describing to them some of
the big football-matches which he, Mark, had taken his young friend to
see during the holidays; or maybe they were laying down some patriotic
plan for the future good of Railsford's house. His heart warmed to the
boys as he watched them. It was a pity, perhaps, he could not catch
their actual words.

"Seems jolly green," said Dig.

"So he is. Blushes like a turkey-cock when you talk about spoons.
Never mind, he's bound to be civil to us this term, eh, Dig? We've got
the whip hand of him, I guess, over that summer-house business at
Lucerne."

Here Dig laughed.

"Shut up! He'll hear!"

"What's the joke?" demanded a bullet-headed, black-eyed boy who sat
near.

"What, didn't I tell you, Dimsdale? Keep it close, won't you? You see
that chap with the eyeglass next to Grover. That's Railsford, our new
master--Marky, I call him. He's engaged to Daisy, you know, my sister.
Regular soup-ladles they are."

Here Dig once more laughed beyond the bounds of discretion.

"What an ass you are, Dig!" expostulated Arthur; "you'll get us in no
end of a mess."

"Awfully sorry--I can't help. Tell Dimsdale about--you know."

"Don't go spreading it, though," said Arthur, shutting his eyes to the
fact that he was confiding his secret to the greatest gossip in
Grandcourt, and that one or two other heads were also craned forward to
hear the joke. "I caught them going it like one o'clock in the hotel
garden at Lucerne--it was the first time I twigged what was up; and what
do you think he called my sister?"

"What?" they all demanded.

"Keep it close, I say. Ha, ha!--give you a guess all round; Dig knows."

"Pussy cat," suggested one.

"Jumbo," suggested another.

"Cherubim," suggested a third.

Arthur shook his head triumphantly.

"Out of it, all of you. You can tell 'em, Dig."

Dig composed his features once or twice to utter the word, but as many
times broke down. At last in high falsetto he got it out,--

"Chuckey!"

The laugh which greeted this revelation penetrated to the upper region,
and caused Dr Ponsford to rise on his seat and look in the direction of
the uproar.

At the same moment the Sixth-Form boy at the head of the table left his
place and bore down on the offenders.

"_Cave_!" muttered Arthur, purple in the face; "here's Ainger."

Instantly the party was thoroughly buried in its bread and cheese.

"Was that you, Oakshott, making that row?"

"I was only say