hings, perhaps the most irritating is to have your
big bundle of news calmly opened and emptied, and its contents
appropriated without scruple or acknowledgment.

Tim this very day has the gratification of amazing half the school with
the news of Dr Grinder's approaching marriage and the consequent extra
holidays, and of seeing the enthusiastic astonishment of others to whom
he retails the latest achievement of the athletic Buck.

But he did not always come off so easily. Once he was made the victim
of a joke which, in any one less self-satisfied, might have effectually
checked his foolish propensity. It was a wet day, and the boys were all
assembled in the big play-room, not knowing exactly what to do, and
ready for the first bit of fun which might turn up.

"Couldn't somebody draw Tim out?" one of us whispered.

The idea caught like wildfire, and after a brief pause Tidswell, the
monitor, said, amid the hushed attention of the company--

"By the way, Tim, wasn't that a queer account of the sea-serpent in the
paper the other day?"

"Awfully queer," replied the unsuspecting Tim; "I didn't know you had
seen it."

"Fancy a beast a mile and a half long from head to tail!"

"It's a good size," said Tim, "but nothing out of the common for a sea-
serpent, you know."

"Now I come to think of it, though," said Tidswell, "it didn't say that
the _serpent_ was a mile and a half long; it was a mile and a half from
the ship when it was seen, wasn't that it?"

"Yes, a mile and a half from the ship. I _thought_ you were drawing the
long bow in saying it was so big as all that."

"They saw it a mile and a half off, and just fancy feeling its breath at
that distance?"

"I'm not astonished at that," said Tim, "for all those beasts have
enormous lungs."

"How absurd of me! I should have said it seemed to all appearances
lifeless when they saw it," said Tidswell.

"Yes; dead, in fact," put in Tim, getting into difficulties.

"And then suddenly it stood erect on its tail, and shot forward towards
the vessel."

"Shows the strength of their backs. I couldn't help thinking that when
I saw the account."

"What am I talking about?" exclaimed Tidswell, hastily correcting
himself; "it was the ship stood in towards the monster and shot at him."

"Ah, yes; so it was. I made the same mistake myself, see. Yes, they
fired a broadside at him."

"No; only one shot at his head."

"That was all. Isn't that what you said?"