to do? Why
don't you try for the army? The exams are not very hard, my brother
told me, and of course it's awfully respectable, if one must work for
one's living. I must stop now, or I shall miss tennis. Excuse more.

"Yours truly,--

"G. Blandford."

Reginald knew the letter was a cold and selfish one, but it left two
things sticking in his mind which rankled there for a long time. One
was that, come what would, he would send a guinea to the school football
club. The other was--was it _quite_ out of the question that he should
go into the army?

"Awfully rough on Reg," said Horace, "being so near that scholarship.
It'll be no use to Wilkins, not a bit, and fifty pounds a year would be
something to--"

Horace was going to say "us," but he pulled up in time and said "Reg."

"Well," said Reg, "as things have turned out it might have come in
useful. I wonder if it wouldn't have been wiser, mother, for me to have
stayed up this term and made sure of it?"

"I wish you could, Reg; but we have no right to think of it. Besides,
you could only have held it if you had gone to college."

"Oh, of course," said Reg; "but then it would have paid a good bit of my
expenses there; and I might have gone on from there to the army, you
know, and got my commission."

Mrs Cruden sighed. What an awakening the boy had still to pass
through!

"We must think of something less grand than that, my poor Reg," said
she; "and something we can share all together. I hope Mr Richmond will
be able to hear of some business opening for me, as well as you, for we
shall need to put our resources together to get on."

"Mother," exclaimed Reginald, overwhelmed with sudden contrition, "what
a selfish brute you must think me! You don't think I'd let you work
while I had a nerve left. I'll do anything--so will Horace, but you
_shall not_, mother, you _shall not_."

Mrs Cruden did not argue the point just then, and in due time Mr
Richmond arrived to give a new direction to their thoughts.

The investment he proposed seemed a good one. But, in fact, the little
family knew so little about business generally, and money matters in
particular, that had it been the worst security possible they would have
hardly been the wiser.

This point settled, Mr Richmond turned to his proposals for the boys.

"As I said in my letter, Mrs Cruden," said he, "the opening is only a
modest one. A company has lately been formed to print and publish an
e