" he said, as he passed on; "they're
not a bad lot of chaps." The revulsion nearly brought on a
catastrophe, for the tears rose to my eyes and I gazed after him with
a swimming head. I had prepared myself to receive blows and insults
with a calm brow, but I had no armour with which to oppose the noble
weapons of sympathy and good fellowship. They overcame the stubborn
hatred with which I was accustomed to meet life, and left me
defenceless. I felt as if I had been face to face with the hero of a
dream.

As I sat at supper before a long table decorated with plates of
bread-and-butter and cheese I saw my friend sitting at the other end
of the room, so I asked the boy next to me to tell me his name. "Oh,"
he said, looking curiously at my blushes, "you mean old mother F----.
He's pious, you know; reads the Bible and funks at games and all
that."

There are some things which no self-respecting schoolboy can afford
to forgive. I had made up my mind that it was not pleasant to be an
Ishmael, that as far as possible I would try to be an ordinary boy at
my new school. My experiences in London had taught me caution, and I
was anxious not to compromise my position at the outset by making an
unpopular friend. So I nodded my head sagely in reply, and looked at
my new-discovered hero with an air of profound contempt.

II

The days that followed were not so uncomfortable as my first grey
impression of the place had led me to expect. I proved to my own
intense astonishment to be rather good at lessons, so that I got on
well with the masters, and the boys were kind enough in their
careless way. I had plenty of pocket-money, and though I did not
shine at Association football, for in London I had only watched the
big boys playing Rugby, I was not afraid of being knocked about,
which was all that was expected of a new boy. Most of my
embarrassments were due to the sensitiveness that made me dislike
asking questions--a weakness that was always placing me in false
positions. But my efforts to make myself agreeable to the boys were
not unsuccessful, and while I looked in vain for anything like the
romantic adventures of which my brother had spoken, I sometimes found
myself almost enjoying my new life.

And then, as the children say in the streets of London, I woke
up, and discovered that I was desperately home-sick. Partly no
doubt this was due to a natural reaction, but there were other
more obvious