uncheon with them, or had dinner provided for them at the school.
There was a luncheon room provided for those who brought their meals
with them, but Horace had preferred eating his slice of bread and
butter or bread and dripping, walking about the playground. There were
others who did the same thing, but they walked in groups and chatted
and frolicked, or played games, and when he first came Horace had been
invited to join these, and had been initiated into the mysteries of
one game peculiar to the school, which was, therefore, very popular
among the boys.

Now, however, this was altered. Horace was left severely alone, and
though a boy might go shouting round for another to make up the game,
no one ever asked Horace to take the vacant place. He was left to walk
up and down the side of the playground until the bell rang for
afternoon school, and then the boys who might be near, as they were
passing in, took care to hold as far aloof from him as possible.

Horace wondered how long this was going to last. He had made several
attempts to break through this silent persecution, but each boy to
whom he had spoken had walked away as though he was stone deaf; and so
at last Horace gave up the attempt, and tried to be happy in spite of
this.

'I say, Morrison, how much longer is that beggar going to hold out?'
said Taylor, one day speaking to Leonard, as though he ought to know
all about it.

Taylor had lost his place in the class, and so had Leonard, and
neither felt very amiable.

'Ask him, if you want to know. I'm nearly sick of it, I can tell you.
It's lasted a month now, and I think we may as well give it up.'

'I daresay you do. My brother who has just come home from Oxford, says
it is your people who have brought him into the school.'

'My people!' shouted Leonard, crimson with wrath at the insinuation.
'Who do you mean by "my people?" and why should you think so?'

'Now don't get mad, Len,' said Taylor in a quieter tone. 'But you know
your father is on the County Council, and they say it was he who
recommended that Howard should be sent to Torrington's.'

'I don't believe it!' blazed Leonard Morrison; and then with fine
inconsistency he added, 'If he did, it was because the fellow got a
scholarship, and he had to go somewhere.'

'Anywhere but at Torrington's would have done for him,' grumbled
Taylor; 'and I think the master or the Council ought to turn him out,
now they know the rest of the fellows don't lik