an

h we could s

th, I shouldn't mind having made that

his fellow-man was taking him at his

or this poetry prize. I bet I could turn out a rattling good screed.

e 'rattling good screed' passage of Pringle's speech

y? How about

ize. We'll have

u were keen o

y my people. They only want to know for certain that I've

rig

s, awf

,' said Pringle

es

coming down for t

n. The Headmaster gave a garden-party. The School band played; the School choir

so,' said Lo

sister

interest in his sister's actions is a weird

come. We could give them tea in here, and

. Look here, Pringle, I believ

orimer's v

h which should have been careless, but was i

een possess dimples, mere man becomes but as a piece of damp blotting-paper. Pringle was seventeen and a half, and consequently too old to take note of such frivolous attributes; but all the same he ha

ing to one which was of vital interest, 'you're sure you can write fairly decent stuff? It's no goo

iled gently as who should o