little red school-sergeant, telling news of old
regiments; they would burst into form-rooms sniffing the well-remembered
smells of ink and whitewash; they would find nephews and cousins in the
lower forms and present them with enormous wealth; or they would invade
the gymnasium and make Foxy show off the new stock on the bars.

Chiefly, though, they talked with the Head, who was father-confessor
and agent-general to them all; for what they shouted in their unthinking
youth, they proved in their thoughtless manhood--to wit, that the
Prooshan Bates was "a downy bird." Young blood who had stumbled into an
entanglement with a pastry-cook's daughter at Plymouth; experience who
had come into a small legacy but mistrusted lawyers; ambition halting
at cross-roads, anxious to take the one that would lead him farthest;
extravagance pursued by the money-lender; arrogance in the thick of a
regimental row--each carried his trouble to the Head; and Chiron showed
him, in language quite unfit for little boys, a quiet and safe way
round, out, or under. So they overflowed his house, smoked his cigars,
and drank his health as they had drunk it all the earth over when two or
three of the old school had foregathered.

"Don't stop smoking for a minute," said the Head. "The more you're out
of training the better for us. I've demoralized the First Fifteen with
extra-tu."

"Ah, but we're a scratch lot. Have you told 'em we shall need a
substitute even if Crandall can play?" said a Lieutenant of Engineers
with a D.S.O. to his credit.

"He wrote me he'd play, so he can't have been much hurt. He's coming
down to-morrow morning."

"Crandall minor that was, and brought off poor Duncan's body?" The Head
nodded. "Where are you going to put him? We've turned you out of house
and home already, Head Sahib." This was a Squadron Commander of Bengal
Lancers, home on leave.

"I'm afraid he'll have to go up to his old dormitory. You know old boys
can claim that privilege. Yes, I think little Crandall minor must bed
down there once more."

"Bates Sahib "--a Gunner flung a heavy arm round the Head's
neck--"you've got something up your sleeve. Confess! I know that
twinkle."

"Can't you see, you cuckoo?" a Submarine Miner interrupted. "Crandall
goes up to the dormitory as an object-lesson, for moral effect and so
forth. Isn't that true, Head Sahib?"

"It is. You know too much, Purvis. I licked you for that in '79."

"You did, sir, and it's my private