g, Mr Whyte thrust
the packet into his pocket, and without further remark strode towards
his dwelling; while Charley, as instructed, led his friends to their new
residence--not forgetting, however, to charge Redfeather to see to the
comfortable lodgment of Jacques Caradoc.

"Now it strikes me," remarked Harry, as he sat down on the edge of
Charley's bed and thrust his hands doggedly down into his pockets, while
Hamilton tucked up his sleeves and assaulted a washhand-basin which
stood on an unpainted wooden chair in a corner--"it strikes me that if
_that's_ his usual style of behaviour, old Whyte is a pleasure that we
didn't anticipate."

"Don't judge from first impressions; they're often deceptive,"
spluttered Hamilton, pausing in his ablutions to look at his friend
through a mass of soap-suds--an act which afterwards cost him a good
deal of pain and a copious flow of unbidden tears.

"Right," exclaimed Charley, with an approving nod to Hamilton.--"You
must not judge him prematurely, Harry. He's a good-hearted fellow at
bottom; and if he once takes a liking for you, he'll go through fire and
water to serve you, as I know from experience."

"Which means to say _three_ things," replied the implacable Harry:
"first, that for all his good-heartedness at _bottom_, he never shows
any of it at top, and is therefore like unto truth, which is said to lie
at the bottom of a well--so deep, in fact, that it is never got out, and
so is of use to nobody; secondly, that he is possessed of that amount of
affection which is common to all mankind (to a great extent even to
brutes), which prompts a man to be reasonably attentive to his friends;
and thirdly, that you, Master Kennedy, enjoy the peculiar privilege of
being the friend of a two-legged polar bear!"

"Were I not certain that you jest," retorted Kennedy, "I would compel
you to apologise to me for insulting my friend, you rascal! But see,
here's the cook coming to tell us that dinner waits. If you don't wish
to see the teeth of the polar bear, I'd advise you to be smart."

Thus admonished, Harry sprang up, plunged his hands and face in the
basin and dried them, broke Charley's comb in attempting to pass it
hastily through his hair, used his fingers savagely as a substitute, and
overtook his companions just as they entered the messroom.

The establishment of Stoney Creek was comprised within two acres of
ground. It consisted of eight or nine houses--three of which, howev