ey were evidently not
welcome, he soon desisted, for after all Saurin was not one of "his
sort." And the term, as it is the fashion now to call a "half," came to
an end, and though his wounds were healed, and his features restored to
their original shape, Crawley had to go to Scarborough like one of
Gibson's statues, tinted.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

TREATING OF AN AIR-GUN AND A DOOR-KEY.

Saurin met with a disappointment when he returned home. His uncle had
intended to go abroad and take him with him, but this intention was
frustrated by an attack of gout, which kept him to his country home,
where his nephew had to spend the entire vacation, and he found it the
reverse of lively. Sir Richard Saurin's house stood in the midst of a
well-timbered park, and there were some spinneys belonging to the place
also. At one time he had rented the shooting all round about, and
preserved his own woods; but it was a hunting country, and the havoc
made by foxes was found to be so great that he gave up preserving in
disgust, and so, growing lazy, made that an excuse for dropping the
other field shooting, which passed into different hands. So now there
was no partridge-shooting, unless a stray covey chose to light in the
park, and there were very few pheasants, though the rabbits were pretty
numerous.

Sir Richard, being free from any paroxysm of his complaint when his
nephew arrived, laughed at his black eye.

"Is that the result of your course of lessons in boxing?" he asked.

"Well, Uncle Richard, I should have come worse off if I had not had
them," replied Saurin; "but one cannot fight without taking as well as
giving."

"But why fight at all? That is not what you are sent to school for."

"I never did before, and it is not likely to happen again, only I was
forced on this occasion to stand up for myself."

"Well, well," said Sir Richard, "I have something more serious to speak
to you about."

Saurin felt his heart beat; he feared for a moment that his visits to
Slam's, and the impositions he had practised, had been discovered; but
this was not the case.

"It is not a very good report I have received of you this time,"
continued his guardian. "It seems that you have grown slack in
attention to your studies, and have not made the progress which might
fairly be expected from a boy of your age and abilities. Now, it is
only right to warn you that the income left you by your father very
little more than covers the exp