boy!" and he seized Tom's hand again.

"And you're to come to the Communion?" said Tom.

"Yes, and to be confirmed in the holidays."

Tom's delight was as great as his friend's. But he hadn't yet had out
all his own talk, and was bent on improving the occasion; so he
proceeded to propound Arthur's theory about not being sorry for his
friends' death, which he had hitherto kept in the background, and by
which he was much exercised;[25] for he didn't feel it honest to take
what pleased him and throw over the rest, and was trying vigorously to
persuade himself that he should like all his best friends to die
off-hand.

[25] #Exercised#: made thoughtful or anxious.

But East's powers of remaining serious were exhausted, and in five
minutes he was saying the most ridiculous things he could think of,
till Tom was almost getting angry again.

Despite of himself, however, he couldn't help laughing and giving it
up, when East appealed to him with: "Well, Tom, you aren't going to
punch my head, I hope, because I insist on being sorry when you get to
earth?"[26]

[26] #When you get to earth#: when you are buried.

And so their talk finished for that time, and they tried to learn
first lesson, with very poor success, as appeared next morning, when
they were called up and narrowly escaped being floored, which
ill-luck, however, did not sit heavily on either of their souls.

CHAPTER VIII.

TOM BROWN'S LAST MATCH.

"Heaven grant the manlier heart, that timely, ere
Youth fly, with life's real tempest would be coping;
The fruit of dreamy hoping
Is, waking, blank despair."

_Clough_, "_Ambarvalia._"

The curtain now rises upon the last act of our little drama,--for
hard-hearted publishers warn me that a single volume must of necessity
have an end. Well, well! the pleasantest things must come to an end. I
little thought last long vacation, when I began these pages to help
while away some spare time at a watering-place, how vividly many an
old scene, which had lain hid away for years in some dusty old corner
of my brain, would come back again, and stand before me clear and
bright as if it had happened yesterday. The book has been a most
grateful task to me, and I only hope that all you, my dear young
friends, who read it (friends assuredly you must be if you get as far
as this), will be half as sorry to come to the last stage a