ract at will for a
further term after the summer holidays. Our landlord, Mr. C. Mytton, was
to provide board (according to a specified dietary) and bed (at least bed-
room) for all who could be lodged in his walls, and board (with light and
firing) for the whole party; to supply the service for the kitchen, and
to undertake the laundry. Servants for attendance on the boys were to be
brought by the masters. The payment was to be 1 pound a head per week
for all who were lodged and boarded, or boarded only, in the hotel. For
washing, and one or two other matters, an extra charge was admitted. We
have only to add that the bargain was one with which both parties, under
their respective circumstances, had reason to be satisfied; and that the
arrangement worked not more stiffly than could be expected where the
large margin of the unforeseen left so much to subsequent interpretation.
Even Dido and Hiarbas were not agreed about the precise width of a bull's-
hide. We do not, however, wish it to be inferred from this classical
parallel, that our settlers claim to have rivalled the adroitness of the
Punic queen in her dealings with the barbarian prince:

[Greek text] {12}

CHAPTER III.--TRANSFORMATIONS.

_Your snail is your only right house-builder_; _for he builds his
house out of the stuff of his own vitals_, _and therefore wherever he
travel he carries his own roof above him_. _But I have known men_,
_spacious in the possession of bricks and mortar_, _who have not so
much made their houses as their houses have made them_. _Turn such an
one out of his home_, _and he is a bare_ "_O without a figure_,"
_counting for nothing in the sum of things_. _He only is truly
himself who has nature in him_, _when the old shell is cracked_, _to
build up a new one about him out of the pith and substance of
himself_.

Ten days after the reconnaissance described in the last chapter, the
pioneers of the school were again upon the ground.

On Monday, March 27th, a goods train of eighteen trucks, chartered by the
Uppingham masters, was unloading three hundred bedsteads, with their
bedding, on Borth platform. These were to be distributed among the
quarters of their respective owners, in some dozen different houses,
which we had engaged in addition to the hotel. The workmen were mostly
Welshmen, anxious to be doing, but understanding imperfectly the speech
of their employers. With the eagerness