romance Speug
felt it right to assume an air of demure modesty, which was quite
consistent with keeping a watchful eye on any impertinent young rascal
who might venture to jeer, when Speug would politely ask him what he was
laughing at, and offer to give him something to laugh for. That the
Count was himself a conspirator, and the head of a secret society which
extended all over Europe, with signs and passwords, and that whenever
any tyrant became intolerable, the warrant for his death was sent from
Mistress Jamieson's. Whenever one fable grew hackneyed Nestie produced
another, and it was no longer necessary in Muirtown Seminary to buy
Indian tales or detective stories, for the whole library of fiction was
now bound up and walking about in the Count.

[Illustration: "WATCHING A BATTLE ROYAL BETWEEN THE TOPS."]

Between him and the boys there grew up a fast friendship, and he was
never thoroughly happy now unless he was with his "jolly dogs." He
attended every cricket match, and at last, after he had learned how,
kept the score, giving a cheer at every new run and tearing his hair
when any of his boys were bowled out. He rushed round the football field
without his cane, and generally without his hat; and high above all
cheers could be heard his "Bravo--bravo, forwards! Speug!" as that
enterprising player cleft his way through the opponent's ranks. It
mattered nothing to the Count that his boots were ruined, and his
speckless clothes soiled, he would not have cared though he had burst
his stays, so long as the "dogs" won, and he could go up in glory with
them to Janet MacWhae's and drink to their health in flowing
ginger-beer. During the play hour his walk seemed ever to bring him to
the North Meadow, and if a ball by accident, for none would have done it
by intention, knocked off the Count's hat, he cried "Hoor-r-rah!" in his
own pronunciation and bowed in response to this mark of attention. It
was a pretty sight to see him bending forward, his hands resting on his
knees, watching a battle royal between the tops of Speug and Howieson;
and if anything could be better it was to see the Count trying to spin a
top himself, and expostulating with it in unknown tongues.

As the boys came to the school in the morning and went home in the
evening up Breadalbane Street, the Count was always sitting at one of
the windows which had been broken, ready to wave his hand to any one who
saluted him, and in the afternoon he would often