marmalade on to the towel, but the drying part was not very successful.
Rather tough--eh? Yes, very tough--on _us_, but effective. The Greene
person has toshed regularly ever since. At least, so I'm told; I never
go near him myself, and he's considerate enough to keep out of my way."

Beaumont-Greene had not, it is true, the appetite for reckless breaking
of the law which distinguished Lovell and his particular pals; but
Lovell's good qualities cancelled to a certain extent what was vicious.
A fine cricketer, a plucky football-player, he might have proved a
credit to his house had a master other than Dirty Dick been originally
in command of it. Before he was out of the Shell, he had declared war
against Authority. Beaumont-Greene, on the other hand, detested games,
and sneered at those who played them. Pulpy, pimply, gross in mind and
body, he stood for that heavy, amorphous resistance to good, which is so
difficult to overcome.

During the first half of the winter quarter, John saw but little of Esme
Kinloch. It is one of the characteristics of a Public School that the
boys--as in the greater world for which it is a preparation--are in
layers. Some layers overlap; others never touch. Fluff was a fag; his
friend John was in the Fifth Form, and a "fez." In a word, an Atlantic
rolled between them. John, however, would often give Fluff a "con," and
occasionally they would walk together. Fluff was no longer the delicate,
girlish child of a year ago. He had bloomed into a very handsome boy,
attractive, like all the members of his mother's family, with engaging
manners, and he had also shown signs of developing into a cricketer.
Fluff could paddle his own canoe, provided, of course, that he kept out
of the rapids.

But about the middle of the term John noticed that Fluff was losing
colour and spirits, the latter never very exuberant. It was not in
John's nature to ask questions which he might answer for himself by
taking pains to do so. He watched Fluff closely. Then he demanded
bluntly--

"What's up?"

"Nothing."

"That's a cram," said John, severely. "I didn't believe you'd tell me a
cram, Esme."

"You don't care tuppence whether I tell crams or not--_now_."

John weighed the "now" deliberately.

"That's another cram," he said slowly. "Has anybody been rotting you?"

Silence. John repeated the question. Still silence. Then John added--

"You know, Esme, that I shall stick to you till I find out what's up; so