ather regretfully,
as it flared up and burned to ashes on the grate.

He wished the unpleasant impression caused in his own mind by the affair
could come to an end as easily as that scrap of paper did.

Care, however, was not wont to sit heavily at any time on the spirit of
George Heathcote, and as Pledge did not again return to the subject, and
even Dick, seeing no immediate catastrophe befall his friend, began to
suspect the whole affair as an intricate and elaborate practical joke at
the expense of two new boys, the matter gradually subsided, and life
went on at its usual jog-trot.

This jog-trot gave place, however, on one eventful afternoon to a more
stately parade, on the occasion of the captain's levee, a week after
Elections.

This ceremony, one of the immemorial traditions of Templeton, which
fellows would as soon have thought of neglecting as of omitting to take
a holiday on the Queen's birthday, was always an occasion of general
interest after the reassembling of the school.

The captain of Templeton on this evening was "at home;" in other words,
he stood on the platform at the top of "Hall" in his "swallows" and
received the school, who all turned up in their very best attire to do
honour to the occasion.

New boys were "presented" by their seniors, and the captain, if he was a
fellow of tact and humour, usually contrived to say something friendly
to the nervous juniors; and generally the occasion was looked upon as
one on which Templeton was expected to make itself agreeable all round
and do itself honour.

For some days previously our heroes had been carefully looking up their
wardrobes in anticipation of the show. Dick, on the very evening of
Elections, had put aside his whitest shirt, and Heathcote had even gone
to the expense of a lofty masher collar, and had forgotten all about the
ghost in his excitement over the washing of a choker which _would_ come
out limp, though he personally devoted a cupful of starch to its
strengthening.

There was, as usual, keen competition among the members of the Den as to
who should achieve the "showiest rig" on the occasion. For some days
the owner of Heathcote's steel chain was mentioned as the favourite,
until rumour got abroad that young Aspinall was a "hot man," and had
white gloves and three coral studs. But Culver outdid everybody at the
last moment by appearing in a real swallow-tail of his own, which he had
secretly borrowed from a cousin during the