tick my right arm down inside the back of my trousers
and fight you with my left."

"I don't want to fight. I can't fight," cried Doggie.

Oliver put his hands in his pockets.

"Will you come and play Kiss-in-the-Ring, then?" he asked
sarcastically.

"No," replied Doggie.

"Well, don't say I haven't made you generous offers," said Oliver, and
stalked away.

It was all very well for the Rev. Vernon Manningtree, when discussing
this incident with the Dean, to dismiss Doggie with a contemptuous
shrug and call him a little worm without any spirit. The unfortunate
Doggie remained a human soul with a human destiny before him. As to
his lack of spirit----

"Where," said the Dean, a man of wider sympathies, "do you suppose he
could get any from? Look at his parentage. Look at his upbringing by
that idiot woman."

"If he belonged to me, I'd drown him," said the Rector.

"If I had my way with Oliver," said the Dean, "I'd skin him alive."

"I'm afraid he's a young devil," said the Rector, not without paternal
pride. "But he has the makings of a man."

"So has Marmaduke," replied the Dean.

"Bosh!" said Mr. Manningtree.

* * * * *

When Oliver went to Rugby, happier days than ever dawned for
Marmaduke. There were only the holidays to fear. But as time went on,
the haughty contempt of Oliver, the public-school boy, for the
home-bred Doggie, forbade him to notice the little creature's
existence; so that even the holidays lost their gloomy menace and
became like the normal halcyontide. Meanwhile Doggie grew up. When he
reached the age of fourteen, the Dean, by strenuous endeavour, rescued
him from the unavailing tuition of Miss Gunter. But school for
Marmaduke Mrs. Trevor would not hear of. It was brutal of Edward--the
Dean--to suggest such a thing. Marmaduke--so sensitive and
delicate--school would kill him. It would undo all the results of her
unceasing care. It would make him coarse and vulgar, like other horrid
boys. She would sooner see him dead at her feet than at a public
school. It was true that he ought to have the education of a
gentleman. She did not need Edward to point out her duty. She would
engage a private tutor.

"All right. I'll get you one," said the Dean.

The Master of his old college at Cambridge sent him an excellent
youth, who had just taken his degree--a second class in the Classical
Tripos--an all-round athlete and a gentleman. The first thing he did
was t