Hang it, you'll be there. What's the use of fagging to tell you?"

"And what about the Den? Who lives in it?"

"Look here! I shall lick you, Richardson, if you go on like that. You
green kids are a lot too cheeky."

And the offended envoy went off in a huff, leaving his hearers in a
state of excited uncertainty as to the nature of the ceremony to which
their company had been invited.

As the reader may like to have a rather more definite explanation than
that afforded by Mr Raggles, let him know that unlike most public
schools, the school year at Templeton began after the Easter holidays,
instead of after the summer holidays. The new boys came up then for the
most part (though a few "second chances," as they were called, straggled
in in the autumn term), and the various appointments to offices of
honour and duty, the inauguration of the clubs, and the apportionment of
the fags always formed an interesting feature of the new term. The
whole of the business was transacted in a mass meeting of the school,
known by the name of "Elections," where, under the solemn auspices of
the Sixth, Templeton was invited to pick out its own rulers, and settle
its own programme for the ensuing year.

Elections, as a rule, passed off harmoniously, the school acquiescing on
most points in the recommendations of the Sixth, and, except on matters
of great excitement, rarely venturing to lift up its voice in
opposition. The juniors, however, generally contrived to have their
fling, usually on the question of fagging, which being a recognised
institution at Templeton, formed a standing bone of contention. And, as
part of the business of Elections was the solemn drawing of lots for new
boys to fill the vacancies caused by removal or promotion, the
opportunity generally commended itself as a fit one for some little
demonstration.

The Juniors' Den at Templeton, that is, the popular assembly of those
youthful Templetonians who had not yet reached the dignity of the Fourth
Form, had always been the most radical association in the school.
Though they differed amongst themselves in most things, they were as one
man in denouncing fagging and monitors. Their motto was--down with
both; and it pleased them not a little to discover that though their
agitation did little good in the way of reforming Templeton, it served
to keep their "Den" well before the school, and sometimes to cause
anxiety in high places.

Such was the state of schoo