it was a very decent
substitute.

The only really considerable element making for discomfort now was Mr.
Downing. By bad luck it was in his form that Mike had been placed on
arrival; and Mr. Downing, never an easy form master to get on with,
proved more than usually difficult in his dealings with Mike.

They had taken a dislike to each other at their first meeting; and it
grew with further acquaintance. To Mike, Mr. Downing was all that a
master ought not to be, fussy, pompous, and openly influenced in his
official dealings with his form by his own private likes and dislikes.
To Mr. Downing, Mike was simply an unamiable loafer, who did nothing for
the school and apparently had none of the healthy instincts which should
be implanted in the healthy boy. Mr. Downing was rather strong on the
healthy boy.

The two lived in a state of simmering hostility, punctuated at intervals
by crises, which usually resulted in Lower Borlock having to play some
unskilled laborer in place of their star batsman, employed doing
"overtime."

One of the most acute of these crises, and the most important, in that
it was the direct cause of Mike's appearance in Sedleigh cricket, had to
do with the third weekly meeting of the School Fire Brigade.

It may be remembered that this well-supported institution was under Mr.
Downing's special care. It was, indeed, his pet hobby and the apple
of his eye.

Just as you had to join the Archaeological Society to secure the esteem
of Mr. Outwood, so to become a member of the Fire Brigade was a safe
passport to the regard of Mr. Downing. To show a keenness for cricket
was good, but to join the Fire Brigade was best of all.

The Brigade was carefully organized. At its head was Mr. Downing, a sort
of high priest; under him was a captain, and under the captain a
vice-captain. These two officials were those sportive allies, Stone and
Robinson, of Outwood's house, who, having perceived at a very early date
the gorgeous opportunities for ragging which the Brigade offered to its
members, had joined young and worked their way up.

Under them were the rank and file, about thirty in all, of whom perhaps
seven were earnest workers, who looked on the Brigade in the right, or
Downing, spirit. The rest were entirely frivolous.

The weekly meetings were always full of life and excitement.

At this point it is as well to introduce Sammy to the reader.

Sammy, short for Sampson, was a young bull terrier belonging