ok out, Winter will be coming in. You've
got to sit up there at the top table, in that empty chair. Look alive,
or he'll catch you."

And as the blushing innocent walked up the room, the observed of all
observers, and made straight for the Head Master's table, our heroes
became absorbed in admiration of the plates in front of them, and
positively trembled with the emotion their beauty evoked.

Every one was most polite to the abashed new boy on his journey up the
room. They ceased talking as they beheld him, and respectfully made
room for him. Some even were good enough to assist his progress by word
and gesture.

"Where are you going, my pretty maid?" asked Birket of the rosy youth,
as he neared his destination.

The poetical suggestion was too much for the Fifth, who caught up the
pastoral ditty, and accompanied the measured tread of the wanderer with
an undertone chorus of--

"'Where are you going, my pretty maid?'
'I'm going to dinner, sir,' she said.
'May I go with you, my pretty maid?'
'Not if I know it, sir,' she said."

Coote got used to the pretty melody before the term was over, but just
now his sense of music was deadened by the apparition of Dr Winter, who
entered by a door at the upper end of the Hall, and walked straight for
the chair which the modest novice had looked upon as the goal of his
tedious journey.

"Cut back!" said Birket, coming to the rescue just in time, and turning
the unhappy boy to the rightabout. "They've been making a fool of you."

Then might have been seen a spotless white figure flying like the wind
down the Hall of Templeton, making the place rosy with his blushes, and
merry with his hot haste.

Dick and Heathcote caught their brother as he made for the door, and
squeezed him in between them at their table, where roast beef and good
cheer restored some of his drooping spirits, while the applause of his
patrons and the success of the whole adventure went far to reduce the
tension which otherwise might have threatened the stability of the
"Firm."

But after that, Coote felt his confidence in the "two bricks," on whom
he had hitherto relied so implicitly, a trifle shaken, and was not quite
sure whether, after all, a new boy might not get through his first few
days as comfortably without the protection of two bosom friends as with
it.

There being very few new boys this term compared with last, he found
himself by no means neglected in his walks abroad, and