e old school--was not the sort of fellow to
get his head turned by anything if he could help it. He hated scenes of
any sort, and therefore took a specially long time over his bath, which
his fag had prepared for him with the most lavish care. Boys waylaid
his door and the schoolhouse gate for a full hour ready to cheer him
when he came out; but he knew better than to gratify them and finally
they went off and lionised Bloomfield instead, who bore his laurels with
rather less indifference.

The old captain, however, could not wholly elude the honours destined
for him. Dinner in the big hall that afternoon was crowded to
overflowing. And when at its close the doctor stood up and, in
accordance with immemorial custom, proposed the health of the old
captain, who, he said, was not only head classic, but _facile princeps_
in all the manly sports for which Willoughby was famed, you would have
thought the old roof was coming down with the applause. Poor Wyndham
would fain have shirked his duty, had he been allowed to do it. But
Willoughby would as soon have given up a week of the summer holiday as
have gone without the captain's speech.

As he rose to his feet deafening cries of "Well run, sir; well run!"
drowned any effort he could have made at speaking; and he had to stand
till, by dint of sheer threats of violence, the monitors had reduced the
company to order. Then he said, cheers interrupting him at every third
word, "I'm much obliged to the doctor for speaking so kindly about me.
You fellows know the old school will get on very well after I've gone.
(No! no!) Willoughby always does get on, and any one who says, `No!
no!' ought to know better."

The applause at this point was overpowering; and the few guilty ones
tried hard, by joining in it, to cover their shame.

"I've had a jolly time here, and am proud of being a Willoughby captain.
I shouldn't be a bit proud if I didn't think it was the finest school
going. And the reason it's the finest school is because the fellows
think first of the school and next of themselves. As long as they do
that Willoughby will be what she is now. Thank you, doctor, and you,
fellows."

These were the last words of the old captain. He left Willoughby next
day, and few of the boys knew what they had lost till he had gone.

How he was missed, and how these parting words of his came often to ring
in the ears of the old school during the months that were to follow,
this story