ull morning song,
as the sun literally cut up the mists, which rose and dispersed just as
the last of the mental mists were rising fast from about me. There was
the glorious country, with all its attractions for a town boy, and close
by me lay Mercer, who seemed to me quite a profound sage in his
knowledge of all around, and I felt that, after all, I had got too much
budding manliness in me to give up like a coward, who would run away at
the first trouble he had to meet.

I was a natural boy once again, and, going back to Mercer's bedside, I
began to think that there was no fun in seeing him sleeping away there
while I was wide awake; so, stealing softly to his little wash-stand, I
took the towel, dipped one corner carefully in the jug, and then, with a
big drop ready to fall, I held it close to his nose, squeezed it a
little, and the drop fell.

The effect was instantaneous.

Mercer gave a spring which made his bed creak, and sat up staring at me.

"What are you doing?" he said. "Why can't you be quiet? Has the bell
rung?"

"I don't know," I said. "I haven't heard it."

"Why--why, it's ever so early yet, and you're half dressed. Oh, how my
nose burns! I say, is it swelled?"

"Horribly!" I said.

He leaped out of bed, ran to the glass, stared in, and looked round
again at me.

"Oh my!" he ejaculated, as he gazed at me wildly; "there's no getting
out of this. Bathing won't take a nose like that down. It ought to
have on a big linseed meal poultice."

"But you couldn't breathe with a thing like that on."

"Oh yes, you could," he said, with the voice of authority. "You get two
big swan quills, and cut them, and put one up each nostril, and then put
on your plaster. That's how my father does."

"But you couldn't go about like that."

"No, you lie in bed on your back, and whistle every time you breathe."

I laughed.

"Ah, it's all very fine to laugh, but we shall be had up to the Doctor's
desk this morning, and he'll want to know about the fighting."

"Well, we must tell him, I suppose," I said. "They began on us."

"No," said Mercer, shaking his head, and looking as depressed as I did
when I woke; "that wouldn't do here. The fellows never tell on each
other, and we should be sent to Coventry. It's precious hard to be
licked, and then punished after, when you couldn't help it, isn't it?"

"Yes," I said. "Then you won't tell about Burr major and Dicksee."

"Oh no. Never do. We shall ha