that keen feeling of enjoyment which the steady industrious
school-boy knows by experience.

"What a nice play-ground this is!" said Louis.

"Capital!" said Reginald. "What's the fun, Frank?" he cried to his
cousin, who bounded past him at this moment, towards a spot already
tolerably crowded.

"Maister Dunn," shouted Frank.

"Oh, the old cake-man, Louis," said Reginald; "I must go and get rid
of a few surplus pence."

"Do you like to spend your money in cakes?" asked Louis; "I have plenty,
Mrs. Colthrop took care of that."

"In that case I'll save for next time," said Reginald, "but let's go
and see what's going on."

Accordingly Reginald ran off in the cake-man's direction. Louis followed,
and presently found himself standing in the outer circle of a group of
his school-fellows, who formed a thick wall round a white-haired old
man and a boy, both of whom carried a basket on each arm, filled with
dainties always acceptable to a school-boy's palate.

[Illustration: Maister Dunn.]

Were I inclined to moralize, I might here make a few remarks on waste of
money, &c., but my business being merely to relate incidents at present,
I shall only say that there they stood, the old man and his assistant,
with the boys in constant motion and murmur around them.

Frank Digby and Hamilton were in the outer circle, the latter having
_walked_ from a direction opposite to that from which Frank and Reginald
came, but whose dignity did not prevent a certain desire to purchase if
he saw fit, and if not, to amuse himself with those who did so. He stood
watching the old man with an imperturbable air of gravity, and, hanging
on his arm in a state of listless apathy, stood Trevannion, another
member of the first class.

Frank Digby took too active a share in most things in the establishment
to remain a passive spectator of the actions of others, and began pushing
right and left. "Get along, get away ye vagabonds!" he politely cried:
"you little shrimps! what business have you to stop the way?--Alfred, you
ignoramus! Alfred, why don't you move?"

"Because I'm buying something," said the little boy addressed, looking
up very quietly at the imperious intruder.

"_Da locum melioribus_, Alfred, as the poet has it. Do you know where
to find that, my boy?--the first line of the thirteenth book of the
Aeneid, being a speech of the son of Anchises to the Queen of Carthage.
You'll find a copy of Virgil's works in my desk."

"I don't me