r which was pistol-shaped. You put the
cigar end in a hole, pull the trigger, and the cigar was snipped. The
simplicity of the thing fascinated Primus, and after his return to
school I found that he had broken into my Cabana boxes and snipped
nearly three hundred cigars.

[Illustration]

As soon as he arrived Primus laid siege to the heart of William John,
captured it in six hours, and demoralized it in twenty-four. We, who had
known William John for years, considered him very practical, but Primus
fired him with tales of dark deeds at "old Poppy's"--which was Primus's
handy name for his preceptor--and in a short time William John was so
full of romance that we could not trust him to black our boots. He and
Primus had a scheme for seizing a lugger and becoming pirates, when
Primus was to be captain, William John first lieutenant, and old Poppy a
prisoner. To the crew was added a boy with a catapult, one Johnny Fox,
who was another victim of the tyrant Poppy, and they practised walking
the plank at Scrymgeour's window. The plank was pushed nearly half-way
out at the window, and you walked up it until it toppled and you were
flung into the quadrangle. Such was the romance of William John that he
walked the plank with his arms tied, shouting scornfully, by request,
"Captain Kidd, I defy you! ha, ha! the buccaneer does not live who
will blanch the cheeks of Dick, the Doughty Tar!" Then William John
disappeared, and had to be put in poultices.

While William John was in bed slowly recovering from his heroism, the
pirate captain and Johnny Fox got me into trouble by stretching a string
across the square, six feet from the ground, against which many tall
hats struck, to topple in the dust. An improved sling from the Lowther
Arcade kept the glazier constantly in the inn. Primus and Johnny Fox
strolled into Holborn, knocked a bootblack's cap off, and returned with
lumps on their foreheads. They were observed one day in Hyde Park--whither
it may be feared they had gone with cigarettes--running after sheep,
from which ladies were flying, while street-arabs chased the pirates,
and a policeman chased the street-arabs. The only book they read was the
"Comic History of Rome," the property of Gilray. This they liked so much
that Primus papered the inside of his box with pictures from it. The
only authors they consulted me about were "two big swells" called
Descartes and James Payn, of whom Primus discovered that the one could
always