ouse,
to show them his collections of birds and insects. But he declined their
invitations to visit them, as he was unable to return their hospitality,
and was too proud to eat and drink at other fellows' houses when he
could not ask them to do the same at his own. It was understood at Dr.
Parker's that Frank Hargate's people were poor, but it was known that
his father had been killed in battle. There are writers who depict
boys as worshipers of wealth, and many pictures have been drawn of the
slights and indignities to which boys, whose means are inferior to those
of their schoolfellows, are subject. I am happy to believe that this is
a libel. There are, it is true, toadies and tuft hunters among boys as
among men. That odious creature, the parasite of the Greek and Latin
plays, exists still, but I do not believe that a boy is one whit the
less liked, or is ever taunted with his poverty, provided he is a good
fellow. Most of the miseries endured by boys whose pocket money is less
abundant than that of their fellows are purely self inflicted. Boys and
men who are always on the lookout for slights will, of course, find what
they seek. But the lad who is not ashamed of what is no fault of his
own, who frankly and manfully says, "I can't afford it," will not find
that he is in any way looked down upon by those of his schoolfellows
whose good opinion is in the smallest degree worth having.

Certainly this was so in the case of Frank Hargate. He was never in the
slightest degree ashamed of saying, "I can't afford it;" and the fact
that he was the son of an officer killed in battle gave him a standing
among the best in the school in spite of his want of pocket money.

Frank was friends with many of the fishermen, and these would often
bring him strange fish and sea creatures brought up in their nets,
instead of throwing them back into the sea.

During the holidays he would sometimes go out with them for twenty-four
hours in their fishing-boats. His mother made no objection to this, as
she thought that the exercise and sea air were good for his health, and
that the change did him good. Frank himself was so fond of the sea that
he was half disposed to adopt it instead of the army as a profession.
But his mother was strongly opposed to the idea, and won him to her way
of thinking by pointing out that although a sailor visits many ports he
stays long at none of them, and that in the few hours' leave he might
occasionally obtain