at I was! If the other new fellow's only a
troublesome too, we shall have it all to ourselves. Philpot, you know,"
added he confidentially, "is a backward by rights, but he calls himself
one of us because of the Tuesday night jams."

"Is there another new boy too?" I inquired, plucking up heart with this
friendly comrade.

"Oh! he's coming to-morrow. Never mind! Even if he's a `back' it don't
matter, except for the glory of the thing! The `troubs' were always
ahead all Ladislaw's time, and he's no chicken. I say, come in the
playground, can't you?"

I followed rather nervously. A new boy never takes all at once to his
first walk in the playground; but with Flanagan as my protector--who was
"Hail fellow, well met," with every one, even the backwards--I got
through the ordeal pretty easily.

There were eight boys altogether at Stonebridge House, and I was
introduced--or rather exhibited--to most of them that afternoon. Some
received me roughly and others indifferently. The verdict, on the
whole, seemed to be that there was plenty of time to see what sort of a
fellow I was, and for the present the less I was made to think of myself
the better. So they all talked rather loud in my presence, and showed
off, as boys will do; and each expected--or, at any rate, attempted--to
impress me with a sense of his particular importance.

This treatment gave me time to make observations as well as them, and
before the afternoon ended I had a pretty good idea whom I liked and
whom I did not like at Stonebridge House.

Presently we were summoned in to a bread-and-cheese supper, with cold
water, and shortly afterwards ordered off to bed. I said my prayers
before I went to sleep, as I had promised good Mrs Hudson, and, except
for being shouted at to mind I did not snore or talk in my sleep--the
punishment for which crimes was something terrific--I was allowed to go
to sleep in peace, very lonely at heart, and with a good deal of secret
trepidation as I looked forward and wondered what would be my lot at
Stonebridge House.

CHAPTER THREE.

HOW A MYSTERIOUS NEW BOY CAME TO STONEBRIDGE HOUSE.

When I rose next morning, and proceeded to take my turn at the
washstand, and array my person in the travel-stained garments of the
previous day, it seemed ages since I had parted with Brownstroke and
entered the gloomy precincts of Stonebridge House.

Everything and everybody around me was gloomy. Even Flanagan seemed not
y