in the manner that pleased him
best, he began to see how very selfishly he had behaved.

"I will go to them now," he thought, starting up; "there are heaps of
time to have a rattling good fight before dinner."

And so there would have been, but--alas! for his good resolutions--as
he jumped to his feet something fell out of his pocket. It was the
little packet which he had bought last Saturday.

For a moment he hesitated; then down he sat, and picked up the packet.

"I will have just one," he said, "and then go and play with them."

"One" proved to be a cigarette, for cigarettes were what the little
packet contained.

Ever since he came home, he had been trying to master the art of
smoking, and had not yet succeeded. Each cigarette made him feel worse
than before. But with a perseverance worthy of a better cause he would
puff steadily on, and try hard to believe that he was enjoying himself.

One or two of the elder boys at his school--Dodds was not among the
number--had boasted that they often smoked in the holidays, and Hal had
been fired with the idea that it would be a fine thing to be able to
say when he went back that he knew how to smoke too.

And this was the secret of much of his altered behaviour, of his
mysterious absences, and more than all of his frequent pale looks and
irritable moods. The discomfort he felt when the cigarette was
actually between his lips was nothing compared to the very disagreeable
sensations that always followed. He would feel sick and dizzy, and
suffer from a headache for hours afterwards; but as soon as he
recovered he would return to the charge and refuse to acknowledge
himself beaten.

This morning he met with no better success. He began to feel ill long
before he had half finished his first cigarette, and by the time he was
half-way through the second the most painful qualms seized him, and
forgetting the fort and the fight and everything else in his extreme
misery he rolled over on the grass, and spent a most unhappy morning.
At dinner-time he crept into the nursery looking so pale and wretched
that nurse was really alarmed.

[Illustration: Hal with cigarette]

"I can't think what has come to you, Master Hal," she said. "You never
used to suffer from these dreadful sick headaches. You had better go
straight and lie down, and I will have some soup sent up to you."

Hal was thankful to accept her advice. The sight of the roast mutton,
and the currant tart with