anxious and scared.

At judiciously selected points among the crowd their friends looked on
sympathetically.

After the laughter which had greeted the discovery had died away, an
awkward pause ensued. No one exactly liked to start. The seniors
present felt their dignity would be compromised. The middle-boys did
not like to do what the seniors were too shy to do. The juniors were
afraid some one might laugh if they led off. Consequently for a minute
or two every one stared at the two shopmen, who cast down their eyes,
and blushed and simpered.

At length, however, the ice was broken in a very pretty way. For Mrs
Stratton on her way out of the school looked in, and taking in the
situation, advanced to the counter and said--

"A bottle of ginger-beer, if you please, Lickford."

Lickford, who, to use his own polite phrase, was "bossing the drinks and
fruit" for the day, nearly tumbled down with the shock of this sudden
challenge, and made a wild grab at the nearest bottle within reach. The
eyes of Fellsgarth were upon him; he lost his head entirely, and made
herculean efforts to draw the cork without loosing the wire. His
contortions were terrible.

When he could not hold the bottle firm enough between his knees, he
tried gripping it between his feet. Then in a hot whisper he besought
D'Arcy to hang on to the end, and for a time the bottle was invisible
under the two. Then he took another, amid the enthusiastic cheers of
the spectators, and was proceeding to release the corkscrew from the
refractory vessel, when Mrs Stratton said in her pleasant way--

"I see you keep the new kind of bottles that have the corks wired down.
They are much better than the old, and it's very little trouble undoing
the wire."

This saved Lickford. In a moment the wire was removed, and the cork
burst out triumphantly, even before it was pulled, showering a grateful
froth of fizz into the waistcoat of the operator.

"It's beautifully well up. Thank you, Lickford, how much?" said Mrs
Stratton.

"They're a shilling a dozen. I mean three-halfpence each," said D'Arcy.
"We can give you change."

"Here's twopence. I'll take a halfpenny apple. That will make it
right, won't it?"

And amid loud cheers she departed.

The ice thus broken, a rush took place, as Ridgway, who was poetical,
said--

"Fellows may step in where angels didn't fear to tread."

Then did D'Arcy and Lickford pant and perspire, and wish they had never