y is he called Gazeka?" he asked after a
pause.

"Don't you think he looks like one? What did you think of him?"

"I didn't speak to him much," said Mike cautiously. It is always
delicate work answering a question like this unless one has some sort
of an inkling as to the views of the questioner.

"He's all right," said Wyatt, answering for himself. "He's got a habit
of talking to one as if he were a prince of the blood dropping a
gracious word to one of the three Small-Heads at the Hippodrome, but
that's his misfortune. We all have our troubles. That's his. Let's go
in here. It's too far to sweat to Cook's."

It was about a mile from the tea-shop to the school. Mike's first
impression on arriving at the school grounds was of his smallness and
insignificance. Everything looked so big--the buildings, the grounds,
everything. He felt out of the picture. He was glad that he had met
Wyatt. To make his entrance into this strange land alone would have
been more of an ordeal than he would have cared to face.

"That's Wain's," said Wyatt, pointing to one of half a dozen large
houses which lined the road on the south side of the cricket field.
Mike followed his finger, and took in the size of his new home.

"I say, it's jolly big," he said. "How many fellows are there in it?"

"Thirty-one this term, I believe."

"That's more than there were at King-Hall's."

"What's King-Hall's?"

"The private school I was at. At Emsworth."

Emsworth seemed very remote and unreal to him as he spoke.

They skirted the cricket field, walking along the path that divided
the two terraces. The Wrykyn playing-fields were formed of a series of
huge steps, cut out of the hill. At the top of the hill came the
school. On the first terrace was a sort of informal practice ground,
where, though no games were played on it, there was a good deal of
punting and drop-kicking in the winter and fielding-practice in the
summer. The next terrace was the biggest of all, and formed the first
eleven cricket ground, a beautiful piece of turf, a shade too narrow
for its length, bounded on the terrace side by a sharply sloping bank,
some fifteen feet deep, and on the other by the precipice leading to
the next terrace. At the far end of the ground stood the pavilion, and
beside it a little ivy-covered rabbit-hutch for the scorers. Old
Wrykynians always claimed that it was the prettiest school ground in
England. It certainly had the finest view. From the veran