riously, and the
lump in the throat swelled inconveniently. John, however, had provided
himself with a "cure-all." Plunging his hand into his pocket, he
pulled out a cartridge, an unused twenty-bore gun cartridge. Looking
at this, John smiled. When he smiled he became good-looking. The
face, too long, plain, but full of sense and humour, rounded itself
into the gracious curves of youth; the serious grey eyes sparkled; the
lips, too firmly compressed, parted, revealing admirable teeth, small
and squarely set; into the cheeks, brown rather than pink, flowed a
warm stream of colour.

The cartridge stood for so much. Only a week before, Uncle John, on
his arrival from Manchuria, had handed his nephew a small leather case
and a key. The case held a double-barrelled, hammerless, ejector,
twenty-bore gun, with a great name upon its polished blue barrels.

The sight of the cartridge justified John's expectations. He put it
back into his pocket, and strode forward and upward.

Close to the School Chapel, John remarked a curly-headed young
gentleman of wonderfully prepossessing appearance, from whom emanated
an air, an atmosphere, of genial enjoyment which diffused itself. The
bricks of the school-buildings seemed redder and warmer, as if they
were basking in this sunny smile. The youth was smiling now,
smiling--at John. For several hours John had been miserably aware that
surprises awaited him, but not smiles. He knew no Harrovians; at his
school, a small one, his fellows were labelled Winchester, Eton,
Wellington; none, curiously enough, Harrow. And already, he had passed
half a dozen boys, the first-comers, some strangers, like himself, and
in each face he had read indifference. Not one had taken the trouble
to say, "Hullo! Who are you?" after the rough and ready fashion of the
private school.

And now this smiling, fascinating person was actually about to address
him, and in the old familiar style----

"Hullo!"

"Hullo!"

"I met your governor the other day."

"Did you?" John replied. His father had died when John was seven.
Obviously, a blunder in identity had created this genial smile. John
wished that his father had not died.

"Yes," pursued the smiling one, "I met him--partridge-shooting at
home--and he asked me to be on the lookout for you. It's queer you
should turn up at once, isn't it?"

"Yes," said John.

"Your governor looked awfully fit."

"Did he?" Then John added solemnly, "My