emed to
regard life as a huge joke, if only one could summon up the energy to
enjoy it. Pridgin did indeed enjoy his share of it, but one could not
help feeling that, were he to choose, that share would be a great deal
larger than it really was.

It was plain to see he was fond of Tempest; a weakness which reconciled
me to him from the first. Tempest, however, seemed, if anything, to
prefer the third member of the party present, who was in every way a
contrast to his genial host.

Wales struck one as a far more imposing person than Pridgin, but not
quite as attractive. He was dressed in what seemed to me the top of the
fashion, and had the appearance of a youth who made a point of having
everything of the best. He had the reputation, as I discovered
afterwards, of possessing the most expensive bats and racquets, the
best-bound books, the best-fitting clothes, of any one in Low Heath. It
was also rumoured that he spent more than any boy in the town shops, and
gave the most extravagant entertainments in his study. Fellows were a
little shy of him for this very reason. He forced the pace in the
matter of money, and there were only a few fellows who could stand it.

Tempest was not one of these, and yet he seemed very thick with Wales.
It was certainly not for the sake of his money, for Tempest was one of
those fellows who never care for a fellow for the same reason that any
one else would. He had begun by being amused with Wales's dandyism and
extravagance, and had ended in encouraging him in them.

"I expect," said Wales, as the three heroes sat discussing their tea,
"we're in for a pretty lively term, if it's true what I hear, that
Redwood is to be captain."

"Why shouldn't he be?" asked Pridgin; "he's a hot man in the fields, as
well as in classics."

"My dear fellow, he's a town-boy."

"What of that?"

"What of that? First of all, the town-boys are most of them snobs.
Sons of hard-up people who come to live at Low Heath so as to get them
into the school cheap. Then they can't possibly keep up with what goes
on in school when they are away every evening."

"There's more in the second objection than the first," said Tempest. "I
don't see why a fellow should be out of it because he's poor. If so, I
can cut my lucky here. But it does seem a swindle to stick a town-boy
over all of us."

"I don't see it," said Pridgin. "He's one of us. The only difference
is, he goes home to sleep instead of tucki