the passage.

"`--And Telson is the most conceited ignorant schoolhouse frog I ever
saw at breakfast got thirty lines for gross conduct with the abominable
King.'"

"There!" exclaimed Telson, in a red heat; "what does he mean by it? Of
course, I don't care for myself; it's about the schoolhouse."

"What's that he says about me?" said King.

"`The abominable King,'" cried Telson, reading with great relish;
"`thirty lines for gross conduct with the abominable King.'"

"Oh, I say, this is too much, you fellows," cried King.

"Not a bit too much. Just finish that day, Telson," said Parson,
handing back the diary.

"Please give it up," pleaded Bosher, but he was immediately sat upon by
his outraged companions, and forced to listen to the rest of the
chronicle.

"`Wyndham hath not found his knife. I grieve for Wyndham thinking
Cusack and the little Welchers to be the thiefs. I smile when Cusack
goes to prison in the Parliament a gross speech is made by Riddell I
reply in noble speech for the Radicals.'"

"That'll do, that's enough; he _is_ a Radical then; he says so himself!"
cried Telson, shutting up the book, and flinging it across the room at
Bosher, who was standing near the door and just dodged it in time. A
regular scramble ensued to secure the "gross" volume, in the midst of
which the unhappy author, seeing his chance, slipped from the room, and
bolted for his life down the passage.

His persecutors did not trouble to pursue him, and a sudden rumour
shortly afterwards that Mr Parrett was prowling about sent Telson and
the few Welchers slinking back to their quarters. And so ended the eve
of the great election.

The next morning Riddell and those interested in the discipline of the
school were surprised to see that the excitement was apparently abated,
instead of, as might have been expected, increased. The attendance at
morning chapel and call-over was most punctual, and between breakfast
and first school only two boys came to him to ask for permits to go into
town. One of these was young Wyndham, whom Riddell had seen very little
of since leaving the schoolhouse.

Wyndham's desire to go down into town had, as it happened, no connection
at all with the election. He was as much interested in that, of course,
as the rest of Willoughby, but the reason he wanted to go to Shellport
this afternoon was to see an old home chum of his, from whom he had just
heard that he would be passing in the train th