ppy Family." They certainly were an amusing lot of
little animals, and Diggory and his companions coming into the classroom
rather late, and before the entrance of the master, saw them for the
first time to full advantage. Out of the two-and-twenty juveniles
present, only about six seemed to be in their proper places.

One young gentleman sitting close to the blackboard cried, "Powder,
sir!" and straightway scrubbed his neighbour's face with a very chalky
duster. The latter, by way of retaliation, smote the former's pile
of books from the desk on to the ground--a little attention which was
immediately returned by boy number one; while as they bent down to pick
up their scattered possessions, a third party, sitting on the form
behind, made playful attempts to tread upon their fingers. Two rival
factions in the rear of the room were waging war with paper darts; while
a small, sandy-haired boy, whose tangled hair and disordered attire gave
him the appearance, as the saying goes, of having been dragged through a
furze-bush backwards, rapped vigorously with his knuckles upon the
master's table, and inquired loudly how many more times he was to say
"Silence!"

The entrance of the three new-comers caused a false alarm, and in a
moment every one was in his proper seat.

"Bother it!" cried the small, sandy-haired boy, who had bumped his knee
rushing from the table to his place; "why didn't you make more noise
when you came in?"

"But I thought you were asking for silence, answered Diggory.

"Shut up, and don't answer back when you are spoken to by a prefect,"
retorted the small boy. "Look here, you haven't written your name on
Watford's slate.--They must, mustn't they, Maxton?" he added, turning to
a boy who sat at the end of one of the back seats.

"Of course they must," answered Maxton, who, with both elbows on the
desk, was blowing subdued railway whistles through his hands; "every new
fellow has to write his name on that little slate on Mr. Watford's
table, and he enters them from there into his mark-book. I'm head boy,
and I've got to see you do it. Look sharp, or he'll be here in a
minute, and there'll be a row."

Diggory, Vance, and Mugford hastily signed their names, one under the
other, upon the slate. There was a good deal of tittering while they
did so; but as a new boy is laughed at for nearly everything he does,
they took no notice of it, and had hardly got back to their places when
the master entere