s interest. And the proof is that you're
going down to this show, like all the rest of us."

"No, I'm not. I live there, you see."

And I think the Nipper recalled that name as he ground his heel upon
an unresponsive flagstone.

"But you're going to this meeting at the school-house, surely?"

"I don't know. If I do there may be squalls. I don't know what you
think about this precious scheme Raffles, but _I_...."

The ragged beard stuck out, set teeth showed through the wild
moustache, and in a sudden out-pouring we had his views. They were
narrow and intemperate and perverse as any I had heard him advocate as
the firebrand of the Debating Society in my first term. But they were
stated with all the old vim and venom. The mind of Nasmyth had not
broadened with the years, but neither had its natural force abated,
nor that of his character either. He spoke with great vigor at the
top of his voice; soon we had a little crowd about us; but the tall
collars and the broad smiles of the younger Old Boys did not deter our
dowdy demagogue. Why spend money on a man who had been dead two
hundred years? What good could it do him or the school? Besides, he
was only technically our founder. He had not founded a great public
school. He had founded a little country grammar school which had
pottered along for a century and a half. The great public school was
the growth of the last fifty years, and no credit to the pillar of
piety. Besides, he was only nominally pious. Nasmyth had made
researches, and he knew. And why throw good money after a bad man?

"Are there many of your opinion?" inquired Raffles, when the agitator
paused for breath. And Nasmyth beamed on us with flashing eyes.

"Not one to my knowledge as yet," said he. "But we shall see after
to-morrow night. I hear it's to be quite an exceptional gathering this
year; let us hope it may contain a few sane men. There are none on the
present staff, and I only know of one among the trustees!"

Raffles refrained from smiling as his dancing eye met mine.

"I can understand your view," he said. "I am not sure that I don't
share it to some extent. But it seems to me a duty to support a
general movement like this even if it doesn't take the direction or
the shape of our own dreams. I suppose you yourself will give
something, Nasmyth?"

"Give something? I? Not a brass farthing!" cried the implacable
banker. "To do so would be to stultify my whole position. I cordially
and consci