eclared that she had filled a dozen jugs already, they got their hot
water, and returned with all speed and great caution. As it was, they
narrowly escaped capture by some privateers from the fifth-form rooms,
who were on the look-out for the hot-water convoys, and pursued them up
to the very door of their room, making them spill half their load in the
passage. "Better than going down again though," Tadpole remarked, "as we
should have had to do, if those beggars had caught us."

By the time that the calling-over bell rang, Tom and his new comrades
were all down, dressed in their best clothes, and he had the
satisfaction of answering "here" to his name for the first time, the
praepostor of the week having put it in at the bottom of his list. And
then came breakfast, and a saunter about the close and town with East,
whose lameness only became severe when any fagging had to be done. And
so they whiled away the time until morning chapel.

It was a fine November morning, and the close soon became alive with
boys of all ages, who sauntered about on the grass, or walked round the
gravel walk, in parties of two or three. East, still doing the cicerone,
pointed out all the remarkable characters to Tom as they passed: Osbert,
who could throw a cricket-ball from the little-side ground over the rook
trees to the Doctor's wall; Gray, who had got the Balliol scholarship,
and, what East evidently thought of much more importance, a half-holiday
for the School by his success; Thorne, who had run ten miles in two
minutes over the hour; Black, who had held his own against the cock of
the town in the last row with the louts; and many more heroes, who then
and there walked about and were worshipped, all trace of whom has long
since vanished from the scene of their fame; and the fourth-form boy who
reads their names rudely cut out on the old hall tables, or painted upon
the big side-cupboard (if hall tables, and big side-cupboards still
exist), wonders what manner of boys they were. It will be the same with
you who wonder, my sons, whatever your prowess may be, in cricket, or
scholarship, or football. Two or three years, more or less, and then the
steadily advancing, blessed wave will pass over your names as it has
passed over ours. Nevertheless, play your games and do your work
manfully--see only that that be done, and let the remembrance of it take
care of itself.

The chapel-bell began to ring at a quarter to eleven, and Tom got in
ear