ding one autumn evening three years ago, when
the tide was coming in--"

"And to save me wet trousers you took off your shoes and stockings, and
carried me in on your back," said Walter. "I remember it well, Rex; it
was a happy day for me. I recollect I'd been very miserable; it was
after the Paton affair, you know, and every one was cutting me. Your
coming to speak to me was about the last thing in the world I expected
and the best thing I could have hoped. I'd often wanted to know you,
longed to have you as a friend; but I used to lock up to you as such a
young swell in those days that I never thought we should meet each
other."

"Pooh!" said Power; "but wasn't it good now of me to break the ice and
speak first? I declare, I think I've never done it with any one else.
_You'd_ never have done it--now confess? Only fancy, we mightn't have
known each other till this day."

"I shouldn't have done it at _that_ time," said Walter, "because I was
in Coventry; but--well, never mind, Rex, we understand each other. I
was looking at some porpoises, I remember."

"Yes; happy days they were after that. I wish the time was back again!
Fancy you a monitor, and me head of the school!"

"Fancy! we've got up the school so much faster than we used to expect."

"Yes; but I wish we could change places, and you be head and I sixth
monitor as you are. You'll help me, Walter, won't you?"

"You don't doubt that, Rex, I'm sure; _all_ the help _I_ can give is
yours."

"If it weren't for that, I think I would have left, Walter. I don't
think, somehow, I've influence enough for head. I'm not swell enough at
the games."

"You play though now, and enjoy them; and I don't half believe you, Rex,
when you talked of having wished to leave. That would have been
cowardice, you know, and you're not the boy to leave your post."

"Here I am then in my place, armour on, visor down, determined not to
fly, like the Roman soldier whose skeleton was found in the sentry box
at Pompeii," said Power, playfully getting up and assuming a military
attitude.

"And here am I," said Walter, laughing, as he stood beside him with one
foot advanced--"I, your sixth Hyperaspistes."

"The sixth!--the _first_ you mean," said Power. "The four monitors,
between you and me, won't, I fear, help us much. Browne is very
short-sighted, and always shutting up with a headache; Smythe is a mere
book-worm, and a regular butt even among the little fellows--wors