hink that Oliver, after all, had not done such a very
discreditable thing in taking that angry word in silence. If only he
had shown more spirit about the blow, they could have forgiven the rest.

Then followed more from the "Sixth Form Mouse":--

"The Sixth held a Cabinet Council to-day to discuss who should go out
for nuts. The choice fell on Callonby. I wonder why the Sixth are so
fond of nuts. Why, monkeys eat nuts. Perhaps that is the reason. What
a popular writer Mr Bohn is with the Sixth! they even read him at
lesson time! I was quite sorry when the Doctor had to bone Wren's Bohn.
I wonder, by the way, why that bird found it so hard to translate the
simplest sentence without his Bohn! The Doctor really shouldn't--I hope
he will restore to Wren his backbone by giving him back his Bohn. Hum!
I heard some one smiling. I'll go."

The Sixth, a good many of them, were imprudent enough to look very
guilty at the reading of this extract, a circumstance which appeared to
afford keenest delight to the Fifth. But as Simon's poem followed, they
had other food for thought at the moment. The poem was entitled--

A Revverie.

I.

I walked me in the garden, all in the garden fair,
And mused upon my hindmost sole all in the open air.
When lo! I heard above my head a sound all like a wisk,
I stepped me aside thereat out of the way so brisk.

[Hindmost sole, possibly "inmost soul"; wisk, possibly "whisk."]

II.

I looked me up, and there behold! and lo! a window broad,
And out thereof I did dizzern a gallant fishing-rod,
All sporting in the breaze untill the hook in ivy caught,
And then the little lad he tried to pull it harder than he ought.

III.

It broke, alas! and so messeems fades life's perplecksing dreems,
And vanish like that fishing-rod all in the dark messeems.
I wonder if my perplecksing dreems will vanish like the rod in the
dark,
And I shall rise and rise and rise and rise all like a lark.

IV.

Oh wood I was a lark, a lark all lofty in the sky,
I do not know what I should do to quench my blazing eye.
I'd look me down on Dominic's, and think of the days when I was young,
Or would I was an infant meek all sucking of my thumb.

Again Simon, who had watched with intense interest the reception of his
poem, was perplexed to notice the amusement it had caused. Even Pembury
Had mistaken its "inmost soul," for he had placed it in the column
devote