firmly, as if he feared that terrible adjectives
might burst from them. John missed the sparkling smile, the gay glance
of the eyes.

"What's up?" he demanded.

Caesar hesitated; looked at John, read, perhaps, the sympathy, the honest
interest, possibly the affection, in the grey orbs which met his own so
steadily.

"What's up?" he repeated. "Why, I'm not going into Damer's, after all."

"Oh!" said John.

"My governor has just told me. I came down here to curse and swear."

"Not going into Damer's? What rot--for you!"

"It is sickening. Look here, Verney; I feel like telling you about it. I
know you won't go bleating all over the shop. No. I said to myself,
'Mum's the word,' but----"

John's heart beat, his body glowed, his grey eyes sparkled.

"It's like this," continued Caesar, after a slight pause. "Damer told the
governor that two fellows he had expected to leave at the end of this
term were staying on. The governor hinted that Damer added something
about straining a point, and letting me in ahead of three other fellows;
but the governor wouldn't listen to that----"

"Jolly decent of him," said John.

"Was it? In my opinion he ought to have thought of me first. All my
brothers have been at Damer's. And he knew I'd set my heart on going
there. Look how civil the fellows are to me. I've been in and out of the
house like a tame cat. Confound it! if Damer did want to strain a point,
why shouldn't he? The governor played his own game, not mine. What right
has he to be so precious unselfish at my expense? I argued with him; but
he can put his foot down. Let's cut all that. Of course, I don't want to
stop in a beastly Small House for ever, and, if Damer's is closed to me,
I should like Brown's, but Brown's is full too. And there are other good
houses. But where--where do you think I _am_ going?"

"Reeds?"

"I don't call Reed's so bad. No; I'm going to Dirty Dick's. I'm coming
to you."

"Oh, I say."

"Why, dash it all, you're grinning. I don't want to be a cad--Dirty
Dick's is _your_ house--but--after Damer's! O Lord!"

The grin faded out of John's face. Caesar's loss outweighed his own gain.

"Your governor was a Manorite," he said slowly.

"Yes, in its best days; and he's always had a sneaking liking for it;
but he knows, he knows, I say, that now it's rotten, and yet he sends me
there. Why?"

"Ask another," said John.

"I asked him another, and what do you think he said, in that peculiar
voice