to see how Number
One gets out of his friendly call on Cresswell. Think he'll cheek it?"

"Yes; and we shan't hear many particulars from him."

Birket was right, as he very often was.

Dick, on waking, was a good deal perplexed, to find his friend absent,
and when he heard the reason he was more than perplexed--he was vexed.
It wasn't right of Heathcote, or loyal, to take advantage of him in this
way, and he should complain of it.

Meanwhile he had plenty to occupy his mind in endeavouring to recover
his "baby's" wardrobe, a quest which, as time went on and the chapel
bell began to sound, came to be exciting.

However, just as he was about to go to the matron and represent to her
the delicate position of affairs, a bundle was thrown in through the
ventilator over the door, and fell into the middle of the dormitory
floor. Where it came from there was no time to inquire.

Aspinall was hustled into his garments as quickly as possible, and then
hustled down the stairs and into chapel just as the bell ceased ringing
and the door began to close.

Heathcote was there among the other new boys, looking rather guilty, as
well he might. The sight of him, with his dripping locks and clear
shining face, interfered a good deal with Dick's attention to the
service--almost as much as did the buzz of talk all round him, the open
disorder in the stalls opposite, and the look of undisguised horror on
Aspinall's face.

As Dick caught sight of that look his own conscience pricked him, and he
made a vehement effort to recall his wandering mind and fix it on the
words which were being read. He flushed as he saw boys opposite point
his way and laugh, with hands clasped in mock devotion, and he felt
angry with himself, and young Aspinall, and everybody, for laying him
open to the imputation of being a prig.

He glanced again towards Heathcote. Heathcote was standing with his
hands in his pockets looking about him. What business had Heathcote to
look about him when he (Dick) was standing at attention? Why should
Heathcote escape the jeers of mockers, while he (Dick) had to bear the
brunt of them? It wasn't fair. And yet he wasn't going to put his
hands in his pockets and look about him to give them the triumph of
saying they laughed him into it. No!

So Dick stood steadily and reverently all the service, and was observed
by not a few as one of the good ones of whom good things might be
expected.

When chapel was over fat