tecedents, no
one devoted more attention to the subject than Benny Mallow. Benny was
short, and Paul was tall; Benny was fat, and Paul was thin; Benny's hair
was light, while Paul's was black as jet; Benny had light blue eyes,
while those of Paul were of a rich brown; Benny always had something to
say about himself, while Paul never seemed to think his affairs of the
slightest interest to any one but himself: so, taking all things into
account, it is not wonderful that Benny Mallow spent whole half-hours in
contemplating his friend with admiration and wonder.

Still more, as Benny had been accepted by every one as Paul's particular
friend, he actually was besieged with all sorts of questions, and to
answer these without letting himself down in the estimation of the
school was no easy matter, when he did not know any more about Paul than
any one else did. One question, however, he settled to the entire
satisfaction of every one but Napoleon Nott-- Grayson was not an exiled
prince. Benny was sure of this, because he had asked Paul if he had ever
been on the other side of the ocean, and Paul had answered that he had
not. Notty endeavored to make light of this evidence by showing how easy
it would have been to spirit the mysterious person away from his royal
home and to America while he was a baby, and therefore too young to know
anything about it, but Will Palmer told Notty that it was about time to
stop making a fool of himself, and the other boys present said they
thought so too, at which Notty became so angry that he vowed, in the
presence of at least a dozen boys, that when the truth came out, and all
the boys wanted to borrow his copy of _The Exiled Prince: a Tale of
Woe_, he would not lend it to them, even if it were to save them from
death; he would not even let them look at the cover, with its picture of
the prince and the name of the publisher.

Meanwhile Mr. Morton had continued his visits to the prisoners and to
the poor of the town, and out of school hours he had so interested the
boys in some of the suffering families of worthless men or widowed
women, that it was agreed by the whole school that the teasing of any of
the boys of these families about the holes in their trousers, or
provoking fights with or between them, should entirely stop; indeed, as
this suggestion came from Bert Sharp, who was fonder of fighting than
any other boy in the town, the school could not well do otherwise.

The boys went even fa