who had perceptions, was elusively conscious that
his companion, too much of a gentleman to give his thoughts words,
might be contrasting a yeoman's work with a king's; and when the
Etonian, gazing across the plains below to where Windsor lay, a soft
shadow upon the horizon, said abruptly, "I wish Eton had been built
upon a hill," John replied effusively; "Oh, sir, it _is_ decent of you
to say that." The examination, however, distracted his attention from
all things save the papers. To his delight he found these easy, and,
as soon as he left the examination-room, he was popped into a cab and
taken back to town. Coming down the flight of steps, he had seen a few
boys hurrying up or down the road. At these the Etonian cocked a
twinkling eye.

"Queer kit you Harrow boys wear," he said.

John, inordinately grateful at this recognition of himself as an
Harrovian, forgave the gibe. It had struck him, also, that the shallow
straw hat, the swallow-tail coat, did look queer, but he regarded them
reverently as the uniform of a crack corps.

To-day, standing by the iron palings, John reviewed the events of the
last hour. The view was blurred by unshed tears. His uncle and he had
driven together to the Manor. Here, the explorer had exercised his
peculiar personal magnetism upon the house-master, a tall, burly man of
truculent aspect and speech. John realized proudly that his uncle was
the bigger of the two, and that the giant acknowledged, perhaps
grudgingly, the dwarf's superiority, The talk, short enough, had
wandered into Darkest Africa. His uncle, as usual, said little,
replying almost in monosyllables to the questions of his host; but John
junior told himself exultantly that it was not necessary for Uncle John
to talk; the wide world knew what he had done.

Then his house-master, Rutford, had told John where to buy his first
straw hat.

"You can get one without an order at the beginning of each term," said
he, in a thick, rasping voice. "But you must ask me for an order if
you want a second."

Then he had shown John his room, to be shared with two other boys, and
had told him the hour of lock-up. And then, after tea, came the walk
down the hill, the tip, the firm grasp of the sinewy hand, and a
final--"God bless you."

Coming to the end of these reflections, confronted by the inexorable
future, and the necessity, no less inexorable, of stepping into it,
John passed through the gate. His heart fluttered fu