gnalised himself too on the cricket field, having scored one run (by a
leg-bye) in the never-to-be-forgotten match of First Form, First Eleven,
against Second-Form, Second Eleven; and he had annihilated the
redoubtable Alfred Redhead in the hundred yards hopping match,
accomplishing that distance in the wonderfully short time of forty-five
seconds!

But the dearest of all his friends was Jim Halliday, his lord and
master's young brother. To Jim, Charlie opened his own soul, and me,
and the knife; with Jim he laid his schemes for the future, and
arranged, when he was Governor-General of India and Jim was Prime
Minister, he would swop a couple of elephants for one of Ash and
Tackle's best twenty-foot fishing-rods, with a book of flies complete.
With Jim, Charlie talked about home and his father, and the coming
holidays, till his face shone with the brightness of the prospect. Nor
was the faithful Jim less communicative. He told Charlie all about his
sisters down at Dullfield, where his father had once been clergyman, and
gave it as his opinion that Jenny was the one Charlie had better marry;
and to Charlie he imparted, as an awful secret not to be so much as
whispered to any one, that he (Jim) was going to array his imposing
figure for the first time in a tail-coat at Christmas.

With two friends on such a footing of confidence, is it a wonder they
clave one to the other in mute admiration and affection? Many a
sumptuous supper, provided at the imminent peril of embargo by the
authorities on the one hand, and capture by hungry pirates on the other,
did they smuggle into port and enjoy in company; on many a half-holiday
did they fish for hours in the same pool, or climb the same tree for the
same nest; what book of Jim's was there (schoolbooks excepted) that
Charlie had not dog's-eared; and was not Charlie's little library
annotated in every page by Jim's elegant thumbs? In short, these two
were as one. David and Jonathan were nothing to them.

But in the midst of all his comfort and happiness one continually
recurring thought troubled Charlie, that was about Tom Drift. He had
promised the mother to be a friend to her son, and although he owned to
himself he neither liked nor admired Tom, he could not be easy with this
broken promise on his mind.

One day, about a month after the quarrel outside the head master's
study, my master, after a hard inward struggle, conceived the desperate
resolve of going himself to