to such a hole as Oxford!
One has had quite enough schooling after five years here. It's settled
I'm going into the Guards. My father tells me that old Scaife tried to
get the Demon down on the Duke's list. But we don't fancy the Scaife
brand."

Often and often John wondered whether Desmond saw the brand as plainly
as the Caterpillar and he did. Sometimes he felt almost sure that a
word, a look, a gesture betraying the bounder, had revolted Desmond;
but a few hours later the bounder bounded into favour again,
captivating eye and heart by some brilliant feat. And then his brains!
He was so diabolically clever. John could always recall his face as he
lay back in the chair in No. 15, sick, bruised, befuddled, and yet even
in that moment of extreme prostration able to "play the game," as he
put it, to defeat house-master and doctor by sheer strength of will and
intellect. It was Scaife who had persuaded Desmond to smoke. . . .
Caesar's voice broke in upon these meditations.

"I say--what are you frowning about?"

John, very red, replied nervously, "Now that you're in the Sixth, you
ought to chuck smoking."

"What rot!" said Caesar. "And here, in this tower, where one couldn't
possibly be nailed----"

"That's it," said John. "It's just because you can't possibly be
nailed that it seems to me not quite square."

Caesar burst out laughing. "Jonathan, you are a rum 'un. Anyway--here
goes!"

As he spoke he flung the pipe into the bushes below.

"Thanks," said John, quietly.

"We'll come here again. I like this old tower."

"You won't come here without me?"

"Oh, ho! I'm not to let the Demon into our paradise--eh? What a
jealous old bird you are! Well, I like you to be jealous." And he
laughed again.

"I am jealous," said John, slowly.

The School broke up on the following Tuesday, and Desmond went home
with John.

This happened to be the first time that the friends had spent Easter
together. John wondered whether Caesar would take the Sacrament with
his mother and him. He and Caesar had been confirmed side by side in
the Chapel at Harrow. He felt sure that Desmond would not refuse if he
were asked. On Easter Eve, Mrs. Verney said, in her quiet, persuasive
voice--

"You will join us to-morrow morning, Harry?"

Desmond flushed, and said, "Yes."

Not remembering his own mother, who had died when he was a child, he
often told John that he felt like a son to Mrs. Verney. Upon Easter
mor