hat they don't care to do themselves."

"Well, you and I'll be on different sides," said the youngster, making
another vain attempt at the goal. "I'm sorry for you, my boy."

"So am I; I'd like to see the Sixth beaten. But there's not much chance
of it if the kicking's left to you."

"I tell you what," said Forrester, ignoring the gibe. "I'm curious to
know what Cad Jeffreys means to do. We're bound to have some fun if
he's in it."

"Cad Jeffreys," said Scarfe, with a slight increase of scorn in his face
and voice, "will probably assist the School by playing for the Sixth."

Forrester laughed.

"I hear he nearly drowned himself in the bath the first day, and half
scragged Shrimpton for grinning at him. If he gets on as well at
football, Frampton will have something to answer for. Why, here he
comes."

"Suppose you invite him to come and have a knock up with the ball,"
suggested the senior.

The figure which approached the couple was one which, familiar as it was
to Bolsover, would have struck a stranger as remarkable. A big youth,
so disproportionately built as to appear almost deformed, till you
noticed that his shoulders were unusually broad and his feet and hands
unusually large. Whether from indolence or infirmity it was hard to
say, his gait was shambling and awkward, and the strength that lurked in
his big limbs and chest seemed to unsteady him as he floundered top-
heavily across the play-ground. But his face was the most remarkable
part about him. The forehead, which overhung his small, keen eyes, was
large and wrinkled. His nose was flat, and his thick, restless lips
seemed to be engaged in an endless struggle to compel a steadiness they
never attained. It was an unattractive face, with little to redeem it
from being hideous. The power in it seemed all to centre in its angry
brow, and the softness in its restless mouth. The balance was bad, and
the general impression forbidding. Jeffreys was nineteen, but looked
older, for he had whiskers--an unpardonable sin in the eyes of
Bolsover--and was even a little bald. His voice was deep and loud. A
stranger would have mistaken him for an inferior master, or, judging
from his shabby garments, a common gardener.

Those who knew him were in no danger of making that mistake. No boy was
more generally hated. How he came by his name of Cad Jeffreys no one
knew, except that no other name could possibly describe him. The small
boys whispered to