tea, were there waiting for him when Walter
arrived, and Henderson, as usual, amusing the others and himself with a
flood of mimicry and nonsense.

"You know that mischievous little Penkridge," said Kenrick; "he nearly
had an accident this morning. We were in the classroom, and Edwards was
complaining of the bad smell of the room--"

"Bad smell!" interrupted Henderson, "I'll bet you what you like Edwards
didn't say bad smell. _He's_ not the man to call a spade a spade; he
calls it an agricultural implement for the trituration of the soil."

"Why, what _should_ he say?" asked Kenrick, "if he didn't say `bad
smell'?"

"Why, `What a malodorous effluvium!'" said Henderson, imitating exactly
the master's somewhat drawling tone; "`what a con-cen-trra-ted malarious
miasma; what an unendurable'--I say Power, give us the Greek, or Hebrew,
or Kamschatkan, for `smell.'"

"Odwde," suggested Power.

"That's it to a T," said Henderson; "I bet you he observed, `What an
un-en-duu-rrable osus.' Now, didn't he? Confess the truth."

"Well, I believe he did say something of the kind," said Kenrick,
laughing; "at least I know he called it Stygian and Tartarean. But, as
I was saying, he set Penkridge (who happened to be going round with the
lists) to examine the cupboards, and see if by chance some inopportune
rat had died there; and Penkridge, opening one of them where the floor
was very rotten, and poking about with his foot, knocked a great piece
of plaster off the great schoolroom ceiling, and was as nearly as
possible putting his foot through it."

"Fancy if he had," said Walter, "how astonished we should have been down
below. I say, Henderson, what _would_ Paton have said?"

"Oh! Paton," said Henderson, delighted with any opportunity for
mimicry, "he'd have whispered quietly, in an emotionless voice,
`Penkridge, Penkridge, come here--come here, Penkridge. This is a very
unusual method, Penkridge, of entering a room--highly irregular. If you
haven't broken your leg or your arm, Penkridge, you must write me two
hundred lines.'"

"And Robertson?" asked Kenrick.

"Oh! Robertson--he'd have put up his eye-glass," said Henderson, again
exactly hitting off the master's attitude, "and he'd have observed, `Ah!
Penkridge has fallen through the floor; probably fractured some bones.
Slippery fellow, he won't be able to go to the Fighting Cocks _this_
afternoon, at any rate.' Whereupon Stevens would have gone up to him
with