ctor.

"I'm sure it would be a mistake, sir," repeated Riddell. "If there was
any chance of my succeeding I would try, but--"

"But," said the doctor, "you have not tried. Listen, Riddell; I know I
am not inviting you to a bed of roses. It is a come-down, I know, for
the captain of the school and the head of the schoolhouse to go down to
Welch's, especially such a Welch's as ours is at present. But the post
of danger, you know, is the post of honour. I leave it to you. You
need not go unless you wish. I shall not think worse of you if you
conscientiously feel you should not go. Think it over. Count all the
cost. You have already made a position for yourself in the schoolhouse.
You will have to quit that, of course, and start afresh and single-
handed in the new house, and it is not likely that those who defy the
rules of the school will take at first to a fellow who comes to enforce
them. Think it all over, I say, and decide with open eyes."

The doctor's words had a strange inspiriting effect on this shy and
diffident boy. The recital of all the difficulties in the way was the
most powerful argument to a nature like his, and when at length the
doctor wished him good-night and told him to take till the following day
to decide, Riddell was already growing accustomed to the prospect of his
new duty.

For all that, the day that ensued was anxious and troubled. Not so much
on account of Welch's. On that point his mind was pretty nearly made
up. It seemed a call of duty, and therefore it was a call of honour,
which Riddell dare not disobey. But to leave the schoolhouse just now,
when it lay under the reproach caused by the boat-race accident; and
worse still, to leave it just when young Wyndham seemed to be drifting
from his moorings and yielding with less and less effort to the
temptations of bad companions--these were troubles compared with which
the perils and difficulties of his new task were but light.

For a long time that night Riddell sat in his study and pondered over
the doctor's offer, and looked at it in all its aspects, and counted up
all the cost.

Then like a wise man he took counsel of a Friend. Ah! you say, he
talked it over with Fairbairn, or Porter, or the acute Crossfield--or,
perhaps, he wrote a letter to old Wyndham? No, reader, Riddell had a
Friend at Willoughby dearer even than old Wyndham, and nearer than
Fairbairn, or Porter, or Crossfield, and that night when all the school