olfellows' words, and his father
had, after all, done something which necessitated his leaving the
country.

That seed did not take root; but it swelled, and shot, and gave him a
great deal of pain, making him grow morbid, old, and thoughtful beyond
his years. He became more sensitive; and when at last the doctor seemed
to side against him, and treated him as he thought harshly, Nic began to
find out thoroughly that it is not good for a boy to lose the loving
help and companionship of father, mother, and sisters, and he grew day
by day more gloomy, and ill-used as he believed, till at last, after the
sharp reproof from the doctor about his quarrelsome disposition and
ill-treatment of his schoolfellow Green, he began to feel it was time he
set off to seek his fortune, never once pausing to think that the doctor
had only judged by appearances. He had seen Nic attacking Green quite
savagely, and not having been present earlier, and, truth to tell, not
having sufficiently studied the inner life of his boys, he had looked
upon Nic as an ill-conditioned, tyrannical fellow, who deserved the
severest reproof.

So Nic thought it was time to seek his fortune.

Who was the miserable ass who first put that wretched idea into boys'
heads, and gave them a mental complaint which has embittered many a
lad's life, when, after making some foolish plunge, he has gone on
slowly finding out that castles in the air, built up by his young
imagination, are glorious at a distance, but when approached the colours
fade? They are erected with no foundation, no roof; no walls, windows,
doors, or furniture--in fact, they are, as Shakespeare says, "the
baseless fabric of a vision."

So much by way of briefly moralising on the fact that for, a boy to make
up his mind to go and seek his fortune means, in say nine hundred and
ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a
million, trying to climb upward in search of a castle in the air, or
tying a muffler round the eyes before making a leap in the dark.

So Nic wanted good advice, change, and something to drag him out of the
belief that he was one of the most ill-treated young personages in the
world.

But something came just a fortnight after the fight.

Nic's brow was all in puckers, his cheeks were pushed up in folds by his
fists, his elbows rested upon his desk, and he was grinding away at a
problem in Euclid--with thoughts of Green, Tomlins, the doctor, and a
sore plac