time he turned
to his companion with a friendly grin.

"Thanks awfully, Mr Armstrong. I say, I wonder if you'll be my tutor
as well as Frank's? I heard father say something about it! Wouldn't it
be stunning?"

Mr Armstrong gave a qualified assent.

"I'm not a bit clever, you know, like Rosalind, but I'd like to have a
tutor awfully. I say, haven't we done enough with these blessed boxes?
They'll be all right now. Should we have time to see Christy's
Minstrels on our way to the hotel, do you think? I'd like it
frightfully."

"My dear boy," said Mr Armstrong, "if we are to get all the things
properly cleared and labelled and sent off to Maxfield, we shall have no
time for anything else. If the way you stick to your lessons is
anything like the way you stick to this task, I don't envy your tutor."

This covert threat at once reduced Tom to a sense of discipline, and he
made a gallant effort to secure Mr Armstrong's good opinion.

The tutor was right. It was well on in the afternoon when they had the
baggage finally disposed of, and were free to follow to the hotel.

Here they found, instead of the party they expected, a hurriedly
scrawled line from Roger.

"Dear Armstrong,--

"Oliphant has taken it into his head to go down to Maxfield at once by
the two train. So we are starting. I'm sorry he can't wait, so as all
to go together. If you are back in time to come by the evening train,
do come. If not, first train in the morning.

"Yours ever,

"R.I."

It was too late to get a train that day; so Mr Armstrong, much
disgusted, had to make up his mind to remain. Tom, on the contrary, was
delighted, and proposed twenty different plans for spending the evening,
which finally resolved themselves into the coveted visit to Christy's
Minstrels.

The tutor, in no very festive humour, allowed himself to be overborne by
the eagerness of his young companion, and found himself in due time
jammed into a seat in a very hot hall, listening to the very
miscellaneous performance of the coloured gentlemen who "never perform
out of London."

The tutor, who had some ideas of his own on the subject of music,
listened very patiently, sometimes pleased, sometimes distressed, and
always conscious of the enthusiastic delight of his companion, whose
unaffected comments formed to him the most amusing part of the
entertainment.

"Isn't that, stunning?"

"Thanks awfully, Mr Armstrong, for bringing me."

"Hooray! Bones