ody.

The run was so brilliant and so plucky, and the last burst so splendid,
that even the defeated side could hardly forbear to cheer him. As for
the conquerors, their enthusiasm knew no bounds; they shook Walter by
the hand, patted him on the back, clapped him, and at last lifted him on
their shoulders for general inspection. As yet he was known to very
few, and "Who's that nice-looking little fellow who got the school a
base?" was a question which was heard on every side.

"That's Evson; Evson; Evson, a new fellow," answered Kenrick, Henderson,
and all who knew him, as fast as they could, in reply to the general
queries. They were proud to know him just then, and this little triumph
occurred in the nick of time to raise poor Walter in his own estimation.

"Thanks, Kenrick, thanks," he said, warmly grasping his friend's hand,
as they left the field. "They ought to have cheered _you_, not me, for
if it hadn't been for you I should not have got that base."

"Pooh!" was the answer; "I couldn't have got it myself under any
circumstances; and even if I could, it is at least as much pleasure to
me that _you_ should have done it."

Of all earthly spectacles few are more beautiful, and in some respects
more touching, than a friendship between two boys, unalloyed by any
taint of selfishness, indiscriminating in its genuine enthusiasm,
delicate in its natural reserve. It is not always because the hearts of
men are wiser, purer, or better than the hearts of boys, that "summae
puerorum amicitia: saepe cum toga deponuntur."

CHAPTER SIX.

A BURST OF WILFULNESS.

--Nunquamne reponam
Vexatus toties?

Juvenal i. i.

Although Walter's football triumphs prevented him from losing
self-respect and sinking into wretchlessness or desperation, they did
not save him from his usual arrears of punishment and extra work.
Besides this, it annoyed him bitterly to be always, and in spite of all
effort, bottom, or nearly bottom, of his form. He knew that this
grieved and disappointed his parents nearly as much as himself, and he
feared that they would not understand the reason which, in his case,
rendered it excusable--viz., the enormous amount of purely routine work
for which other boys had been prepared by previous training, and in
which, under his present discouragements and inconveniences, he felt it
impossible to recover ground. It was hard to be below boys to whom he
knew himself to be superior in every intellec