a small,
handsome boy, older indeed then he looked (for he was nearly fifteen),
not particularly clever or particularly jocular. To look at him you
would have thought him delicate, but there was nothing feeble in his
manner. He looked you straight in the face with a pair of brown saucy
eyes; he was ready to break his neck to oblige any one; and his pocket-
money (fancy a Bolsover boy having pocket-money!) was common property.
Altogether he was a phenomenon at Bolsover, and fellows took to him
instinctively, as fellows often do take to one whose character and
disposition are a contrast to their own. Besides this, young Forrester
was neither a prig nor a toady, and devoted himself to no one in
particular, so that everybody had the benefit of his good spirits, and
enjoyed his pranks impartially.

The other boy, who appeared to be about eighteen or nineteen, was of a
different kind. He, too, was a cut above the average Bolsoverian, for
he was clever, and had a mind of his own. But he acted almost entirely
on antipathies. He disliked everybody, except, perhaps, young
Forrester, and he found fault with everything. Scarfe--that was his
name was a Sixth Form boy, who did the right thing because he disliked
doing what everybody else did, which was usually the wrong. He disliked
his school-fellows, and therefore was not displeased with Mr Frampton's
reforms; but he disliked Mr Frampton and the new masters, and therefore
hoped the school would resist their authority. As for what he himself
should do, that would depend on which particular antipathy was uppermost
when the time came.

Curiously enough, Bolsover by no means disliked Scarfe. They rather
respected a fellow who had ideas of his own, when they themselves had so
few; and as each boy, as a rule, could sympathise with his dislike of
everybody else, with one exception, he found plenty of adherents and not
a few toadies.

Forrester was about the only boy he really did not dislike, because
Forrester did not care twopence whether any one liked him or not, and he
himself was quite fond of Scarfe.

"What do you think the fellows will do?" said the junior, after
attempting for the sixth time to "drop" the ball over the goal without
success.

"Why, obey, of course," said Scarfe scornfully.

"Shall you?"

"I suppose so."

"Why, I thought you were going to stick out."

"No doubt a lot of the fellows would like it if I did. They always like
somebody else to do w