ugh
used to be a cub, but he has developed very much in the last year or
two, and now he and Collingwood are the best-liked fellows in the
school. They have a proper sense of their responsibility as leaders of
the school, and are more likely to help you than to make trouble.
Morrill is their faithful follower, though a little harum-scarum at
times. Westby--" the master hesitated over that name and looked at Irving
with a measuring glance--"Westby is what you might call the school
jester. He's very popular with the boys--not equally so with all the
masters. Personally I'm rather fond of him. He's almost too quick-witted
sometimes."

That evening Barclay took the new master home to dine with him. Mrs.
Barclay was as cordial and as kind as her husband; Irving began to feel
more than satisfied with his surroundings.

"Pity you're not married, Upton," Barclay said, half jokingly. "You'd
escape keeping dormitory if you were--which you'll find the meanest of
all possible jobs. And then if your wife's the right kind--the boys have
to be pretty decent to you in order to keep on her good side."

Mrs. Barclay laughed. "I suppose that's the only reason they're pretty
decent to you, William!--You'll find it easy, Mr. Upton,--for the reason
that they're a pretty decent lot of boys."

The next day at noon the old boys began to arrive. Irving was coming out
of the auditorium, where he had been correcting the last set of
examination papers, when a barge drew up before the study building and
boys clutching hand-bags tumbled out and hurried into the building to
greet the rector.

Irving stood for a few moments looking on with interest: other barges
kept coming over the hill, interspersed with carriages, in which a few
arrived more magnificently.

It occurred to Irving that perhaps he had better hasten to his dormitory
in order to be on hand when his charges should begin to appear; he was
just starting away when three boys arm in arm rushed out of the study
building. They came prancing up to him, all smiles and twinkles; they
were boys of seventeen or eighteen. They confronted him, blocking his
path; and the one in the middle, a slim, straight fellow in a blue suit,
said,--

"Hello, new kid! What name?"

A blush of embarrassment mounted in Irving's cheeks; feeling it, he
conceived it all the more advisable to assert his dignity. So he said
without a smile, in a constrained voice,--

"I am not a new kid. I am a master."

The t