xcuse if you happen to be late
to-morrow, will you?"

Murdie paid no attention.

"You won't forget your excuse, Murdie," continued Hughie, poking him in
the back.

Murdie suddenly turned, caught him by the neck and the seat of his
trousers, and threw him head first into a drift, from which he emerged
wrathful and sputtering.

"Well, I hope you do," continued Hughie, "and then you'll catch it. And
mind you," he went on, circling round to get in front of him, "if you
want to ask big Bob there for his knife, mind you hold up your hand
first." Murdie only grinned at him.

The new master had begun the day by enunciating the regulations under
which the school was to be administered. They made rather a formidable
list, but two of them seemed to the boys to have gone beyond the limits
of all that was outrageous and absurd. There was to be no speaking
during school hours, and if a boy should desire to ask a question of his
neighbor, he was to hold up his hand and get permission from the master.
But worse than all, and more absurd than all, was the regulation that
all late comers and absentees were to bring written excuses from parents
or guardians.

"Guardian," Thomas Finch had grunted, "what's that?"

"Your grandmother," whispered Don back.

It was not Don's reply that brought Thomas into disgrace this first
day of the new master's rule, it was the vision of big Murdie Cameron
walking up to the desk with an excuse for lateness, which he had
obtained from Long John, his father. This vision breaking suddenly in
upon the solemnity of Thomas Finch's mind, had sent him into a snort of
laughter, not more to the surprise of the school than of himself. The
gravity of the school had not been greatly helped by Thomas sheepish
answer to the master's indignant question, "What did you do that for,
sir?"

"I didn't; it did itself."

On the whole, the opening day had not been a success. As a matter of
fact, it was almost too much to expect that it should be anything but
a failure. There was a kind of settled if unspoken opinion among the
children that no master could ever fill Archibald Munro's place in the
school. Indeed, it was felt to be a kind of impertinence for any man to
attempt such a thing. And further, there was a secret sentiment among
the boys that loyalty to the old master's memory demanded an attitude of
unsympathetic opposition to the one who came to take his place. It did
not help the situation that the new maste