ere against him. In stories, as Mr Anstey
has pointed out, the hero is never long without his chance of
retrieving his reputation. A mad bull comes into the school grounds,
and he alone (the hero, not the bull) is calm. Or there is a fire, and
whose is that pale and gesticulating form at the upper window? The
bully's, of course. And who is that climbing nimbly up the Virginia
creeper? Why, the hero. Who else? Three hearty cheers for the plucky
hero.

But in real life opportunities of distinguishing oneself are less
frequent.

Sheen continued his visits to the "Blue Boar", but more because he
shrank from telling Joe Bevan that all his trouble had been for
nothing, than because he had any definite object in view. It was bitter
to listen to the eulogies of the pugilist, when all the while he knew
that, as far as any immediate results were concerned, it did not really
matter whether he boxed well or feebly. Some day, perhaps, as Mr Bevan
was fond of pointing out when he approached the subject of
disadvantages of boxing, he might meet a hooligan when he was crossing
a field with his sister; but he found that but small consolation. He
was in the position of one who wants a small sum of ready money, and is
told that, in a few years, he may come into a fortune. By the time he
got a chance of proving himself a man with his hands, he would be an
Old Wrykinian. He was leaving at the end of the summer term.

Jack Bruce was sympathetic, and talked more freely than was his wont.

"I can't understand it," he said. "Drummond always seemed a good sort.
I should have thought he would have sent you in for the house like a
shot. Are you sure you put it plainly in your letter? What did you
say?"

Sheen repeated the main points of his letter.

"Did you tell him who had been teaching you?"

"No. I just said I'd been boxing lately."

"Pity," said Jack Bruce. "If you'd mentioned that it was Joe who'd been
training you, he would probably have been much more for it. You see, he
couldn't know whether you were any good or not from your letter. But if
you'd told him that Joe Bevan and Hunt both thought you good, he'd have
seen there was something in it."

"It never occurred to me. Like a fool, I was counting on the thing so
much that it didn't strike me there would be any real difficulty in
getting him to see my point. Especially when he got mumps and couldn't
go in himself. Well, it can't be helped now."

And the conversation turned to