was I alone
who remembered at that moment the life we were really leading at that
time. With me there walked this skeleton through every waking hour
that was to follow. I shall endeavor not to refer to it again. Yet it
should not be forgotten that my skeleton was always there.

"It certainly is not necessary in my case," replied Nasmyth, still as
stiff as any poker. "I happen to be a trustee."

"Of the school?"

"Like my father before me."

"I congratulate you, my dear fellow!" cried the hearty Raffles--a
younger Raffles than I had ever known in town.

"I don't know that you need," said Nasmyth sourly.

"But it must be a tremendous interest. And the proof is that you're
going down to this show, like all the rest of us."

"No, I'm not. I live there, you see."

And I think the Nipper recalled that name as he ground his heel upon an
unresponsive flagstone.

"But you're going to this meeting at the school-house, surely?"

"I don't know. If I do there may be squalls. I don't know what you
think about this precious scheme Raffles, but I..."

The ragged beard stuck out, set teeth showed through the wild
moustache, and in a sudden outpouring we had his views. They were
narrow and intemperate and perverse as any I had heard him advocate as
the firebrand of the Debating Society in my first term. But they were
stated with all the old vim and venom. The mind of Nasmyth had not
broadened with the years, but neither had its natural force abated, nor
that of his character either. He spoke with great vigor at the top of
his voice; soon we had a little crowd about us; but the tall collars
and the broad smiles of the younger Old Boys did not deter our dowdy
demagogue. Why spend money on a man who had been dead two hundred
years? What good could it do him or the school? Besides, he was only
technically our founder. He had not founded a great public school. He
had founded a little country grammar school which had pottered along
for a century and a half. The great public school was the growth of
the last fifty years, and no credit to the pillar of piety. Besides, he
was only nominally pious. Nasmyth had made researches, and he knew.
And why throw good money after a bad man?

"Are there many of your opinion?" inquired Raffles, when the agitator
paused for breath. And Nasmyth beamed on us with flashing eyes.

"Not one to my knowledge as yet," said he. "But we shall see after
to-morrow night. I hear it's