the first to enter, and his eye was immediately caught by the bread
basket, which lay dejected on its side in a little pool of crumbs. He
looked suspiciously at it.

"Who threw the basket on the floor?"

Dead silence.

"Come, speak out! Someone must have done it; baskets don't jump off
tables by themselves."

After another short silence, one of the young day-pupils, who happened
to be standing close beside it, picked up the basket and placed it on
the table.

"Did you knock it down, Frere, my boy?" asked Mr. West.

"No, sir. It was one of the boarders; I don't know his name. I think he
aimed it at some of us, and it fell on the floor instead."

Frere spoke innocently. He had never been to school before, and it did
not occur to him that he was doing any harm by his frankness--least of
all, to himself! The eyes of his friends and enemies alike glared
reproachfully at him, but he did not notice them. It was Jack Brady who
broke in.

"We threw the basket at them first, sir, and it did hit them!"

"Well, never do it again, Brady. Look what a mess it's made on the
floor! And you others, you have been in the school longer; you ought to
have known better than to throw it back. You might have broken
something."

That was all. But the bitterness between the two camps was not lessened
by the incident, and Frere was liked none the better for it.

However, now work began again, and ill-feeling was shelved perforce for
the time. The sarcastic Green, for instance, found himself required to
read the part of "Nerissa" to Mason's "Portia"; and Hughes was set to
sketch Africa on the board in company with Vickers. The boys did not
know that Mr. West had given a hint to the masters to mix the new and
old element well together.

That opening day was a weary one to the nine town boys, and all but Jack
Brady, the "weekly", scampered off with boisterous delight when school
was dismissed at four o'clock.

The two chums, Ethelbert Hughes and Lewis Simmons, had been quickly
dubbed "Ethel" and "Lucy", and they did not at once appreciate their new
names. But Jack Brady, when he found himself hailed indiscriminately as
"Apple" and "Grinner", answered and laughed without a trace of
resentment. Perhaps that was why neither title stuck to him, while
Hughes and Simmons became Ethel and Lucy to everyone, and even at last
to each other.

Jack was standing at the window, watching his friends disappear in the
direction of the town, and wh