how are the `kids' in your house getting on?"

"The `kids' are getting on very well, I fancy," said the captain.
"They've a match with the Parrett's juniors fixed already, and mean to
challenge the schoolhouse too, I fancy."

"I say, that's coming it rather strong," said Wyndham, half
incredulously.

"It's a fact, though," said Riddell, "and what's more, I have it on
Parrett's authority that they are getting to play very well together,
and any eleven that plays them will have to look out for itself if it is
to beat them."

"Ho, ho! I guess our fellows will be able to manage that. Of course,
you know, if I'm in the second-eleven, I shan't be able to play with my
house juniors."

"That will be a calamity!" said Riddell, laughing, as he began to get
out his books and settle himself for the evening's work.

Despite all the boy's juvenile conceit and self-assurance, Riddell
rejoiced to find him grown enthusiastic about anything so harmless as
cricket. Wyndham had been working hard the last week or so in a double
sense--working hard not only at cricket, but in striving to act up to
the better resolutions which, with Riddell's help, he had formed. And
he had succeeded so far in both. Indeed, the cricket had helped the
good resolutions, and the good resolutions had helped the cricket. As
long as every spare moment was occupied with his congenial sport, and a
place in the second-eleven was a prize within reach, he had neither time
nor inclination to fall back on the society of Silk or Gilks, or any of
their set. And as long as the good resolutions continued to fire his
breast, he was only too glad to find refuge from temptation in the
steady pursuit of so honourable an ambition as cricket.

He was, if truth must be told, more enthusiastic about his cricket than
about his studies, and that evening it was a good while before Wyndham
could get his mind detached from bats and balls and concentrated on
Livy.

Riddell himself, too, found work more than ordinarily difficult that
night, but his thoughts were wandering on far less congenial ground than
cricket.

Supposing that letter did mean something, how ought he to act? It was
no pleasant responsibility to have thrown on his shoulders the duty of
bringing a criminal to justice, and possibly of being the means of his
expulsion. And yet the honour of Willoughby was at stake, and no
squeamishness ought to interfere with that. He wished, true or untrue,
that the w