corners,
and finally went into hysterics because the cat jumped at the
canary-bird's cage.

CHAPTER XXII.

BURGOMASTERS AND GREAT ONE-EYERS.

When full upon his ardent soul
The champion feels the influence roll,
He swims the lake, he leaps the wall,
Heeds not the depth, nor plumbs the fall.
Unshielded, mailless, on he goes,
Singly against a host of foes!
Harold the Dauntless.

'Jem! Jem! have you heard?'

'What should I hear?'

'Mr. Lester is going to retire at Christmas!'

'Does that account for your irrational excitement?'

'And it has not occurred to you that the grammar-school would be the
making of you! Endowment, 150 pounds--thirty, forty boys at 10 pounds
per annum, 400 pounds at least. That is 550 pounds--say 600 pounds for
certain; and it would be doubled under a scholar and a gentleman--1200
pounds a year! And you might throw it open to boarders; set up the
houses in the Terrace, and let them at--say 40 pounds? Nine houses,
nine times forty--'

'Well done, Fitzjocelyn! At this rate one need not go out to Peru.'

'Exactly so; you would be doubling the value of your own property as a
secondary consideration, and doing incalculable good--'

'As if there were any more chance of my getting the school than of the
rest of it!'

'So you really had not thought of standing?'

'I would, most gladly, if there were the least hope of success. I
can't afford to miss any chance; but it is mere folly to talk of it.
One-half of the trustees detest my principles; the others would think
themselves insulted by a young man in deacon's orders offering himself.'

'It is evident that you are the only man on whom they can combine who
can save the school, and do any good to all those boys--mind you, the
important middle class, whom I would do anything to train in sound
principles.'

'So far, it is in my favour that I am one of the few University men
educated here.'

'You are your grandmother's grandson--that is everything! and you have
more experience of teaching than most men twice your age.'

James made a face at his experience; but little stimulus was needed to
make him attempt to avail himself of so fair an opening, coming so much
sooner than he could have dared to expect. It was now September, and
the two months of waiting and separation seemed already like so many
years. By the time Mrs. Frost came in from her walk, she found the two
young gentlemen devi