t he collapsed,
and Georgie lay back in his seat, silent and enraptured. Mr. Pepper was
singing again, and the deep, ringing voice, the red fire, and the misty,
waving gown all seemed to be mixed up with the little girl who had been
so kind about his cut. When the performance was ended she nodded
to Georgie, and Georgie nodded in return. He spoke no more than was
necessary till bedtime, but meditated on new colors and sounds
and lights and music and things as far as he understood them; the
deep-mouthed agony of Mr. Pepper mingling with the little girl's lisp.
That night he made a new tale, from which he shamelessly removed
the Rapunzel-Rapunzel-let-down-your-hair princess, gold crown, Grimm
edition, and all, and put a new Annieanlouise in her place. So it was
perfectly right and natural that when he came to the brushwood-pile he
should find her waiting for him, her hair combed off her forehead more
like Alice in Wonderland than ever, and the races and adventures began.

Ten years at an English public school do not encourage dreaming. Georgie
won his growth and chest measurement, and a few other things which
did not appear in the bills, under a system of cricket, foot-ball, and
paper-chases, from four to five days a week, which provided for three
lawful cuts of a ground-ash if any boy absented himself from these
entertainments. He became a rumple-collared, dusty-hatted fag of the
Lower Third, and a light half-back at Little Side foot-ball; was pushed
and prodded through the slack backwaters of the Lower Fourth, where the
raffle of a school generally accumulates; won his "second-fifteen" cap
at foot-ball, enjoyed the dignity of a study with two companions in
it, and began to look forward to office as a sub-prefect. At last he
blossomed into full glory as head of the school, ex-officio captain of
the games; head of his house, where he and his lieutenants preserved
discipline and decency among seventy boys from twelve to seventeen;
general arbiter in the quarrels that spring up among the touchy
Sixth--and intimate friend and ally of the Head himself. When he stepped
forth in the black jersey, white knickers, and black stockings of the
First Fifteen, the new match-ball under his arm, and his old and frayed
cap at the back of his head, the small fry of the lower forms stood
apart and worshipped, and the "new caps" of the team talked to him
ostentatiously, that the world might see. And so, in summer, when he
came back to the p