the school;
and although Skinner was tough and wiry, he would have stood no chance
in an encounter with him.

"Well, how did you get on, Mossop?" Scudamore asked as they sat down to
tea.

"Easton beat me every game. I had no idea that he was so good. He says
he does not intend to play for the racket, but if he did he would have a
first-rate chance. I was in the last ties last year and I ought to have
a good chance this, but either I am altogether out of practice or he is
wonderfully good. I was asking him, and he said in his lazy way that
they had got a decent racket-court at his place, and that he had been
knocking the balls about a bit since he came home."

"If he is good enough to win," Pinkerton, the captain of the house,
said, "he ought to play for the honour of the house. He has never played
in any matches here before. I did not know he played at all."

"That is the way with Easton," Edgar Clinton said; "he is good all
round, only he never takes trouble to show it. He could have been in the
college cricket eleven last year if he liked, only he said he could not
spare the time. Though Skinner doesn't think so, I believe he is one of
the best in our football team; when he chooses to exert himself he is
out and out the best chess player in the house; and I suppose he is safe
to pass in high for Sandhurst."

"He is a queer fellow," Pinkerton said, "one never knows what he can do
and what he can't. At the last exam Glover said that the papers he sent
in were far and away the best, but that he had only done the difficult
questions and hadn't sent in any answers at all to the easy ones, so
that instead of coming in first he was five or six down the list. I
believe myself he did not want to beat me, because if he had he would
have been head of the house, and that would have been altogether too
much trouble for him. Glover wanted him to go up for the last Indian
Civil, and told him he was sure that he could get in if he tried, but
Easton said he wasn't fond of heat and had no fancy for India."

"I suppose he was afraid to take the starch out of his collars," Edgar
laughed. "Ah! here he is; late as usual."

Easton strolled quietly in and took his place, looking annoyingly fresh
and clean by the side of those who had accompanied Skinner on his walk,
and who, in spite of vigorous use of clothes brushes, showed signs of
cross-country running.

"Have you had a pleasant walk?" he asked calmly.

"Very pleasant," Skinne