at up to the fifth place on the river. He will be introduced to
you, gentle reader, when the proper time comes; at present, we
are only concerned with a bird's-eye view of the college, that
you may feel more or less at home in it. The boating set was not
so separate or marked as the reading set, melting on one side
into, and keeping up more or less connexion with, the fast set,
and also commanding a sort of half allegiance from most of the
men who belonged to neither of the other sets. The minor
divisions, of which of course there were many, need not be
particularized, as the above general classification will be
enough for the purposes of this history.

Our hero, on leaving school, having bound himself solemnly to
write all his doings and thoughts to the friend whom he had left
behind him: distance and separation were to make no difference
whatever in their friendship. This compact had been made on one
of their last evenings at Rugby. They were sitting together in
the six-form room, Tom splicing the handle of a favourite cricket
bat, and Arthur reading a volume of Raleigh's works. The Doctor
had lately been alluding to the "History of the World," and had
excited the curiosity of the active-minded amongst his pupils
about the great navigator, statesman, soldier, author, and fine
gentleman. So Raleigh's works were seized on by various voracious
young readers, and carried out of the school library; and Arthur
was now deep in a volume of the "Miscellanies," curled up on a
corner of the sofa. Presently, Tom heard something between a
groan and a protest, and, looking up, demanded explanations; in
answer to which, Arthur, in a voice half furious and half
fearful, read out:--

"And be sure of this, thou shalt never find a friend in thy young
years whose conditions and qualities will please thee after thou
comest to more discretion and judgment; and then all thou givest
is lost, and all wherein thou shalt trust such a one will be
discovered."

"You don't mean that's Raleigh's?"

"Yes--here it is, in his first letter to his son."

"What a cold-blooded old Philistine," said Tom.

"But it can't be true, do you think?" said Arthur.

And in short, after some personal reflections on Sir Walter, they
then and there resolved that, so far as they were concerned, it
was not, could not, and should not be true, that they would
remain faithful, the same to each other; and the greatest friends
in the world, through I know not what