ster. You will find the practical part easy to you when
you have a thorough knowledge of mathematics. At the same time if you
will once a week send me your papers, noting all difficulties that you
may meet with, I will go through them and answer you, and will also give
you papers to work out."

"You are very, very kind, sir," Jack said; "but it will not be the same
thing as you being here."

"No, not quite the same, Jack; still we can hardly help that."

"Oh, no, sir!" Jack said eagerly, "and please do not think that I am not
glad to hear that you have got a place more worthy of you. It was a blow
to me just at first, and I was selfish to think of myself even for a
moment."

"Well, Jack, and now about this question of the soup dinner?"

"Oh! it does not matter, sir. I had forgot all about it."

"It matters a little, Jack, because, although I did not promise to keep
silence, I should certainly have respected your wish, had it not been
that it seemed to be a far more important matter that the truth should
be known."

"More important, sir?" Jack repeated in a puzzled tone.

"More important, Jack. My successor has been chosen. He is just the man
for this place--earnest, well trained, a good disciplinarian. He will be
no help to you, Jack. He is simply taught and trained as the master of a
national school, but he is thoroughly in earnest. I have told him that
his most efficient assistant here will be yourself."

"I?" Jack exclaimed in extreme astonishment.

"You, Jack, not as a teacher, but as an example. You have immense power
of doing good, Jack, if you do but choose to exert it."

Jack was altogether too surprised to speak for some time.

"A power of good," he said at last. "The only good I can do, sir, and
that is not much, is to thrash chaps I see bullying smaller boys, but
that's nothing."

"Well, that's something, Jack; and indeed I fear you are fond of
fighting."

"I am not fond of it," Jack said. "I don't care about it, one way or the
other. It doesn't hurt me; I am as hard as nails, you see, so I don't
think more about fighting than I do about eating my dinner."

"I don't like fighting, Jack, when it can be avoided, and I don't think
that you are quarrelsome though you do get into so many fights."

"Indeed I am not quarrelsome, Mr. Merton; I never quarrel with anyone.
If any of the big chaps interfere with us and want to fight, of course I
am ready, or if chaps from the other pits think that they