a little extra practical work towards the elucidation of
his idea, which grew all the more interesting, as he saw it would need
great care and industry to arrive at the result.

But when afternoon school was over Warren waited about until Horace
appeared, and then he said, 'Just go on a little way, while I speak to
Morrison. I want him to come with us, for I know that "cock of the
walk" is bullying him, and if he'll just join us we shall be three to
the other lot. Little Morrison isn't a bad sort of fellow, when you
can get him to make up his mind, and the Curtis lot are getting a deal
too cocky.'

So Horace walked on to the corner of the road, and Warren waited for
Leonard; but the moment Taylor saw him speak to the lad he pounced
down upon him. 'Now look here, Morrison,' he said, 'if you go talking
to Warren now he's joined that fellow in Coventry, you'll be sent
there yourself by the rest of the school. I'll give you a week to
think over what we were talking about at dinner time;' and Taylor, as
he spoke, slipped his arm into Leonard's and walked him off, leaving
Warren to try and persuade another boy to join him in his walk home
with Horace.

But the Taylor and Curtis party were too strong just now for another
to rebel against their rule, and so the two lads walked home by
themselves, amid the derisive cheers of Taylor and a few others.

This state of things continued for a few days--the two friends
learning to know and like each other better each time they met, and
cared less for the company of others. Then a quarrel broke out in the
ranks of the popular party, and Warren heard that Taylor was so
hectoring the others as to what they should do, that at last, out of
sheer perversity, two or three came to walk home with them, and held a
discussion concerning Taylor and his ways that ought to have made that
young gentleman's ears tingle.

'We're all in Coventry now, of course,' said one boy, 'and I vote that
we make ourselves jolly over it. I say, Howard, I want you to tell me
how you get your lessons done, for you're always ready with an answer,
and I've been so floored lately that I've had a private message if I
don't do better I shall have to go down among the juniors, and that
would make my people wild.'

Horace laughed at the idea of there being any royal road to the
acquisition of lessons but the one of careful, steady, thoughtful
study.

'Then you do swat awfully, as the fellows say, and that's what th