id, just in the manner to start an usher furious:

'I concealed it, I conceal it; I was carrying it, I carry it: you demand
that I exhibit for your inspection what I mean no Boddy to see? I have
to assure you respectfully, sir, that family portraits are sacred things
with the sons of gentlemen. Here, Richie, off!'

I found the portrait in my hand, and Heriot between me and the usher,
in the attitude of a fellow keeping another out of his home at
prisoner's-base. He had spied Mr. Rippenger's head at the playground
gate. I had just time to see Heriot and the usher in collision before
I ran through the gate and into Julia's arms in her garden, whither the
dreadful prospect of an approaching catastrophe had attracted her.

Heriot was merely reported guilty of insolence. He took his five hundred
lines of Virgil with his usual sarcastic dignity: all he said to Mr.
Rippenger was, 'Let it be about Dido, sir,' which set several of the
boys upon Dido's history, but Heriot was condemned to the battles with
Turnus. My share in this event secured Heriot's friendship to me without
costing me the slightest inconvenience. 'Papa would never punish you,'
Julia said; and I felt my rank. Nor was it wonderful I should when Mr.
Rippenger was constantly speaking of my father's magnificence in
my presence before company. Allowed to draw on him largely for
pocket-money, I maintained my father's princely reputation in the
school. At times, especially when the holidays arrived and I was left
alone with Julia, I had fits of mournfulness, and almost thought the
boys happier than I was. Going home began to seem an unattainable thing
to me. Having a father, too, a regular father, instead of a dazzling
angel that appeared at intervals, I considered a benefaction, in its
way, some recompense to the boys, for their not possessing one like
mine. My anxiety was relieved by my writing letters to my father,
addressed to the care of Miss Julia Rippenger, and posting them in her
work-basket. She favoured me with very funny replies, signed, 'Your own
ever-loving Papa,' about his being engaged killing Bengal tigers and
capturing white elephants, a noble occupation that gave me exciting and
consolatory dreams of him.

We had at last a real letter of his, dated from a foreign city; but he
mentioned nothing of coming to me. I understood that Mr. Rippenger was
disappointed with it.

Gradually a kind of cloud stole over me. I no longer liked to ask for
pocket-m