mind what
it was, so long as he could be proud about it. Of course he never
_says_ anything: but a fellow gets to know."

"I daresay you're right," I said. "But what has this to do with
insuring yourself for twenty thousand pounds?"

"Well, you see, I'm to go into the Bank some day: and I expect my father
thinks I shall be just as big a duffer at that. I know he does.
But I'm not, if he'd only trust me a bit. So now if we were to smash
up--collide, go off the rails, run over a bridge, or something of that
sort--just think how he'd feel when he found out I'd cleared twenty
thousand by it!"

"So that's what you were picturing to yourself?"

He nodded. "That, and the smash, and all. I kept saying, 'Now--if it
comes this moment?' And I wondered a little how it would take _you_
suddenly: whether you'd start up or fall forward--and if you would say
anything."

"You are a cheerful companion!"

He grinned politely. "And afterwards--just before the train stopped I
had a splendid idea. I began making my will. You see, I know
something about investments. I read about them every day."

"In the _Boy's Own Paper?_"

"We take in the _Standard_ in our school library, and I have it all to
myself unless there's a war on. I've heard my father say often that
it's a very reliable paper, and so it is, for I've tried it for two
years now. So if I left a will telling just how the twenty thousand
ought to be invested, it would open my father's eyes more than ever."

"My dear sir," said I, "don't be in a hurry. Serve out your time among
the barbarians at school, and I'll promise you in time your father's
respectful astonishment."

These were my two boys; and you may wonder why I always think of them
together. I do, though: and, what is more, I find that together they
help to explain to me my country's greatness.

THE SENIOR FELLOW.

There is at Oxford a small college, with a small bursar's garden that in
spring is ablaze with laburnum and scented with lilac; and in the old
wall of this garden, just beneath the largest laburnum-tree, you may
still find a stone with this inscription: "_Jesus have mercy on Miles
Tonken, Fellow. Anno 1545._"

This college, in the days when I knew it, had three marks of
distinction:--It turned out, on hunting mornings, more "pinks" for its
size than any other in Oxford; its boat was head of the river; and its
Senior Fellow was the Rev. Theobald Pumfrey, who knew more of Athena