yself, 'Is Verney going to bury his
talents in the cricket-ground?'"

"Oh!"

"Some parents, too many of them, send their boys here to make a few nice
friends, to play games, to scrape up the School with a remove once a
year. That, I take it, is not what Mrs. Verney wants?"

"N--no, sir."

"You ought to be in the Sixth--and you know it. Twice, or oftener, you
have deliberately taken things easy, because you wanted a soft time of
it during the summer term, and because you wished to remain in the same
form with Desmond, who, intellectually, is your--inferior. Is that
square dealing with your people?"

John was silent, but red of countenance. Warde went on, more
vehemently--

"I know all about your co-operative system of work. I have a harder name
for it. And I know just what you can do, and I want to see you do it,
for your own sake, for the sake of Mrs. Verney, and for the Hill's sake.
I've pushed you on at cricket a bit, haven't I? Yes. You owe me
something. Pay up by entering for a School-prize, and winning it!"

"A School-prize?"

"Yes; Lord Charles Russell's Shakespeare Medal. The exam. is next
October. I'll coach you. Is it a bargain?"

He held out his hand, staring frankly, but piercingly, into John's eyes.

"All right, sir," said John, after a pause. "I'll try."

"And buck up for your remove."

John smiled feebly, and sighed.

FOOTNOTES:

[27] There is a tablet on the wall of the Old Schools which bears the
following inscription:--Near this spot ANTHONY ASHLEY COOPER Afterwards
the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, K.G. While yet a boy in Harrow School Saw
with shame and indignation The pauper's funeral Which helped to awaken
his lifelong Devotion to the service of the poor And the oppressed.

CHAPTER IX

_Black Spots_

"The Avon bears to endless years
A magic voice along,
Where Shakespeare strayed in Stratford's shade,
And waked the world to song.
We heard the music soft and wild,
We thrilled to pulses new;
The winds that reared the Avon's child
Were Herga's[28] nurses too."

That evening John told Caesar what Warde had said to him, and then added,
"I mean to have a shot at 'the Swan of Avon.'" Caesar looked glum.

"But how about the remove? We'd agreed to stay in the Second Fifth till
Christmas. It's the jolliest form in the school."

"If we put our backs--and heads--into Trials,[29] we can easily get a
remove."

"Blow Trials."

John turne