st be a bit of a rip; and Buller's is
merely an asylum for bloods!"

This rather perplexed Gordon. He ventured a question rather timidly:
"But is it impossible for a blood to be a decent fellow?"

"Decent fellow?" cried Jeffries. "Who on earth has said they were
anything else? Johnson's a simply glorious man. Only a bit fast; and
that doesn't matter much."

In a farewell lecture, Gordon's preparatory school master had given him
to believe that it mattered a good deal, but he was doubtless
old-fashioned. Times were changed; Gordon had ceased to be shocked at
what he heard; he was learning what life was, and how strange and
beautiful and ugly it was.

As the winter term drew to a close, Gordon grew more and more sure of
himself. He had passed by nearly all the other new boys. Foster, it is
true, had got on well according to his lights, and was on more than
friendly terms with Evans, the school slow bowler. But he was not much
liked by his equals. Rudd was looked on quite rightly as an absolute
buffoon; Collins got on fairly well, but was generally admitted to be a
bit eccentric. Gordon was, without doubt, the pick of the crew. His
position in form was a great help. Mansell's friends thought him a
cheerful, amusing and respectable-looking person, and were quite pleased
to have him about the place. Next term he was going to have a study with
Jeffries. The Chief thought he had got on rather too quick. But he was
usually among the first three in his form, and there was nothing
definite to find fault with, and, after all, his friends were excellent
fellows. There was nothing against them. Jeffries was genially selfish,
always ready for a rag, a keen footballer, and had, like most other
Public School boys, adopted a convenient broadmindedness with regard to
cribbing and other matters.

"If the master is such an arrant ass as to let you crib, it is his own
lookout; and, after all, we take the sporting chance."

Lovelace minor was rather a different sort of person. Very excitable, he
despised and deceived most of the masters; among his friends he was
unimpeachably loyal. He loved games, but never took them sufficiently
seriously to please "the Bull." He played for his own pleasure, not "the
Bull's." He was a splendid companion.

Hunter was rather a nonentity; his chief attraction was that he usually
had the last bit of scandal at his finger-tips; he was safe to be
consulted on any point of school politics. It was his boas