other was as bwave as ... a
s-soldier?"

"Of course she was, Nestie," and Mr. Molyneux fell into the innocent
little snare. "If you had only seen the pony your mother used to ride on
her father's farm in Essex, where I saw her first! Do you know, nobody
could ride 'Gypsy' except its mistress. It r-reared and ... k-kicked,
Nestie"--the little man spoke with awe--"and once ran away; but your
mother could always manage it. She looked so handsome on 'Gypsy'; and
you have her spirit. I'm very ... t-timid."

"No, you aren't, not one little bit, pater, if there's real d-danger."
Nestie was now on his father's knee, with a hand round his neck. "Who
faced the cow on the meadows when she was charging, and the nurse had
left the child, eh? Now, pater, tell the truth."

"That was because ... the poor little man would have been killed ...
anyone would have d-done that, and ... I d-did not think what I was
d-doing...."

"Yes, I know," and Nestie mocked his father shamefully, even unto his
face; "and everybody read in the paper how the child wasn't near the
cow, and the cow was quite nice and well-behaved, and you ... ran away;
for shame, now!

"Did you go to the people that had the dip ... dip ... in the throat, or
not?--that's a word I can't manage yet, but I heard Miss Leti-titia and
the girls say you were like the soldiers 'at got the Vic--Victoria
Cwoss."

"That's d-different, Nestie; that's my d-duty."

"Well, it's my d-duty to go to the S-Seminary, pater;" and so he went.

"What's your name?" Nestie was standing in the centre of the large
entrance hall where his father had left him, a neat, slim little figure
in an Eton suit and straw hat, and the walls were lined by big lads in
kilts, knickers, tweed suits, and tailless Highland bonnets in various
stages of roughness and decay.

"Ernest Molyneux, and for short, Nestie," and he looked round with a
bright little smile, although inwardly very nervous.

"Moly-havers," retorted Cosh, who had a vague sense that Nestie, with
his finished little manner, his English accent, his unusual dress, and
his high-sounding name, was an offence to the Seminary. "Get yir hat oot
o' there," and Cosh sent Ernest's straw skimming into the forbidden
"well."

Molyneux's face turned crimson, for he had inherited the temper which
mistressed "Gypsy," and boys who remembered Speug's first exploit
expected to see the newcomer spring at Cosh's face.

"You mean that for f-fun, I s'pose," he s