it required all
his wariness to elude the gins and pitfalls prepared for him. Indeed,
his very wariness got him into trouble.

After chapel on his second morning Swinstead came to him and said--

"Youngster, you are to go to the Doctor at half-past nine."

"Oh, ah!" said Coote to himself, knowingly. "I know what that means."

"Do you hear?" asked Swinstead.

"I suppose you think I'm green," said the new boy.

Swinstead laughed.

"What on earth should make me think that?" said he.

Coote chuckled merrily to himself as he saw the senior depart.

"I'm getting over the worst of it," said he to himself. "They'll soon
give up trying it on me. Ha, ha!"

And he went off to find his chums, who took him for a stroll in the
Fields.

"Well, young 'un," said Dick, patronisingly, "getting used to it? Worn
your flannels lately?"

"You're a beastly cad, Dick," said Coote; "but you don't catch me like
that again."

"No, you're getting too knowing," said Georgie.

Coote laughed.

"I'm not quite as green as some fellows think," said he. "A fellow came
to me this morning and told me to go to the Doctor at 9:30. A nice fool
he thought he'd make of me. Ha, ha!"

"What fellow was he?" said Dick, looking rather serious.

"I don't know his name," said Coote. "The fellow who marked the names
in chapel, I believe."

"What, Swinstead? Did he tell you to go?"

"Rather; and I told him I wasn't such a fool as I looked--I mean as he
thought."

"By Jove!--you young ass! You've got yourself into a mess, if you
like."

"How do you mean?" inquired the new boy, beginning to be alarmed at the
concerned looks of his two friends.

"Why, he's Chapel usher," said Dick. "Do you mean to say you didn't go
to the Doctor?"

"Rather not. I--"

"What's the time?" said Dick.

"A quarter to ten."

Without more ado they took the unhappy Coote between them and rushed him
frantically back to the school, where they shot him in at the Doctor's
door just as that gentleman was about to dismiss his new boys' class.

"How is this, Coote?" demanded the Head Master, sternly, as the
breathless boy entered. "Were you not told to be here at half-past
nine?"

"Yes, sir; I--I made a mistake. I'm very sorry, sir."

The genuine terror in his face procured his reprieve this time. Dr
Winter may have been used to "mistakes" of this kind. At any rate, he
contented himself with cautioning the new boy against unpunctuality
generally, an