ly can't, I--"

"Shut up! Look here, some one's got to go down that slide on skates, so
just put 'em on."

It was at this moment that Diggory Trevanock stepped forward, and
remarked in a casual manner that if Mugford didn't wish to do it, but
would lend him the skates, he himself would go down the slide.

His companions stared at him in astonishment, coupled with which was a
feeling of regret: he was a nice little chap, and they had already begun
to like him, and did not wish to see him dashed to pieces against the
playground wall before their very eyes. Acton, however, had decreed
that "some one had got to go down that slide on skates," and it seemed
only meet and right that if a victim had to be sacrificed it should be a
new boy rather than an old stager.

"Bravo!" cried the dux; "here's one chap at least who's no funk.
Put 'em on sharp; the bell 'll ring in a minute."

Several willing hands were stretched out to assist in arming Diggory for
the enterprise, and in a few moments he was assisted to the top of the
slide.

"All right," he said; "let go!"

The spectators held their breath, hardly daring to watch what would
happen. But fortune favours the brave. The adventurous juvenile rushed
down the path, shot like an arrow through the doorway, and the next
instant was seen ploughing up the snow in the playground, and eventually
disappearing head first into the middle of a big drift.

His companions all rushed down in a body to haul him out of the snow.
Acton smacked him on the back, and called him a trump; while Jack Vance
presented him on the spot with a mince-pie, which had been slightly
damaged in one of the donor's many tumbles, but was, as he remarked,
"just as good as new for eating."

From that moment until the day he left there was never a more popular
boy at The Birches than Diggory Trevanock.

"I say," remarked Mugford, as they met a short time later in the
cloak-room, "that was awfully good of you to go down the slide instead
of me; what ever made you do it?"

"Well," answered the other calmly, "I thought it would save me a lot of
bother if I showed you fellows at once that I wasn't a muff. I don't
mind telling you I was in rather a funk when it came to the start; but
I'd said I'd do it, and of course I couldn't draw back."

The numerous stirring events which happened at The Birches during the
next three terms, and which it will be my pleasing duty to chronicle in
subsequent chapters, gave