ate his enthusiasm with
regard to me, and consequently for the next few weeks I had a quiet time
of it. True enough, my master would occasionally produce me in
confidence to a select and admiring audience, and would ever and again
proffer the use of me to his protector, Joe Halliday, but he gave up
flourishing me in the face of every passer-by, and took to buttoning his
jacket over the chain, I found my health all the better for this gentler
usage, and showed my gratitude by keeping perfect time from one week's
end to the other.

It is hardly necessary for me to say that Charlie was not long in making
friends at Randlebury. Indeed some of his acquaintance looked upon this
exceeding friendliness in the boy's disposition as one of his weak
points.

"I do believe," said Walcot, who was only four from the head of the
school, to his friend, Joe Halliday, one day, about a month after my
master's arrival at Randlebury--"I do believe that young fag of yours
would chum up to the poker and tongs if there were no fellows here."

"Shouldn't wonder," said Joe. "He's a sociable young beggar, and keeps
my den uncommon tidy. Why, only the other day, when I was in no end of
a vicious temper about being rowed about my Greek accents, you know, and
when I should have been really grateful to the young scamp if he'd given
me an excuse for kicking him, what should he do but lay wait for me in
my den with a letter from his father, which he insisted on reading aloud
to me. What do you think it was about?"

"I couldn't guess," said Walcot.

"Well, you must know he's lately chummed up very thick with my young
brother Jim in the second, and--would you believe it?--he took it into
his head to sit down and write to his governor to ask him if he would
give Jim and me each a watch like the one he's got himself. What do you
think of that?"

"Did he, though?" exclaimed Walcot, laughing. "I say, old boy, you'll
make your fortune out of that youngster; and what did his father say?"

"Oh, he was most polite, of course; his boy's friends were his friends,
and all that, and he finished up by saying he hoped we should both come
and spend Christmas there."

"Ha! ha! and did he send the watches?"

"No; I suppose he wants to spy out the land first."

"Well," said Walcot, "the boy's all right with you, but he'll go making
a fool of himself some day if he makes up to everybody he meets."

My master, in fact, was already a popular boy with his f