generally went with another set. Of course,
before long I knew all the Temple boys more or less intimately, but the
five I have named were my constant companions.

My first day at the Temple Grammar School was on the whole satisfactory.
I had made several warm friends and only two permanent enemies--Conway
and his echo, Seth Rodgers; for these two always went together like a
deranged stomach and a headache.

Before the end of the week I had my studies well in hand. I was a
little ashamed at finding myself at the foot of the various classes, and
secretly determined to deserve promotion. The school was an admirable
one. I might make this part of my story more entertaining by picturing
Mr. Grimshaw as a tyrant with a red nose and a large stick; but
unfortunately for the purposes of sensational narrative, Mr. Grimshaw
was a quiet, kindhearted gentleman. Though a rigid disciplinarian, he
had a keen sense of justice, was a good reader of character, and the
boys respected him. There were two other teachers--a French tutor and a
writing-master, who visited the school twice a week. On Wednesdays and
Saturdays we were dismissed at noon, and these half-holidays were the
brightest epochs of my existence.

Daily contact with boys who had not been brought up as gently as I
worked an immediate, and, in some respects, a beneficial change in my
character. I had the nonsense taken out of me, as the saying is--some
of the nonsense, at least. I became more manly and self-reliant. I
discovered that the world was not created exclusively on my account.
In New Orleans I labored under the delusion that it was. Having neither
brother nor sister to give up to at home, and being, moreover, the
largest pupil at school there, my will had seldom been opposed. At
Rivermouth matters were different, and I was not long in adapting myself
to the altered circumstances. Of course I got many severe rubs, often
unconsciously given; but I had the sense to see that I was all the
better for them.

My social relations with my new schoolfellows were the pleasantest
possible. There was always some exciting excursion on foot--a ramble
through the pine woods, a visit to the Devil's Pulpit, a high cliff
in the neighborhood--or a surreptitious low on the river, involving
an exploration of a group of diminutive islands, upon one of which we
pitched a tent and played we were the Spanish sailors who got wrecked
there years ago. But the endless pine forest that skirte