can
have come to Uncle Charlie to make him send Chris off like this, I can't
think. Middle of term too!"

"Well, how is it?--explain to me--but--I say, old fellow, where's your
cap? you'll be in no end of a row if you lose it, you know."

Up went Hubert Graham's hand to his head, as he answered in a bewildered
way, "Cap! Haven't I got--" and then hastily turning, and looking over
the parapet, he exclaimed, "Oh! I say, Seton, just look there!" and he
burst out into a hearty laugh as he added "One of those barge boys has
just fished it up out of the water, and he's holding it up in triumph to
me. I must have been dreaming. It's out of bounds," he went on, with a
face of dismay.

[Illustration: "LEANING WITH BOOK IN HAND" (_p. 21_).]

"I wonder if the fellow will bring it up to me."

"Not he," said Seton.

Dr. Thornley's boys were not allowed to go, without special leave, any
nearer the town on the outskirts of which the school was situated than
the bridge over which Hubert had been leaning. The approach of a master
solved the difficulty. Hubert Graham went up to him. "If you please,
sir, I was leaning over the parapet, and my cap fell into the river. A
bargee has picked it up. May I run and get it?"

The master looked over, and laughed. "Perhaps he won't give it up. You
may go and try."

When Hubert Graham returned to the bridge in triumph so far as the
possession of a very wet cap was concerned, but rather low in his mind
at having had to pay the exacting bargee a shilling out of his somewhat
scanty store of pocket-money, he found John Seton lingering about for
him.

"I say," he said, "I want to know about your uncle, and the little one.
He's a jolly little man though; I expect he'll make his way."

"But there's a terrible set in the lower school for him to make his way
with, and he a mere baby."

"Well! he's seven--and that seems like a baby to us, to be sure," said
magnificent fourteen years, speaking in the person of John Seton; "and
you're right. They _are_ a set; I wish I was the prefect in his
dormitory, but I'm not. Tell me how he came here in such a hurry?"

"Well, you needn't talk about it to the other fellows. Father and mother
are in India. Father's regiment was ordered abroad four years ago, and
mother went with him. There were three of us, and we were sent to Uncle
Charlie to take care of. I was eight years old then, Nellie was five,
and Chris three years old. Uncle was jolly and kind, and sen