ery one.

"Not out!" says old Wyndham.

The next ball comes--but before it has left the bowler's hand young
Wyndham has begun to run. Loud shouts and laughter follow his headlong
progress.

"Well run, sir; put it on!" scream Parson and Telson.

"Stop thief!" howl Bosher and his friends.

"He's gaining, there! Pull yourself together!" cry Cusack and Pilbury.

Heedless of these familiar cheers--for lately this has been a daily
performance--Wyndham saves his honour at two seconds to six, the
identical moment when Forbes's last ball sends the Templeton bails
flying high over long-stop's head, and Willoughby is proclaimed winner
of the match by one innings and three runs.

A jovial party assembles an hour later for "high tea" in the captain's
study.

Fairbairn, Coates, Porter, and Crossfield are there, and Bloomfield and
Riddell, and the two Wyndhams, and assuredly a cheerier party never sat
down in Willoughby.

"I never expected to find you a Welcher," says old Wyndham to the
captain.

"No? A fellow's sure to find his level, you see, some day," replied
Riddell, laughing.

"Yes, but the thing is, Welch's is coming up to his level," says
Bloomfield, "instead of his going down to Welch's."

"I should say," says young Wyndham, blushing a little to hear his own
voice before this imposing assembly, "all Willoughby's coming up to his
level!"

"The young 'un's right, though he is a Limpet," says Crossfield. "I had
my doubts of old Riddell once, but I've more doubts about myself than
him now."

"You know, Wynd.," says Porter, "we're such a happy family, I shouldn't
wonder if I forget before long what house I belong to."

"I'll see you're reminded of that, my boy, before the house football
matches next term," says Fairbairn, laughing.

"Yes," says the old captain, "you'll be a poor show if you don't stick
up for your own house."

"Well, I don't know," says Porter, "we've had such a lot of sticking up
for our own houses this term, that I'm rather sick of it."

"Sticking up for ourselves, you mean," says Bloomfield, "that's where
one or two I could name went wrong."

"It seems to me," says Coates, "that sticking up for your house, and
sticking up for your school, and sticking up for yourself, are none of
them bad things."

"But," says old Wyndham, "unless you put them in the right order they
may do more harm than good."

"And what do you say the right order is?" asks Crossfield.

"Why, of course, Will