ther," said Jones. "We like your
room better than your company just now, Louis Mortimer; so please
to decamp."

"Evaporate!" said Meredith.

"I have my lessons to learn," said Louis.

"Is there any moral or physical impossibility in your lessons being
learned in the school-room?" asked Smith.

"I don't choose."

"Don't choose!" repeated Jones. "We'll see about that. Do you choose
to go quietly, or to be turned out, eh?"

"You have no right to do it," exclaimed Louis. "I have as much right
to be here as you."

"Ho, ho!" exclaimed Jones. "You'll find might is right here, my pretty
young gentleman. Salisbury, will you have the kindness to put the door
between us and his impertinence?"

"The procacity of the juvenile is progressing," remarked Frank.

Hamilton was not in the room, and there was no one to assist
Reginald in his resistance to the numbers by whom he was soon
overpowered, and in a few minutes, in spite of his exertions,
he found himself turned out with Louis, whom he had vainly
endeavored to defend.

Boiling with fury, Reginald at first attempted to kick open the door,
and then, being called to his senses by the interference of the usher
in the room, walked into the playground, and getting in at one of the
class-room windows, opened the door to Louis before his antagonists
had recovered from their surprise.

There was another scuffle, which was at length settled by the usher's
taking Louis' side, and desiring him to go in; but Louis found the study
so thoroughly uncomfortable, that in a few minutes he returned to the
school-room, and seated himself, in a restless, idle mood, by Casson.

The idle conversation of an idle, uprincipled boy is sure to be of a
hurtful description, and after Casson had heard Louis' grievances, and
condoled with him in the fashion of encouraging him in all that was bad,
the discourse fell upon Casson's last school, and many things Louis heard
and learned of which he had remained, till then, in blissful ignorance.
One or two ushers usually sat with the boys in the evening. One of these
was an elderly man, uncouth and ungainly in person, and possessed of a
very unfortunate temper, that was irritated in every possible manner by
those whose duty it was to have soothed the infirmities and considered
the trials of one whose life was spent in their service. Louis had felt
a great pity for the poor solitary man who never seemed to have a friend,
and now and then had spared a few