ight," said William slowly.

"No," agreed Ginger. "You never know when folks _is_ oppressed. An'
anyway, wot's one afternoon away from school to make such a fuss
about?"

"Seems to me from wot father said," went on William gloomily, "you'll
have to wait a jolly long time for that drink of ginger-ale."

An expression of dejection came over Ginger's face.

"An' you wasn't even ever squire," he said. Then he brightened.

"They were jolly good cakes, wasn't they?" he said.

William's lips curved into a smile of blissful reminiscence.

"_Jolly_ good!" he agreed.

CHAPTER V

WILLIAM'S HOBBY

Uncle George was William's godfather, and he was intensely interested
in William's upbringing. It was an interest with which William would
gladly have dispensed. Uncle George's annual visit was to William a
purgatory only to be endured by a resolutely philosophic attitude of
mind and the knowledge that sooner or later it must come to an end.
Uncle George had an ideal of what a boy should be, and it was a
continual grief to him that William fell so short of this ideal. But
he never relinquished his efforts to make William conform to it.

His ideal was a gentle boy of exquisite courtesy and of intellectual
pursuits. Such a boy he could have loved. It was hard that fate had
endowed him with a godson like William. William was neither quiet nor
gentle, nor courteous nor intellectual--but William was intensely
human.

The length of Uncle George's visit this year was beginning to reach
the limits of William's patience. He was beginning to feel that sooner
or later something must happen. For five weeks now he had
(reluctantly) accompanied Uncle George upon his morning walk, he had
(generally unsuccessfully) tried to maintain that state of absolute
quiet that Uncle George's afternoon rest required, he had in the
evening listened wearily to Uncle George's stories of his youth. His
usual feeling of mild contempt for Uncle George was beginning to give
way to one which was much stronger.

"Now, William," said Uncle George at breakfast, "I'm afraid it's going
to rain to-day, so we'll do a little work together this morning, shall
we? Nothing like work, is there? Your Arithmetic's a bit shaky, isn't
it? We'll rub that up. We _love_ our work, don't we?"

William eyed him coldly.

"I don't think I'd better get muddlin' up my school work," he said. "I
shouldn't like to be more on than the other boys next term. It
wouldn't be fair