rs on whom
they could depend, and who generally played with them. Neither of them
mentioned Ellis. It was the first time they had neglected to ask him to
join any game that was to be played since he had become what they called
one of them. He happened to pass by, and heard them calling out the
names of those invited to play. He stopped a moment, looked towards
Ernest, and then turned away.

"I say, Buttar, do go and try and find him," said Ernest, in a low
voice, relenting in a moment. "Ask him--press him to join us."

Buttar gladly set off on the mission; but though he looked in every
direction, and inquired of everybody he met, Ellis was nowhere to be
found.

"It cannot be helped; I wish that we had from the first asked him to
join us," remarked Ernest, when Buttar returned to him with his report.

"Of whom do you speak?" asked Selby, a biggish and very gentlemanly boy.

"Of Ellis," said Buttar.

"Oh, we are much better without him," answered Selby. "There cannot be
a doubt that he is not a satisfactory person, and you two fellows lose
caste a good deal by associating with him. The idea is that he imposes
on you; not that you believe he has been guilty of an act of dishonesty,
and still consent to be intimate with him."

"An act of dishonesty!" exclaimed Ernest, with astonishment. "I cannot
believe that."

Buttar repeated almost the same words.

"There can be no doubt about it. I heard the story this winter from a
fellow who had been at the same school with him, and whose veracity I
cannot doubt. He told me that Ellis was always looked upon as a very
quiet, rather sawny sort of a fellow, without any harm; that he kept
much to himself, and had no intimate friends. He was also always poor,
and spent no money in the way other boys were in the habit of doing.

"There was another boy at the school who had always a good deal of
money, sometimes as much as three or four pounds in his purse at a time.
He was a very good sort of fellow, so he was thought, but rather soft.
Ellis and he became intimate, and were looked upon as great friends,
till on one occasion Arden, on going to his desk, found that his purse
was gone, and, as he declared, with five pounds in it. A hunt was
instituted in every direction; the masters were told of the loss, and
the boys began to suspect each other. Soon it was whispered about that
one of the boys was the thief. It was very extraordinary that just at
this time Ellis appe