nything like right.

The first thing to do, however, was to go for the Bishop, and I think I
can say that I went for him at some length. I didn't explain well, or
he was very stupid, because he got dreadfully mixed up before he got
the facts of the case clearly, and I can't say that he seemed
altogether pleased when I told him that I had as good as promised that
he would be a friend to the Professor.

"As it is, I am rushed off my legs. Who was it you said he had
trained?"

"Ted Tucker." I had brought that in as a piece of local colour or
whatever it is called, just to liven things up a bit, but I am afraid
it was a mistake.

"You see, I don't know anything about prize-fighters. I did box once,
but that's years ago."

"Why, you're the very man," I exclaimed. "He'd love you; he's not a
bit more like a prize-fighter than he is like a Professor, he's more
like a sort of prehistoric man in blue trousers and a shirt."

But prehistoric men did not seem to appeal to my uncle any more than
prize-fighters. He looked very sombre indeed, so much so that I was
quite impressed, but I had taken this job in hand and really had to see
it through. So I talked, and I won in the way all my few triumphs have
been won, by talking until the other man wanted to go to bed.

"I like your enthusiasm, Godfrey," he said at last, "and I wouldn't
check it for the world. I will do all I possibly can, both with the
Professor and with your people. But you can't persuade me that your
father will like the son of a man, who has been dismissed from the army
for some cause, to come down and stay with you."

"Don't you tell that to anybody else," I said. "Owen only told me this
afternoon, he's only just found it out himself."

"Are you going to tell your father all this?"

"Everything except that the Professor gets drunk now, and you're going
to stop that," I added cheerfully.

"Oh, am I?" he answered, "I can't help wishing that it had not rained
this afternoon and that you had been safely at Lord's."

"Well you can't say that I've wasted my time."

"You have got your hands too full, considering that you have promised
to work this summer. Don't forget you have got to work, we don't want
any fourth in Mods," and then he wished me good-night, and on the next
day I went home with Jack Ward, who had a most astounding lot of
luggage.

I am not going to describe my first summer vac at any length, because
if I once began I should not ha