or being made a Bishop, he would have been the first
and most loyal in his appreciation; but for the sort of thing Felix made
up--Fiction, and critical, acid, destructive sort of stuff, pretending to
show John Freeland things that he hadn't seen before--as if Felix
could!--not at all the jolly old romance which one could read well enough
and enjoy till it sent you to sleep after a good day's work. No! that
Felix should be made a fuss of for such work as that really almost hurt
him. It was not quite decent, violating deep down one's sense of form,
one's sense of health, one's traditions. Though he would not have
admitted it, he secretly felt, too, that this fuss was dangerous to his
own point of view, which was, of course, to him the only real one. And
he merely said:

"Will you stay to dinner, Stan?"

CHAPTER III

If John had those sensations about Felix, so--when he was away from
John--had Felix about himself. He had never quite grown out of the
feeling that to make himself conspicuous in any way was bad form. In
common with his three brothers he had been through the mills of
gentility--those unique grinding machines of education only found in his
native land. Tod, to be sure, had been publicly sacked at the end of his
third term, for climbing on to the headmaster's roof and filling up two
of his chimneys with football pants, from which he had omitted to remove
his name. Felix still remembered the august scene--the horrid thrill of
it, the ominous sound of that: "Freeland minimus!" the ominous sight of
poor little Tod emerging from his obscurity near the roof of the Speech
Room, and descending all those steps. How very small and rosy he had
looked, his bright hair standing on end, and his little blue eyes staring
up very hard from under a troubled frown. And the august hand holding up
those sooty pants, and the august voice: "These appear to be yours,
Freeland minimus. Were you so good as to put them down my chimneys?"
And the little piping, "Yes, sir."

"May I ask why, Freeland minimus?"

"I don't know, sir."

"You must have had some reason, Freeland minimus?"

"It was the end of term, sir."

"Ah! You must not come back here, Freeland minimus. You are too
dangerous, to yourself, and others. Go to your place."

And poor little Tod ascending again all those steps, cheeks more terribly
rosy than ever, eyes bluer, from under a still more troubled frown;
little mouth hard set; and breathing s