thout an order at the beginning of each term," said
he, in a thick, rasping voice. "But you must ask me for an order if you
want a second."

Then he had shown John his room, to be shared with two other boys, and
had told him the hour of lock-up. And then, after tea, came the walk
down the hill, the tip, the firm grasp of the sinewy hand, and a
final--"God bless you."

Coming to the end of these reflections, confronted by the inexorable
future, and the necessity, no less inexorable, of stepping into it, John
passed through the gate. His heart fluttered furiously, and the lump in
the throat swelled inconveniently. John, however, had provided himself
with a "cure-all." Plunging his hand into his pocket, he pulled out a
cartridge, an unused twenty-bore gun cartridge. Looking at this, John
smiled. When he smiled he became good-looking. The face, too long,
plain, but full of sense and humour, rounded itself into the gracious
curves of youth; the serious grey eyes sparkled; the lips, too firmly
compressed, parted, revealing admirable teeth, small and squarely set;
into the cheeks, brown rather than pink, flowed a warm stream of colour.

The cartridge stood for so much. Only a week before, Uncle John, on his
arrival from Manchuria, had handed his nephew a small leather case and a
key. The case held a double-barrelled, hammerless, ejector, twenty-bore
gun, with a great name upon its polished blue barrels.

The sight of the cartridge justified John's expectations. He put it back
into his pocket, and strode forward and upward.

* * * * *

Close to the School Chapel, John remarked a curly-headed young gentleman
of wonderfully prepossessing appearance, from whom emanated an air, an
atmosphere, of genial enjoyment which diffused itself. The bricks of the
school-buildings seemed redder and warmer, as if they were basking in
this sunny smile. The youth was smiling now, smiling--at John. For
several hours John had been miserably aware that surprises awaited him,
but not smiles. He knew no Harrovians; at his school, a small one, his
fellows were labelled Winchester, Eton, Wellington; none, curiously
enough, Harrow. And already he had passed half a dozen boys, the
first-comers, some strangers, like himself, and in each face he had read
indifference. Not one had taken the trouble to say, "Hullo! Who are
you?" after the rough and ready fashion of the private school.

And now this smiling, fascinating pe