n a trunk, but he was too pleased to oblige this important and
fashionable-looking personage to raise any question.

"Yes. Can you give me change out of a half-crown? Or you can pay me
the lot back to-morrow, I shan't be wanting it till then," said he.

"All serene, kid; I'm glad you are our side. I shall be able to give
you a leg-up with the fellows. Whose house are you in?"

"Wakefield's, the same as my brother."

"What--then you must be a Classic! They're all Classics at Wakefield's.
Why can't you tell the truth when you're asked, instead of a howling
pack of lies?"

"I didn't know, really, I thought--"

"Come, that's a good one. Any idiot knows what side he's on at
Fellsgarth."

Fisher minor was greatly confused to stand convicted thus of greenness.

"You see," said he, putting on a little "side" to cover his shame, "I
was bound to be stuck on the same side as my brother, you know."

"Nice for you. Not a gentleman among them. All paupers and prigs,"
said this young Modern, waxing eloquent. "You'll suit them down to the
ground." Considering that Fisher minor had just lent the speaker half a
crown, these taunts struck him as not exactly grateful. At the same
time he writhed under the reproach, and felt convinced that Classics
were not at all the "form" at Fellsgarth.

"Why," pursued the other, pocketing his coin in order to release his
hands for a little elocution, "we could boy 'em up twice over. The
workhouse isn't in it with Wakefield's. There's not a day but they come
cadging to us, wanting to borrow our tin, or our grub, or something.
There, look at that chap going across there! He's one of 'em. Regular
casual-ward form about him. He's the meanest, stingiest lout in all
Fellsgarth."

"Why," exclaimed Fisher minor, looking in alarm towards this prodigy of
baseness, "why, that's--that's Fisher, my brother!"

The Modern youth's jaw fell with a snap, and his cheeks lost what little
colour they had.

"What? Why didn't you tell me! Look here, you needn't tell him what I
said. It was quite between ourselves, you know. I must be cutting, I
say. See you again some day."

And he vanished, leaving Fisher minor considerably more bewildered, and
poorer by a cool half-crown, than he had been five minutes ago.

CHAPTER TWO.

LAMB'S SINGING.

Wakefield's house, as Fisher minor entered it under his brother's wing,
hardly seemed to the new boy as disreputable a haunt as his recent
Mod