Walter's senior, and was utterly taken by surprise at his audacity; but
he seemed in no hurry to avenge the insult.

"Well," said Walter, heaving with indignation, "why don't you hit me
again?"

Jones looked at his firm and determined little assailant with some
alarm, slowly tucked up the sleeves of his coat, turned white and red,
and--didn't return the blow. The tea-bell beginning to ring at that
moment gave him a convenient excuse for breaking off the altercation.
He told his friends that he was on the point of thrashing Walter when
the bell rang, but that he thought it a shame to fight a new
fellow--"and in cold blood, too," he added, adopting Walter's language,
but not his sincerity.

"Don't call me a coward again then," said Walter to him as he turned
away.

"I say, Evson, you're a regular brick, a regular stunner," said young
Kenrick, delighted, as he showed Walter the way to the Hall where the
boys had tea. "That fellow Jones is no end of a bully, and he won't be
quite so big in future. You've taken him down a great many pegs."

"I say, Kenrick," shouted Henderson after them, "I bet you five to one I
know what you're saying to the new fellow."

"I bet you don't," said Kenrick, laughing.

"You're saying--it's a quotation, you know, but never mind--you're
saying to him, `A sudden thought strikes me: let's swear an eternal
friendship.'"

"Then you're quite out," answered Kenrick. "I was saying come and sit
next me at tea."

"And go shares in jam," added Henderson: "exactly what I said, only in
other words."

CHAPTER FOUR.

FRIENDS AND FOES.

"He who hath a thousand friends hath not one friend to spare,
And he who hath one enemy shall meet him everywhere."

Already Walter had got someone to talk to, someone he knew; for in spite
of Kenrick's repudiation of Henderson's jest, he felt already that he
had discovered a boy with whom he should soon be friends. It doesn't
matter how he had discovered it; it was by animal magnetism; it was by
some look in Kenrick's eyes; it was his light-heartedness; it was by the
mingled fire and refinement of his face which spoke of a wilful and
impetuous, yet also of a generous and noble nature. Already he felt a
sense of ease and pleasure in the certainty that Kenrick--evidently no
cipher among his schoolfellows--was inclined to like him, and to show
him the ways of the school.

They went into a large hall, where the four hundred had their meals.
They