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STAS, ET IN STERNUM STES, AQUIL1NA DOM US.

NO. 2. February, 1903. Vol. II.

THE EDITOR'S NOTE.

f T is gratifying to state that our listof subscribers, which numbered 25in the last issue, has since risen tonearly 70, making fair way towards

100; and when the 100 is reached, we hopeto hurry up to 200—and further—why^jot 2 We remember the proem of an essayin the old Oxford days:—The ambitions, andthe contented mind—which makes the letterpatriot, and which the happier man 1 If anEditor is a fair sample of a patriot, thereneed be no hesitation in saying that theambitious mind makes the better Editor—the 'happier man' may be discountedfor the moment. Surely so—unless—ah Ianother egsay on somewhat similar lines,once set to a class of boys, comes to ourmind:—Which tetter develops the intellect—a clatsiealor mathematical education? Werecall one of the essays sent up—every wordof it is fresh in remembrance, imprintedby the terseness of its unvarnished master-ful force :—A little of each mixed. Timelycounsel <— but no! 'we repudiate the•dvioe—there iffiall be no mixture of

contentment with our ambition as regardsthe Eagle House Magazine.

Sundry 'unsolicited testimonials' barebrought encouragement, a selection fromwhich we cannot resist the pleasure of re-cording. The Rev. Dr. Pollock, Master ofWellington College, writes, ' I thank youvery much for the charming Eagle {louseMagazine. I am so glad of the opportunityof becoming a subscriber.' The Bev. M.J. Bacon writes, ' I am delighted with yourMagazine and your new Eagle is splendid.'Anther Vicar, from the far West, a J,P.,says : ' Your Magazine is an admirable pro-duction, and infinitely more amusing andinteresting than the general run of sucheffusions.' Mr. E. G. H. North, of Welling-ton College, says: ' May I be allowed tocongratulate Eagle House very warmlyon its venture 1 I think the Magazine isexcellent, and ought to be much appreci-ated.' Colonel Bignell writes: "Manythanks for the Magazine. What a brightclever little publication it is 1 The boys,will prize the volumes very much later on,

when silver hair begins to come. Therewere many other similar commendations,but these may suffice.

Another encouragement is the moreliberal influx of literary contributions, withfair promise of others to follow. When wecontrast the unlucky I/ion of Lucerne,which in company with some Natural His-tory notes represented the fmll tale of out-side contributions for the last issue, withthe goodly selection of papers before us forthe present number—our eagle eye beamswith satisfaction. But there was someluck after all about the unlucky Lion.He provoked the notice of two correspond-ents. The Rev. B. B. Merewetherwrites: •! still laugh when I think ofyour remark about the Lion of Lnoerne.Why anyone should want to write aboutthat dismal-looking animal and its puddleof dirty water, I cannot conceive. I nearlycaught my death of cold by going to lookat it. A snow storm was raging, and Ihad just come up from Italy, where I hadbeen basking in the sun. Lucerne gaveme the blues altogether, but that waschiefly because it came as a shock to feelcold, after having been beautifully warmall the winter on the Riviera and in Italy.1'A. Van der Byl writes : " Seeing somethingabout the Lion of Lucerne in the E. H.Magazine reminds me of rather a goodjoke which I heard there last summer. Afriend of mine was walking past the tenniscourts, which are surrounded by a highwire fence, when he was stopped by atourist, who said: ' Can you tell me any-thing about this 'ere Lion o' Lucerne ? Ithought this might be his cage.' "

One laudable object of our ambition isto search the dim vistas of the past foritems of interest, incidents, reminiscencesof the History nf Eagle House ; to compilea series of Annals founded on the ex-perience of past members of the School.We earnestly crave the hearty co-operationof Old Boys. Well can we imagine Ovid'sdelight, when, keen for compiling thefasti, he came across an old friend atCarseoli, who told him the story about theFox. How boys enjoy that tale when itcomes in a lesson—the homely old farmer,who ploughed and sowed and reaped andmowed—his wife, who swept the house,minded the chickens, gathered mushrooms,and mended her husband's clothes—andtheir rascally son, who caught a fox thathad raided the hen-roost, wrapped him inhay, and fired the hay 1 The terrified fox

rushed through the corn-fields and setthem ablaze—and the besotted townsfolkvented their fury, not on the boy for hisatrocious cruelty, but upon the whole raceof foxes for destroying their corn.

The Dean of Lincoln, and the Rev. C. B.Mount, late Fellow of New College, Ox-ford, have nobly come forward in thecause. The Head Master of Eton, Dr.Warre, "remembers many things not de-lectable though somewhat comic,"—(butalas !) " I am afraid that under the pres-sure of work which is now upon me, Icould not contribute my reminiscences.''The Editor profoundly regrets that themenu of such a rich repast should be dis-played only to tantalise his appetite, andhe devoutly hopes that the example ofOvid's Tiospitis a/ntiyui may have influence,and that the pressure of work may so farabate, as to admit some recount of the" many things." which being " comic " aresure to be " delectable " to the taste of ourreaders.

7* mihi mlilta qmidem, sed qt Tuec, mart-aresolebat,

Unde mewm prcesens instrueretur opus.THE EDITOR.

* * * xTHE FOOTBALL SEASON, 1903.

BY ME. E. HUNTINGTON.Oj]*HE Football XI. of 1903 started with^EL* a most brilliant success. A notablevictory by thirteen goals to nil over St.Neot's was indeed enough to inspire theirsupporters with confidence for the future,but alas! with the next match came anearly shattering of our hopes, for we weredefeated after a splendid game by twogoals to one, our old rivals the Towersbeing our vanquishers. On the day'i playwe were perhaps a little unlucky to bebeaten, as the two goals were Scoredagainst us almost before the game hadbegun, and for the rest of the time oureleven certainly had the best of matters.However a substantial defeat at theirhands by 5 goals to love, later in the seasonproved that their victory was no fluke.Our third match ended in disaster, no lessthan ten goals being scored against us bya ponderous but powerful combinationfrom Pinewood; a wet ball and a longdrive can serve as some slight palliationfor this disgraceful exhibition. But al-though the XI. did so badly in this match,the return game on our ground providedthe best; tussle of the year; when a most

exciting contest resulted in a victory lorus by three goals to two. This was prob-ably the best performance of the season.The worst was at St. Neot's, where weallowed—almost invited— the same XI.that had been beaten by 13 goals, to effecta draw. Further comment seems needless.Bigshotte Rayles fell an easy prey to us byfour goals to nil; although the scoreshould have been greater. Some fatalityseems to prevent the return fixture againstthis school taking place : if it were not sowe might have finished the term with abalance of victories iu our favour. As itwas, the final results were as follows : won3. lost 3, drawn 1; goals for 24, against 22.These results, although not disgraceful,must be classed as disappointing. Thereason that the XI. did not do better iseasy to discover, and may be put down tothe weakness of the inside forwards. Ingoal, Gostling, although not exhibitingthat agility which is the characteristic ofa good goal-keeper, was at least adequate.At back, Hopley and Healey both playedreally well. Hopley particularly improvedconsiderably both in his kicking and tack-ling; and Healey, although he was ratherslow and started badly, soon found hisgame and played really well. The halves,if not actual •' flyers," were sound andhard-working; Basset, especially after hischange into the centre, played well, andHawkins showed energy. He should how-ever modify his somewhat peculiar methodof charging. It is really difficult to praiseMorgan, the out-side left, too highly ; healways did his best and did it successfully,though it must have been discouraging tocentre time after time and find his passeseither muddled or neglected. Jones ou theright did good work and improved much,but he should not centre along the ground.

This leaves the three in sides to be dealtwith. Ledgard started with the laudableidea of passing to^Morgan whenever he gotthe ball. Unfortunately the ball doesn'tcome to one unless one makes some effortto obtain it; consequently Morgan didn'tget his passes. Yerburgh at centre for-ward played so well in the first match thathe was given his colours, but he neverafterwards distinguished himself, and wastoo content to be a passenger for the restof the season. Healey jr. played insideright in most of the matches, but withsuch small success that he finally gave wayto Bolitho, a vigorous but somewhat un-scientific player. He will doubtless im-

prove. It is a pity that the weakness ofthese three insides should have renderedthe attack ineffective, as there is muchgood material in the team. Of the juniorsGorst i deserves special mention, and weall expect great things from him.

* **Characters of the XI.

G. W. V. HOPLEY.—A sound and effect-ive back, kicking and tacklingstrongly; always played up hard andproved a good captain.

J. B. MORGAN.—An excellent outside leftdribbling and passing well; shouldmake a fine player in the future.

G. F. W. HEALEY.—A much improvedback, very neat in his kicking, buthis tackling leaves much to be de-sired still.

B. W. W. GOSTLINS.—A safe goal-keeper,but his kicking from behind is weak.Must get across the goal quicker.

R. A. M. BASSET.—A very useful centre-half tackling well and passing ju-diciously. With a little more energywould be quite good.

L. J. PITCAIRN JONES.—Did excellent workat outside right; has improved in hispassing, but must not centre alongthe ground.

J. C. B. HAWKINS.—Energetic but erratic.Kicks too hard and does not passenough to his forwards. Has beenknown to score a goal.

J. H. DARLEY.—Hard working but small ;tackles well but his passing is weak.

R. E. R. YERBUBGH.—Disapointing at cen-tre-forward. Showed too much re-spect for the opposing backs.

F. C. LKDGARD.—Can pass fairly well, butis much too slow and did not combinewith his outside.

T. B. BOLITHO.—Clumsy, but full of en-ergy; with more experience shouldbe useful.

* **EAGLE HOUSE v. ST. NEOT'S.

At Eagle House, November 7th.We led off with plenty of dash, which

was kept up all through. C. Healey scoredthe 1st goal in the first five minutes.Yerburgh headed the 2nd in good style.C. Healey put in number 3 by a neat shot.Yerburgh again headed number 4 after agood pass by Jones. Yerburgh then scorednumber 5 ; Ledgard number 6; when half-time was called. Ledgard again scorednumber 7; Morgan number 8. Here, forthe first time, St. Neot's got near our goal,

and Goatling had hi* first touch at the ball.Anxiety was brief, the enemy's groundwas soon invaded again, and 0. Healey putin number 9. Yerburgh, from a good passby Morgan, sent in number 10, followingit up two minutes later by number 11,Morgan popped in number 12, withoutmuch trouble, and within a minute of timeYerburgh secured number 13. Praise iaspecially due to the combination of the for-wards, Morgan ia an excellent outside left,Jones played thoroughly sound and hardfootball, always making the ball travel,and passing well at the right moment.Yerbnrgh and Ledgard were very good.Hawking, Basset, and Parley all deservepraise. Hopley and O. Healey were de-pendable at back, and had an easy time ofit. From first to last the team did theirduty, and showed a determined dash whichgladdened the hearts of their supporters.

* **EAGLH HOUSE t>. THE TOWEBS.

At Eagle House, November llth.The Towers started strongly, and soon,

scored two goals. From this point EagleHouse played up well, and had all thebeat of the game; they could not scorehowever before half-time. In the secondhalf, Yerburgh managed to get a goal, andthe game be«ame most exciting. The for-wards missed several chances of scoring,and, no further point being added, we weredefeated by two goals to one, Morganplayed finely.

*EAGLE HOUSE ». PINEWOOD.At Pinewood, November 14th.

A heart-rending scene! Oar playersseemed quite unable to cope with theirheavy opponents on the sodden turf. Ourusually sure defence quite broke down, andour worthy centre-half looked more like abad skater than a football player. Fourgoals were scored, against ua in the firsthalf, and six in the second.

* **EAGLE HOUSE e. BIGSHOTTK KAYLES.At Bigshotte Bayles, November 18th.

A somewhat easy victory for our team.Morgan opened with a nice cross shot, andG.Healey scored the second from full back,a fine shot. His brother scored number 3,and this was the extent of the scoring inthe first half. In the second half wepressed continually, but owing to faultyshooting only one goal was scored, Yer-bnrgh ia part atoning for an otherwiseinglorious display. Morgan, Jones, and the

backs were good, but the inside forwardswere far too polite to the opposing backs,and invariably got out of their way.

* #*EAQLE HOUSE » ST. NBOT'S.

At Eversley, November 26th.The Latin Grammar inculcates a very

sound precept with regard to ' over con-fidence '. The XI are one and all referredto it. To win one match against a schoolby 18 goals to nil, and then to only draw,requires a considerable amount of explan-ation. Morgan, who alone played up toform, scored twice; and Yerburgh, owingto the kindness of the referee, scored thethird. Two of their goals were due to thesame reason, while the third was skillfullydirected past the posts by one of our f tillback*. * * *

EA&LE HOUSE a. PINEWOOD.At Eagle House, December 2nd.

A most exhilarating display. Mindfulof the calamity at Pinewood, our XI. weredetermined to wipe oat that disgrace.Yerburgh opened the scoring, but Pine-wood promptly equalised. Give and takeplay followed, but Morgan who playedfinely, gave us the lead before half-time.The second half was most exciting, andalthough there was no score for sometime, Pinewood finally managed to drawlevel. With only a few minutes to play,every nerve was strained. One of theirbacks, in his over-anxiety, palpably chargedJones in the back while he was makingstrenuous efforts to centre—result, a freekick. Hawkins was entrusted with it, andrising to the occasion, scored a fine goal,thus giving ua the victory by three goalsto two. Of the forwards, Morgan andJones were very good; all the halvesplayed up hard, particularly Bassett, whilethe backs were very safe.

» *#EAGLE HOUSE o, THE TOWBBS.At Crowthorne, December 9th,

Alter the fine game which had retultedin the first match, we confidently expectedan equally good one in the return fixture.We were, however, doomed to disappoint-ment. The Towers were always the smarterteam, and playing with a dash, which ourteam might well copy, gained a welldeserved victory by B goals to none.

* **THE OLD BOYS ». AN EAGLE HOUSE XI.

December 12th.An interesting match took place between

the above sides, and it is to be hoped that

the fixture will prove an annual one, Mr.HaBtingtou opened the scoring against theOld Boys, and Osborne goon added a second.The Old Boys then played with great dash,and Hill scored with a low shot. This wasthe'extent of the scoring in the first half.In the second half the Old Boys attackedstrongly, and Dr. Malan was more thanonce called upon to use his hands; he,however, proved equal to the occasion, andthe scratch team, attacking1 in their turn,scored further goals by Osborne and Mr.Huntington; a pleasant game ending in avictory for the Eagle House XI. by fourgoals to one. The sides were as follows—

014 £vg*—Sergeant Hugging (sab.) ;backs, T. Leach, G, Malan; halves, J.Malan, A. Walpole, R. Wallace; forwards,G. Hill, J. Walpole, M. Fell, D. Mackenzie,J. Deuison. The Eagle House XI. con*siated of Dr. Malan, Messrs. Gray, Gamp-bell, Lee, G. Malan, Lemmy, Huntingtou,Wright, TomUnson, Louyon, Osborne.

E. HUMTINQTON.# * * *

COLONEL BIQNELL'5 LECTURE.•JgATUBDAY, November 7th. WHS a red-J*»" letter day in omr annals. In theafternoon we played our first FootballMatch, winning a famous victory over St.Meet's by 13 goals to 0. In the eveningwe enjoyed a most interesting entertain-ment through the kindness of ColonelBignell, late Political Superintendent ofthe Hilly Tracts Mewar, Commandant ofthe Mewar Bhil Corps.

He showed us specimens from his collec-tion of Indian arms, &c., and enhanced theinterest by full information and anecdotesabout them.

The Colonel began by arraying Hopleyin the panoply of an Indian Baron—coatof chain m*il, plumed helmet, gauntlet,gun, and sword. He pointed out the im-mense labour expended in the oooitma-tion of chain-mail, every liak being rivet, ted.When the wild tribes invented an arrowthat could pierce the chain-mail, metalplates were introduced to protect the chest.The nc»rlet tuft in the plume proclaimedthe Baron—his sons were not allowed towear it. Such armour has been generallydiscarded : nevertheless when the Colonelrode to meet the chief political official ofthe province, six barons, horse and man inarmour, rode with him. They still wear theplumes in the turbwis, and their horses aresimilarly adorned. The construction of

the ptunifc is a native secret, unknown tothe outside world. The Indian rolled goldis beaten on thin plates of silver, so deli-cately wrought that the silver is not dis-tinguishable.

We were shown various sword*—onewith the handle prolonged below the hilt,to be used with both hands, perfectlybalanced—a tremendous weapon for smash,ing through armour.

Barons' gnus—barrel four feet long,stocks of ebony richly carved and inlaidwith ivory, matchlocks with twisted coilsof match. Old ' Brown Bess' had nochance against such weapons in the Kah«ratta, first Afghan, and Punjab wars. Shewas sighted for 60 yards, and in practice abnll's-eye was of snob rare ooourence thatit was signalised by the beating of drams,The Indian gun's point blank was 120yards.

Weapons were displayed now in use—' tulwars,' with blade* of murderous keen-ness, one the work of Naraiu Sing, thefamous armourer of Akbar's time. Thebrittle nature of tee metal employed iscompensated by soft iron beaten into thelower part of the blade, to check th» jrfof impact. Bach weapon ha* soue pecu-liarity—maker'* name, watermark, welding,&c. The native Indian doe* net strikewith the sword. He merely drops theedge on his adversary's neck or limbs, anddraws it toward him. In the Afghan warthe native swords shivered the Britishswords by sheer weight, though not ofhighly-tempered steel.

Daggers of various sorts—one had kilteda tiger at a blow. The man struck, and atthe same moment the tiger smaebvd theman's skull with hi* paw—man aad tigerwere found dead aide by side. A dagger •ofcurious shape, called the 'scorpion.' Dag-ger* are used to eat the dinner, ae well Mto stab the enemy. The Afghans oamett adagger in tt» feft hand, to guard fromwrist to elbow, while they wielded thesword in the right hand. Our officers wereat a disadvantage, due to ignorance of th«native methods. We ttnfck, when weshould have pierced. The infantry swordsnow used are blunt, so that the point mustbe used.

One beautiful sword of Damascus steelhad been used by » native officer of one ofthe old Bengal Cavalry regiments in Delhiduring the Mutiny, When the city wa*taken, the man buried his sword IB thefart ditch and fled to hi> home ia disguise.

Years aftewards, on his death-bed, he de-scribed the spot particularly to his son,and told him to recover the sword. Theson obtained leave from the Commissioner,and dug up tfie sword. The iron hilt hadperished by rust, but the blade was sound.

Arrows used by the Bhil tribe, wingedwith .vulture feathers divided down themiddle, cut to shape, and tied on by thread.Some are tipped with, long angular pointsfor penetrating chain armour, others withbroad spear-shaped blades of very soft ironeasily bent. If these struck a stone, thepoint would curl up ; but it could be easilyhammered back to the proper shape. Forshooting birds the Indian tribes use arrowstipped with balls of irob, so that, if thearrow strikes a tree, it does not remainfixed, but falls to the ground. Arrows forshooting fish are fitted with movable minia-ture harpoons attached to the shaft by acord. When the fish is struck, the forceof its rush dislodges the harpoon from thesocket, the line pays out, and the shaftacts as a float.

We were Shown Ghoorka knives insheaths—fitted with dinner-knife, fruit-knife, flint and steel. In the Afghan warour night sentries were frequently killedby the stealthy stroke of an enemy. Toobviate this, the General Oflicer Command-ing oifered a reward of 50 rupees for aPathan captured alive at night, and 25rupees for one dead. The number of sen-tries murdered at night on their posts in-creased so rapidly, that the reward had tobe reversed—50 rupees for a dead Pathan,25 for one alive. " On the morning afterthe order had been reversed," said theColonel, " I met a Ghoorka with a prisonerwhose hands were bound and who had acord with a slip knot round his neck toprevent his escaping. ' You will only get25 rupees for him,' I said. The Ghoorkawas surprised, and asked me to explain.A short time later, while going my rounds,I heard a strange noise behind a wall, andwent to investigate. I saw the Ghoorkabending over the body of his prisoner,whose head lay some yards away. He saidthe prisoner had tried to murder him, andthat he had to kill the prisoner in self-defence. He got his 50 rupees after all."

The Colonel once spent six monthsamong the Jains, who forbade all destruc-tion of animal life. He had to live on un-leavened bread and pulse, and was nearlystarved. At last he moved to the domainsof the neighbouring Rajah of Dungarpur,

who had no Such scruples, and good sportwas enjoyed. Photographs were exhibitedof the ' bag' of three days: 1st day, a noblecatch of fish, mostly Murrell—one, laidacross the knees of his proud captor,weighed 231bs.; 2nd day, a panther andtwo wild boars; 3rd day, <a panther andseveral Sambhar, noble beasts of the stagclass, as large as a 13-hand pony.

Native shields were shown—those ofbarons made of buffalo-hide, shrunk andhardened by steeping in bituminous liquids,decorated with flower bosses. The " fool'sshield," home-made of cow-hide, the ' grip 'being merely thongs secured by four knotson the outside ; if two of these knots werecut by a sword, the shield must fall use-less A Persian shield, of metal chasedall over with ornamental designs and ela-borate inscriptions in ancient Arabic char-acters.

We were told a stirring tale of theBlood Feud in the Bhil tribe. Taking upan arrow, the Colonel said, 'This arrow haskilled a man.' He told us how a man oncekilled a burglar trying to rob his house.The next of kin demanded satisfaction,(300 rupees, or twenty pounds, for a mankilled ; 60 rupees, or four pounds, for awoman). The householder refused to pay,declaring himself justified for the deed.Time passed on ; the householder died ofcholera, leaving four sons. These grew up—the eldest reached manhood, and wasmarried. On the night of his marriage hewas sitting outside his hut by the fire—his mother was cooking the meal. . .Whizz I. . . An arrow struck him on the left shoul-der, passing through his body. He rolledover dead, and a yell of triumph resoundedfrom the outskirts of the forest. Thevengeance of the blood feud was accom-plished, and retaliation passed to the otherside. The brothers must avenge their bro-ther's death by killing the murderer or amale member of his family. And so on—retaliation passing from one side to theother, as each new victim fell. The fendcould only end by compensation being paid.Truly it is a ghastly custom! ColonelBignell, among his varied duties, had tohold courts for examining cases of bloodfeud, and compelling the payment of com-pensation. A brand new arrow is alwaysused for the deed of vengeance. TheColonel had often seen a man carrying asheaf of arrows, among which was a newone. Knowing its destination he wouldsnatch the arrow from the sheaf and break

it across his knee. This would at leaststay the fatal deed, for the man mustwait till he could get a new arrow.

Wishing to obtain photographs to illus-trate the Blood Feud, Colonel Bignell oncearranged a tableau representing the scene.There was the doomed victim all uncon-sciously walking along a jungle footpath,and behind a forest tree was the avengerof blood, with an arrow drawn to its fulllength. While focussing the camera theColonel noticed an expression of deadlyhate on the avenger's face, and at themoment a native standing by said, 'Sahib,that man has a blood feud with the other!'The Colonel had just time to rush andknock down the avenger, and thus preventthe tragedy from being actually enacted.

Among the Bhils. Bhilalas and other ab-original tribes belief in witches prevails.Women suspected of witchcraft are huntedout by witchfinders, and cruelly tortured todeath. They are hung by the feet overa slow fire, their faces being covered withbags of pounded red chillies. A villagerso treated his own mother; and whenreviled for his unnatural conduct, excusedhimself by saying that at any rate he puther out of her misery with a slash of histulwar, when he thought she had beenpunished enough.

Colonel Bignall further wrote:—" I have been in several Regiments. The

old Hundred and Sixth Light Infantry,now the 2nd Battn. Durham Lt. Infantry ;the 2nd Battn. The Cheshires; the 17thBengal Infantry ; the Malwa Bhil Corps;the Bhopal Battn. and the Mewar BhilCorps. I have also been in several politicalberths, Assistant Political at Morar, Gwa-lior; Assistant to the Resident in Mewarat Kotra ; and Political Superintendent atKherwarra, Rajputana; and finished myIndian career as Colonel on the Staff Com-manding at Nasirabad. The greater partof my service has been passed amongst thewild tribes of India—a hard but jolly life,where your own hand keeps your ownhead, and if your boys were not bored toomuch by me the other night, I daresaythey would like at some future time tohear yarns of sport and fighting in theforests of Rajputana and Central India."

* * * *MR. AWDRY'S LECTURE.

Wednesday evening, Dec. 9th, Mr.H. Awdry, of Wellington College,

gave us a most interesting Lantern Lecture

on The Story of Theseiti. The lantern,ably manipulated by Mr. Prior, was lentby the Hon. and Rev. R. Parsons, Rectorof Sandhurst, who has repeated the kind-ness on many previous occasions.

Mr. Awdry began : " I am going to tellyou the story of Theseus, son of ^Bgens,king of Athens." A map of Greece wasflashed upon the sheet, and the lecturer'swand rapidly traced the route to be fol-lowed. Then, upon the lines of Kingsley'simmortal " Heroes," Mr. Awdiy graphi-cally described every incident and adven-ture, while the beautiful views, preparedfrom photographs taken during his toursin Greece, shone out and dissolved insuccession, bringing the scenes vividly be-fore our eyes, and impressing the mythicalfancies by pictures of actual reality.

We stood on the heights of Troezene andlooked across the bay to the misty hills ofAttica. We saw the great plane-tree, andimagined Theseus searching for the flatstone . . . finding the sword and sandals. . . . bidden by his mother, Aithra, to takethem to his father, .ZEgeus, king of Athens.So Theseus set forth on his journey. Wefollowed him with breathless interest toil-ing up the steep sides of the Spider Moun-tains, riven, and scarred with gloomyglens—till he met Periphetes; the club-bearer, and slew him in mortal combat.

_ Onwards to the Isthmus—a fine view of thecanal—where he met Sinis, the Pine-bender—'• As thou hast done to others, soshall it be done to thee I " ; Then he bentdown two young fir-trees, and bound Sinisbetween them, and let them go-—leavinghim to the hawks and crows.

Mr. Awdry ' personally conducted' usround Corinth, describing recent excava-tions which revealed the ancient market-place, fountain, lintel of the door of theJewisb Synagogue, where Crispus, thechief ruler, was converted by St. Paul.

We saw the cliffs where Theseus com-pelled Sciron to wash his feet, and thenkicked him over the brow, to feed thetortoise—Eleusis, where he wrestled afall with Kerkuon, and pitched him rightover his shoulder (even as Hackensohmidttreated the Terrible Turk I) onwardsto the peaks of Parnes, where he slewProcrustes—and so to Athens, to hisfather JEgeus . . . the Pallantids .Medea, with the golden cup . . . the wineflowing over the pavement, which bubbledand crumbled, and hissed under the fiercevenom of the draught.

Most interesting were the views of thePalace of Minos, lately discovered in Crete,where was the fabled labyrinth under theroots of Mount Ida—the throne, stoneseats, galleries, huge earthenware jarsdecorated with lotus—Ariadne, daughterof Minos—the encounter with the Mi-notaur, grotesquely represented on friezeand gems—the final affecting episode,when JEgeus saw the black sail whichTheseus had forgotten to take down.

Mr. Awdry concluded his pleasant andinstructive entertainment by a rapidsuccession of views of Jerusalem, takenin one of his many tours.

* * * *

ASTRONOMICAL LECTURE.|jBjN Wednesday evening, December 16th,™ Colonel Heard, Fifth Fusiliers,gave us a very interesting Lecture onAstronomy, illustrated by dissolving views.

Colonel Heard introduced the subject byimpressing the fact that we need not beastronomers or mathematicians in order toapproach this very fascinating science—themost ancient of all sciences. In the mistybackground of the world's history, beforewriting was invented, before hieroglyphicswere known, Astronomy was an establishedscience. Our primeval ancestors, whenthey had lost their tails, (according to thedoctrine of Evolution,) were all shepherds.They lay out at night on the plains of AsiaPersia, and thereabouts. They thoughtupon what they saw—the heavens abovethem, the earth beneath. To them theearth seemed a fiat plane, with a bluedome above. The sun rose in the East, andset in the west. They noticed the moon,now a crescent, gradually increasing to thefull, and again decreasing. They saw thestars. All this led them to think. Thestan, except a few, appeared to be fixed,circling from East to West. They grouped

• them together in constellations, and gavethem names. They saw the sun rise northof east in summer, and south of east inwinter—causing longer days in summer,shorter days in winter. Certain constella-tions, the Signs of the Zodiac, were known5,000 years ago. The Egyptian Calendarwas arranged about the same time. TheChinese were very old astronomers. Thedays of the week were named after thenknown members of the Solar System—SunMoon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter,Saturn.

Homer, B.C. 900, thought that the Earth

filled the lower part of the celestial sphere,capped by the heavenly dome, surroundedby ocean. Helios, the Sun-god, used tothrow up the Sun from the East—it passedover the heavens, and sank into the ocean.A later legend told how Vulcan took theplace of Helios—he threw up the sun inthe East, and paddled to the west of ocean,to catch it when it fell. He grewtired with throwing itup very high in sum-mer, so he threw it up less high in winter.

The Greeks, 2,000 years ago, thought theearth to be solid below, of indefinite depth,pierced by tunnels for the rising and set-ing stars to pass through. But as they heldthe stars to be studded in a solid sky, thattheory had to be improved. The earthmust be a table-land, standing on twelvecolumns; others said that it was supportedby four bronze elephants, standing on fourtortoises floating on the waters of theocean. At last it was concluded that theearth was supported on nothing—isolatedin space.

Modern Astronomy began to make realprogress in the 16th Century, whenCopernicus brought the light of truescience to bear upon it, and Galileo in-vented the telescope. We know now, thatthe Sun is isolated in space, the centre ofour solar system; that the planets, in-cluding our earth, revolve round it. Theplanets shine with steady light—the starstwinkle; because the planets shine withreflected light, whereas the stars are tints,shining with their own light.

Lantern views were thrown upon thesheet to illustrate the relative size of theplanets—and the path of their orbits. Aphotographic slide of the sun showed theluminous clouds, sun-spots, and projectingflames—Sun, 860 000 miles across, equal involume to 1,320,000 earths, distant fromus 93 millions of miles. Imagine a train,going 40 miles an hour, it would take 226years travelling night and day, to traversethe distance. If we touch a hot poker wefeel the pain instantly. The sense of feel-ing travels 92 feet a second. If we had anarm long enough to touch the sun, weshould feel the pain 176 years after touch-ing it. Light travels 186.000 miles asecond. A flash of sunlight reaches useight minutes after it occurs.

The sun is surrounded by layers ofatmosphere, the outer layer hot and bright.Underneath is the body of the sun, burn-ing, blazing, bursting with fiery explosions,that rend asunder the luminous external

atmosphere, exposing cavities beneaththat appear dnrk by contrast—sun-spots.

A view showed us the magnificent up-burst of flames, thousands of miles high,se«n in a total eclipse—always going on.

Colonel Heard gave interesting par-ticulars of all the planet?—Mercury, thesmallest and nearest to the Sun, dancesround it in 88 days—the speed exactlymeasured to the demand—if slower. Mer-cury would dash into the sun ; if faster,it would fly off into space. The time ofrevolution round the sun varies accordingto the distance of the planet and its mass.Attach a string to a golf-ball, and whirl itround—the shorter the string, the quickerthe speed requisite to keep the stringtaut; the longer the string, the slowerthe speed. The heat in Mercury mustbe terrific, though the density of theatmosphere might render life on the planetconceivable.

Venus, most beautiful of all the planets—may even be seen in the day time. Venusand Mercury change shape like the moon.Venus is brighest when a orescent, becausenearer the earth than when full.

Earth, »ii' oblate spheroid '—flatter atpoles—takes 24 hours to spin, and a year togo rourd the sun.

The Moon is 240,000 miles away—blackspaces, plains—white elevations, moun-tains showing-extinct craters. The moongoes round (fee earth once in about 28 days,(27-3 to be correct) and also spins on itsaxis once in the same time ; consequentlyit always turns the same face towards theeartli.

Views of ideal landscapes in the moon.Mars, 141,000,000 miles away from the

sun — year 686 days—polar ice-caps—whether inhabited, cannot say,

Jupiter, 85,000 miles across, bikes elevenof our years to go round the sun—spins onits axis onoe in nearly nine hours—sur-rounded by tremendous layers of cloud—three belts 'round his waist.'

Saturn — surrounded by a wonderfulring, very thin, neither solid, nor liquid,composed of innumerable small bodies, allrevolving independently round the globeof the planet. Colonel Heard once tookone of the Siamese Princes to the Observa-tory, and showed him Saturn through thegreat telescope. The Prince roared withlaughter and thought he wag being hoaxed.Saturn is 884.000.000 miles distant fromthe sun, and takes 29 of our years to goround the sun,

Uranus, 1,780,000,000 miles distant fromthe sun, goes round it O'"«e iu 85 of oaryears.

Neptune was not discovered by telescope.In 1840 two great mathematicians, Adams,an Englishman, and Leverrier, a French-man, working independently, found thatUranus was not in bis right place, not ' Tipto time,' (like some trains on the Sonth-Eftstern Railway)—then it got ahead—late—there must be something wrong.What was it f Those two astronomersworked at their sums for five years, and, atthe end, they told the men of science tolook and they would find a new planet toaccount for the vagaries of Uranus. Adams'letters were put in some pigeon-hole ofcorrespondence by England, but at BerlinLeverrier was treated with more attentiqn.The Germans looked, and found Neptune.

Comets—many revealed by telescope—some tadpole-shaped—no tails at first—grow tails as they approach the aun—tailsalways turned away from sun—very thjnin texture—stars seen through them. Agreat volume of steam, when condensed,forms very little water, and solidifies intoice. So, if we could take a comet, andcool him down to a solid state, we mightput him in a hat box. Most comets go .bya regular orbit round the sun. Others arevisitors, who suddenly appear, travellingat a tremendous pace—have been knownto go round the sun iu two hours—then flyoff into space,

The stars, visible to the naked eye. num-ber about 3.000 in Northern Hemisphere,2,000 in Southern Hemisphere—telescopeshows more, probably 1,000,000.000—camerasees still more.

A grand view of part of the milky Waywas thrown upon the screen—multitu-dinous stars apparently cast like 'hun-dreds and thousands ' on a cake—yet allin ordered movement surely performingtheir orbit.

The nearest star is 25 billions of milesaway from the earth. A train, travellingnight and day, 40 miles an hour, wouldtake 75 million years to perform the jour-ney. The ticket, at one penny a hundredmiles, would amount to £838,000,000.

Meteors—space is full of particles—some come near the earth—dash into ouriitmosphere—get red-hot by friction—white-hot—dissipated in vapour—cool andfall as dust. Lucky we have an atmos-phere ! otherwise we should be very un-pleasantly bombarded, night and day

Large meteors sometimes manage to getthrough the atmosphere without exploding,and fall as meteoric stones.

Nebulae — carious luminous cloud — intime thickens, concentrates, contracts—liquid like treacle — rotating—molten —becomes flaming ball—star.

A beautiful view was shown of, theNebula in Orion's belt.

SonVe photographs of lightning wereshown—process of photographing not diffi-cult. Expose camera at night in directionof thunder clouds—wait—flash—turn offfilm—try a dozen times, and you will besure to develop two or three successfulphotographs.

In conclusion, Colonel Heard repeatedthat it is not necessary to be an Astronomeror a Mathematician to get a great deal ofenjoyment out of books on popular As-tronomy, e.g., ' Starland,' by Sir RobertBall.

So a most interesting lecture was broughtto its close, and we thanked the Colonelwith hearty cheers.

* #*The following extract from the Daily

Telegraph, Jan. 11, 1904, is of interest inconnection with the subject of earth-pressure :—

" Several experts, after visiting the pier-cing works at the Simplon tunnel, statethat serious difficulties have arisen in carry-ing out the work. Owing to some inex-plicable pressure exerted by the rocks thewooden frames supporting the foremosttunnel are constantly bent and broken. Noeffort to stop -the rock-slides have beensuccessful. In some places also the groundof the tunnel has sunk, overturning allthe proppings. and necessitating the exca-vation of fresh drainage channels. Geolo-gists are unaole to give an explanation ofthese movements. On the Swiss side, more-over, hot springs have burst out. scaldingthe labourers, and compelling the suspen-sion of all work. Water filters into thetunnel in tremendous quantities. About18 kilometres of the tunnel have now beenpierced, leaving about two kilometres tocomplete the operation."

* » * *ANNALS OF EAGLE HOUSE.

PART I.T some time in the latter part of the

18th Century, there was built acommodious house of red brick, in its owngrounds, facing Brook Green, Hammer-

smith. The house stood confronted byiron railings surmounting a low wall, witha central gate of open iron-work. Twoconspicuous pilasters supported a pair ofEagles, massive and stately birds, cast insolid lead. There were two other entrances,one at each end of the boundary-wall.

We may surmise that the house wasdedicated to the presiding genius of Jove'sarm-bearing bird from the first; that theoriginal owner, whoever he may have been,chose the name, had the great Eagles cast,hoisted them up to the proud position, and(we may hope) lived happily many yearsin the enjoyment of his estate. But weare not disposed to rest content with thissurmise, and it is not to save trouble thatwe fall back upon conjecture. Efforts arebeing made to discover the true history ofthe origin of the house—to get the title-deeds and leases examined for tracing theowners and tenants of the house. Difficul-ties beset the task ; letters are written andanswers are slow in coming to hand. Thehouse has long since been pulled down, thedust of oblivion has settled where it stood,and legend has already begun to drape itsmemories—since Dr. Warre writes : •' Thetwo Eagles, I understand, are now perchedoutside the house inhabited by Mr. T. G.Jackson, the well-known Architect, atWimbledon . . . " (This announcementwill presently be shown to be legendary.)" I went to look for Eagle House, BrookGreen, 1896. but I found that it had beenbought by another ' Bird ' (for such washis name), who had banished the Eagles,and pulled down the old house, and theplace was not recognisable to me." Effortsto procure the address of the aforesaidMr. Bird produced a letter from theDistrict Postmaster's Office, Paddlngton,saying that '• the name is unknown to thepostmen of Hammersmith, and it does notstand in the local Directory." The Vicarof St. Stephen's, Shepherd's Bush (whosechurch used to be attended by inmates ofEagle House) was asked if he knew any' old inhabitant' who could give informa-tion on the subject. He referred thewriter to a Mr. Bird living at Shepherd'sBush, with the result that the followingparticulars were obtained :—" When theSchool was removed to Wimbledon, EagleHouse, at Hammersmith, became an Or-phanage for Roman Catholic Children,supported and carried on entirely by twoladies, the Misses Gillow. It was thentaken over by Roman Catholic Sisters as a

Home for poor females, and finally thefreehold of Eagle House and grounds waspurchased by the late William Bird, Esq.,J.P. The old Eagle House was entirelypulled down, and a wing to Bute Housewas built on the site. The grounds werethrown into those of Bute House, wherethe late Mr. Bird resided for many years,and died there in 1902. The property isstill held by the Bird family. The twoEagles, which formerly stood over theentrance to Eagle House, are now placedon pedestals in the grounds of Bute House.The late Lord Beaconsfield, an a little boy,was educated at Eagle House."

It is to be hoped that the light thusshed upon the destruction of the originalhouse may presently flash upon the historyof its early existence. But, howsoeverfirst contemplated, planned, erected, owned,and occupied—certain it is that a squarely-proportioned brick mansion stood facingBrook Green, Hammersmith, at the dawnof the last century; and that, at somedate between 1800—1833, the house wastaken by Mr. Joseph Bailton, who es-tablished therein a School, which wasknown as EAGLE HOUSE. " It was aSchool of the old type," writes the Deanof Lincoln, " as was Temple Grove, beforeBowden took it—a rival of the PublicSchools, not a feeder of them. It keptboys till they went into the world, or tothe Universities."

Mr. John Bailton, of Alderley Edge,Manchester, writes:—" I have heard myfather (who died in 1857), say, that a dis-tant cousin of his had a school in London.This is the only information I can giveyou—except that an old Cumberland friendtold me some thirty or forty years ago,that the same Mr. Bailton (who had theschool) had retired, and had bought someproperty near Caldbeck in Cumberland,where my grandfather had some property,and which my father had sold early in thecentury."

Preparatory Schools for the PublicSchools were hardly known in those days.Even fifty years later they could almost becounted on the fingers of one hand. EagleHouse was destined to be one of the firstestablished Preparatory Schools.

In 1833, the Bev. Edward Wiekham be-came Headmaster of Eagle House, Hammer-smith, taking on the School from Mr.Bailton. He at once effected a change inits character, though whether the changewere sudden or gradual, has not been

ascertained. The Dean of Lincoln writes:" I have no exact knowledge on the point.I think I have heard of boys who wereunder Mr. Bailton and passed under myfather. But I do not think he everhad boys beyond the Preparatory Schoolage."

With the picture of the House before usin the frontispiece (beautifully reproducedfrom an engraving of a water-colour by theartist Whichelo), and assisted by a groundplan drawn from memory by the Bev. C. B.Mount, we can take an imaginary tour ofthe premises. The windows on either sideof the front-door, and those of the firstfloor belonged to the private rooms; thesmaller windows of the upper story to boys'dormitories. On the right, behind thecarriage, was the Boys' Entrance ; on theleft, the entrance to the kitchen domains.Let us go in by the Boys' Entrance. Onour right is the Dining-hall—you can seethe windows between the coachman andhis horses. Behind the Diniug-hall wasthe Work-room. Further to the right,beyond the trees, are the chimneys of ButeHouse, familiarly known as 'Next House.'It was attached to the School, and con-tained dormitories, servants' rooms, etc.

We enter the House by the School-door,beyond the Dining-hall, and pass down apassage to a class-room and lavatory, andstraight to the school-room. On the rightof the school-room was the play-ground;of the left the headmaster's garden, withlawn bounded by a hedge, paths, flower-beds, shrubs, and an " Apple House." Therewas a green - house built against partof the school-room wall. The kitchen-garden was beyond the hedge. Beyondthe garden and the play-ground was thefield, with paths round it, and a famouswalnut-tree in the furthermost left-handcorner.

Such was the general arrangement ofthe First Eagle House, in 1833, when theBev. Edward Wickham became Head-master. " He had been a Master at Win-chester for ten years," writes his son, theDean of Lincoln. " I have heard ' BobLowe' say that he was the only man atWinchester who ever taught him anything;and Lord Selborne, though he worded itdifferently, was equally emphatic on hisexcellence as a teacher at Winchester. Myown recollection is not very full. I was inthe school off and on a good deal, but sleptin the private part of the house most of thetime, and was too young to know at the

time much outside my own experience. Itis a great loss that Mr. Hunter (an assis-tant master) is dead—he would haveknown things from the beginning to theend. Of living old pupils I should sug-gest the Master of Trinity College, Cam-bridge, the Rev. E. C. Hawkins, long theChaplain of Colney Hatch—the Rev. W.Tuokwell, now at Waltham Rectory,Q-rimsby.

'• My father's pupils of distinction weremuch in the schoolmaster line. He edu-cated Head-masters of Harrow (Dr. But-ler), Eton (Dr. Warre), Winchester (Dr.Ridding), besides Malveru (Dr. Faber)Wellington, Canterbury (Dr. Blore) Hailey-bnry (Rev. A. Butler). He was an excel-lent cricketer in his own day, and tookimmense interest and pains about thegame. The Public School Elevens, forsome years, were rarely without an oldboy of his. ' Tip-and-run,1 on a summer'sevening in the playground, he bowlinghimself all the time slow underhand, butwith skilful pitch and good effect—is avivid recollection of his old boys.

" Another interesting recollection tosome is his teaching of Latin verse,original, as was the practice then at Win-chester and Eton—done orally a good deal—a class round him—a subject suggestedand talked over—a few • ideas' elicited,sifted—a selection made, and the order ofthem—then the substance of some 8 or 10lines agreed on—and the chief words orchoicfr of words—then, ' Who can first putthis into a verse ?'—Attempts offered, andcriticized — the best, or the best wil^hemendations adopted—then the next, and•o on. A lively and stimulating lesson,and great command obtained of the prin-ciple of Elegiac Verse."

The Dean mentions another notablename among his father's pupils—VaughanHawkins, the eminent Q.C. He alsa re-cords the following names of ifetinguishedassistant-masters, "James Hunter, whoafterwards had a school of his own, a'house of lords,' at Kineton, Warwickshire;Edwin Clark, the eminent engineer con-nected with the Menai Tubular Bridge, andother great works; G. C. Rowden, ofTemple Grove, and afterwards Canon andPrecentor of Chichester; Dr. R. W. Hiley,who afterwards had a good school in York-shire, and published a volume of Reminis-cences, in which Brook Green figures."

On Sundays the boys, wearing tall hats,walked two-and-two to attend the service

at St. Mary's Chapel, Folham, in the Ham-mersmith Road.

The field was not suitable for cricket.On half-holidays the boys played cricketin a field at Shepherd's Bush. There wasno recognised School XI.—no SchoolColours—nor did they ever play matchesagainst other schools. Football was neverplayed. Prisoners' base and Rounders werethe common winter games; and Marbleswere played with great zest. Mr. H.Awdry, of Wellington College, remembersa particular favourite spot under a wallin the field, where he used to do greatthings with the alley-taw. Bowling hoopswas a notable institution. There was Drillat times, but Gymnastics were not en-couraged.

Dr. Warre writes: " When I went toEagle House in 1845, the present Masterof Trinity College, Cambridge, was cap-tain. I can remember being punished formaking a mistake in construing the Ajaxof Sophocles, when I was 11 years old;and I have never forgotten the passage inconsequence. On the whole I may saythat we suffered much and learnt a gooddeal of Latin and Greek, but little elsethat remained at least with me."

We will conclude this first instalment ofour " Annals," with an interesting paper bythe Rev. C. B. Mount, who went to EagleHouse, in 1837.

Eagle House was a school before Mr.Wickham took it over. His predecessorwas one Joe Rail ton, by tradition said tohave had small Latin and less Greek,though with the help of good masters, wellpaid, he kept a flourishing institution. Itwas reported that he had been known tocane a boy for bad construing •. after which,becoming himself wholly muddled he hadsaid, • I must go and consult my oracle'; heretired to his study, looked at a crib, andfound that the boy had been right, some-times at least.

The original house was of the usual18th century type: six or eight steps lead-ing up to a door in the middle. Flankingit at an angle to the right was a buildingwhich contained two long rooms, diningroom and work-room : in this latter theboys' clothes were kept, each in a separatelocker, Sunday clothes being given out onSaturday evening, to be restored on Sun-day night. Over these were two long bed-rooms, at the door of each guarded by anutshell where a master slept. There wasalso a 'next house,' looking out on the cor-

net of Brook Green, where the Notting-hiltroad goes along. Tne musters, by the bye,had a common-room to sit in ; some how-ever lodged out. The schoolroom wasanother excrescence, one wall of whichgave a fives' court. The playground waspartly gravel, and partly a roughish grass.At the upper end of the former was a penthouse called the Teotum. to which we wererestricted on rainy days, making such playas we could with marbles. The games inwinter were rounders and prisoners' base.If the grass was wet, we were cut off fromit for fear of wetting our feet. In summerthere was a certain amount of cricket, butsuch a thing as a match with anotherschool was undreamt of. Football andhockey were unknown. I had never seena football before I went to Winchester.Marbles we played, as aforesaid, with 'alleytaws and commonys,' like Master Bardell,(though I don't remember the last name.)There was a shop on the Green where weused to buy them, kept by a Dame Pruden(Mother Prue). Some young millionairesused to buy an ' agate ' to shoot with, atthe lordly price of 4d. or 6d.

We were restricted to the premises. Iremember occasionally being allowed totake a walk out, and getting as far as HydePark Corner: but the occasions must havebeen few. Once a week a man came inwith a basket of twopenny tarts, puffs,and the like, in which we invested whenwe had pocket-money. On the whole ourlife must have been blank and colourless,but we knew of nothing better, and youth-ful spirits, I suppose, carried us through ;though with two halves of five and fourmouths respectively, we looked for theholidays with an eagerness such as noschoolboy can now imagine. (So indeed itwas at Winchester.)

Mr. Wickham was a pleasant teacher,and I always liked better to go for a lessonto him than to any other master. He wasbrisk with the cane—much brisker, sojunior men have told me, as time went on.Once, and once only, I remember that,like Boyer, as recorded by Charles Lamb,he let the cane fall powerless. A boynamed Sarel (thereafter, I believe. GeneralSarel) announced how Paris, being oncein his life goaded to vigour by Hector,went forth to war, hoi elektor, like a cock.Mr. Wickham covered his face with hishands, and shook with laughter: Sarel gotoff that time, at the cost of some tears ofvexation.

Our dinner mo*tly consisted of legs o4mutton,couimoiijy carvudby Mr.Wickham:but in his absence by Mother Surrey, theMatron, who was apt to carve against thegrain, so that the first cut came under awhole covering of skin. Puddings therewere sometimes, I forget them, however.For breakfast and tea we had thick slicesof cut bread and butter. The tea readymade, sugar and milk, was brought alongin a tin can. and poured into a half-pintcup. If one's portion came near thebottom of the can (brown sugar being atthat time 7d. or 8d. per Ib.) one might, andoften did. come across a small tablespoonof sand, drifting at the bottom of the cup.Better so : sometimes it was held in solu-tion, and one had the grit of it iu one'smouth.

Those were days of dosing. A familiarfigure in morning school before breakfastwas Mother Surrey, bearing a trayful ofwine-glasses charged with black dose(senna). I remember Mr. Wickham feel-ing my forehead one day (maybe, as usual,the verses weren't done!) and saying, 'youare feverish: you had better have somemedicine two or three mornings '—and forthe four following mornings .MotherSurrey presented me with a glass of thisnauseous poison, accompanied with a bitof stale bread to munch and take the tasteout of toy mouth.

I went to school in 1837, and was atonce broken in to what became the bug-bear of my life for eight years: his 'owncompos,' Vulgus, Verse Task, Metre Task,Prose Task: the last with Propotttio, ratio,eonfirmatio, simile, eseeniplum, conclugia,' Please Sir, can you give me a simile fordrunken man?' 'A ship without a pilot,' andso on. I must own that this figure of alay skeleton of dry bones, though sup-posed in theory, was seldom insisted on(never at Winchester) : but see a specimenin young George Osborne's "Theme atGrey Friars." I believe all this was agreater torture to me than to most—noideas, I suppose.

* * * *

GYMNASTIC COMPETITION.T the end of last Term the following

twelve best gymnasts were selectedto compete for the honour of a name to bepainted on the Board in the Gymnasium.L. J. Pitcairn Jones, W. H. B. Hinde,M. ttC. Slaytor, B. A. M. Basset, B. W. W.Goatling, E. C. Douglass, J. B. Morgan,

F. C. Ledgard, B. K. Ross, B. E. R. Yer-burgh, D. A. Simmona, J. M. Rayden.Exercises were set by Sergeant Hugginson the horizontal bar, horae, parallel-bars,rope, rings, bridge, and ladders. After aninteresting performance, in which keenrivalry was maintained, the five best boyawere selected for further competition, withthe result that J. B. Morgan won thecoveted distinction.

* * * *

•BREAKING-DP' DANCE.event came off on Thursday, Dec.

' 17th, and proved a very successfuland brilliant entertainment. The ladies'dresses presented a charming harmony ofvaried colours. The boys contributed tothe spectacular effect in a small way, aftersupper, decked with the spoils of crackers.

* **A ' sing-song Concert ' on the night

before the holidays gave a joyous termina-tion to a happy term ; " God save theKing." and "Auld lang Syne," beingspecially effective.

w * * *

PRIZES AND COMMENDATIONS.Christmas Term.

CLASS PHIZES.1st ... L. J. Fitcairn Jones.2nd ... H. B. Biggs.3rd ... F. C. Ledgard.4th ... A. M. Wiseman.

OCCASIONAL, PRIZES.G. W. V. Hopley— Mathematics.W. H B. Hinde— Greek.J. C. B. Hawkins— Modern Side.

COMMENDED.

1st Class.L. J. Pitcairn Jones — Latin, Divinity,

French, German, Geography, His-tory, Algebra, Buclid, Dictation.

G. W. V. Hopley— French, History, Geo-graphy, Arithmetic, Buclid, Algebra,Dictation.

W. H. R. Hinde — French, Greek, History,Geography.

J. C. B. Hawkins— Modern Side, Arith-metic, Buclid.

M. H. C. Slaytor— French.B.W. W. Goatling— French. History, Arith-

metic.Snd Class.

H. E. Biggs— Latin, Buclid.E. W. Gorst — Latin, Geography, History.

V. D. Gartslde-Tipping — French, Geo-graphy.

E. 0. Douglass—Latin, History.G. M. Andrews—Geography, Algebra.J. B. Morgan—Euclid.

3rd Class.F. C. Ledgard—History, Arithmetic.S. A. Sanford—Junior Modern.E. C. Hudson—French.

'4th Class. 'A. M. Wiseman—Latin, French, Arith-

metic, History.G. T. Gorst—Latin, History.J. D. P. Chataway—French, Arithmetic.

* * « *

GLEANINGS FROM THE COM-POSITION CLASS.

flSpHESE Papers are the unassisted effu-*£* sions of their youthful authors—with a few occasional commas, &c., thrownin. They are arranged in order of meritfor originality and style.

* #*Our Journey from Ireland.

»E left Boaadohan, our island, in pour-ing rain, the nurse howling at the

top of her voice at having to leave theplace. The cab leaked in five places. Afterthe nurse had finished caterwauling for abit, my sister said, " Nanny, why is yournose so red ?" My mater screamed—thenurse got hysterics—I roared—and mysister looked on with an air of innocence.The leaks in the cab became unbearable.We saw a very fine coat lying on the seat,so thought we would use it for the leaks.

After a time we csme very close to thesea. It waa blowing like billy-oh 1 Sud-denly we heard ' eplash I splash I splosh !&c.' I stuck my pate out, and saw that wewere in a flood about two feet deep, and 50yards long. I yelled to the cabby—(he wasabout 1J yards from my mouth, but it waablowing ao, that he would not have heardme if I had not yelled,) " Look oat! or youwill run over that tin boat floating there 1"He yelled back, "All right,xaorrI" Aftera time we came to what were once threewaterfalls, but were now young Niagaras.At last we got to Kenmare Town, andthere we saw the river, now a swellingtorrent—everything round it flooded.

Meanwhile the coat had been suffering.At last we got out at the Station, and mymater said to Traoey (the cabby), " I sup-pose you have been told to take Mr. Heardback ?" " Naw, ma'am, I 'ave bane tauld

to tak' Lord Donravon back." Horrors 1it was his coat we had been using! (Ishould like to hare seen his face when hesaw it!)

As we had not taken a return ticket, wehad to dole oat £8 8s.—a good lot. At lastthe train steamed out of the station. Wegot to Headford Junction safely, and tookthe train for Ma'low Junction, where wefound the mail-tram waiting for us. Wegot in, and office went, first-class, corridordining saloon. We always find the diningcars much more comfortable than theothers. It was a ripping car, all smoothand comfortable. All the wood-work wasbright; electric bells—electric lights. Weordered dinner. My 1 didn't we have a fineone ! Soup, rissoles—I forget what pud-ding it was. Talking of soup—1 testedthe smoothness of the train by filling myspoon full of soup, and holding it up. Nota drop was spilt -all this time we wererunning at a speed of 50 miles anhour.

Suddenly, when we were about 1J milesout of a little station, our speed began todecrease, and finally we stopped. A manjumped out. I asked some ladies standingby, who seemed to know a great dealabout it, what had happened. They saidthe boiler had bust. Then I went to theend of the car, an,I looked out of thewindow, and saw the guard come by. Iyelled at him, -The boiler has burst, hasn'tit ?" He yelled back, •• No, sir. it is leak-ing." AH this time the wind was shakingthe cars. In the distance, six miles away,I saw the huge tower of KilmaUbck. ThenI had a look in the other direction, and Ithought I saw a figure running towards us,but it was only a flag.

At last, after about 2J hours, I saw apuff of white smoke, and a slow but power-ful engine steamed up. and pushed us upto Kilmallock in half an hour. We wentat about 18 miles an hour. It had theother engine to push as well, so yon canimagine it went slow. At Kilmallock weleft the jlow engine and the broken-downone, and we got another express engine.On we went, and tit last we got to Kings-bridge, where we were informed that theythought the steamer had gone without us,but we would know for certain when wegot to Amiens Street. When we got therewe were told that the steamer had gonewithout us. and the train would proceed nofurther; and that another train wouldtake us to Kingstown, but not on to the

Docks, and that we could sleep on the day-boat. The train (a slow one) crawled i;;tothe station. We got in, and passed a num-ber of stations with wonderful names,Sugarloaf, Mountain Hill, &c. At last wecrawled into Kingstown—the wind shriek-ing—it was the night of the great hurri-cane. After about half an hour we startedoff, minus my sister's tin-bath and myplay-box.

There were a great many ships in theharbour, but at last I saw a big black two-funnelled boat, which I knew was the onewe were going in. We got on board, andwondered which ship she was. I saw onthe cap of a sailor as he passed by,ULSTER (I have often been in her). Wewere shown into a cabin, and proceeded tosettle down, The nurse isn't extra good atgetting into a top berth—I knew we weregoing to have some fun. She asked me toswitch on my electric lamp, and I did so.Attempt to get in No. 1—got on to mysister's berth which was under hers, andnearly trod on her—made one gallantspring for it! Alas I she missed her foot-ing, and fell down again. By this timewe were all, including herself, in fits oflaughter. Attempt No. 2—more success-ful this time—fell into her berth on herface in fits of laughter.

We went to sleep. I woke up first, andlooked out of the port-hole, and saw noth-ing but the sea-weed on the pier. It waslow tide. We went to the saloon to getsomething to eat. We had a deliciousfeed. In the midst of breakfast we heard.E-e-oo-oo. I started up, and said, "Excuseme, I think it is the other mail traincoming in." I ran out, but it was only anold goods train. When we all got upondeck, we heard Boo-oo-vo-oo-oo-oom,. and wefelt a throbbing under our feet, and we be-gan to move. These steamers are 3,000tons displacement, and their speed is 24knots an hour.

At last, rolling and pitching, we got insight of England, and a Yankee exclaimedto me, " Do yew knaw why them waves aredarker than those 1" I said, " No, why arethey ?" He said, " Because they are closertew the shores;" and added. " Just yewlook at them waves on the breakwater."The waves on the breakwater were sendingshowers of spray 100 feet into the air.

Well, there is nothing more to be said.We got home quite safely, though verytired.

P. B. V, HEARD.

A Narrow Escape.After we left Camberley, on our way

home, last holidays, we arrived at Waterloo.Hunt, Yerburgh, and myself took a cab,which we hoped would take us to LiverpoolStreet. When we had just started andwere going down the hill just outsideWaterloo, we suddenly noticed that thehorse was kicking, airl then it startedgalloping down the hill. The next instantwe saw the cabby in ID id-air, and two ofHunt's boxes fell from off the top andcrashed on to the cobblestones. The horserushed down the hill at a fearful pace,and came into collision with an omnibuswhich was crossing its path. That stoppedits progress. It fell down, and in itsexertions to get up. broke both shafts.We very soon got out of that cab. and westood in the middle of the road with peopletelling us to mind our luggage. We soongot another cab, and caught our train by10 minutes.

J. 0. B. HAWKINS.* **A Small Yacht Race, from Ryde to

Lymington.It was a glorious day, the sun beating

down on our heads as we went from the endof Kyde pier to our boat. Half-an-hourlater the five-minutes gun sounded and weall got ready to start, dodging up anddown the starting line. At the start therewere 16 boats besides oars. We got afairly good start, and passed boat afterboat, till we came second, but the firstboat was far ahead. About half-an-hourafter we had passed the second bout, shecame flying up astern and just passed us,but just as we had pissed Cowes we againgained our place as second boat. We hada desperate fight for the second place aquarter-of-an-hour afterwards, and againremained second. We nearly came upwith the first boat, about half-a-mile from" Jack-iu-the-basket," a post with an ironbasket on the top. at the mouth of Lym-ington harbour. " Jack-in-the-Basket."being a mark, had to be rounded. I hadnot looked astern for a long time, and theformerly second bout came up with usthere; bat we soon gained on her, andwere nearly a quarter-of-a-mile ahead at200 yards from the winning line. At 100yards from the line we went aground.Oat I ran to the boom end and tried toheel her over, but the tide was going outfast and we could not get off. Our launchtowed us off, but of course we could not

continue the race, and we were very sorrywe had not been more careful. We did notknow the harbour, and tl.e racing Com-mittee ought not to have sent us into theharbour. They could have had a boat by" Jack-in-the-Basket " to fire the finishinggun.

V. D. GrABTSIDE-TlPPING.

* **A Bear Hunt.

Once my father was out shooting bears,near Seeundrabad. There are a great manybears about there, because they like eatingthe maize crops. He found in one cavetwo bears, which refused to come out, sohe left several coolies to smoke them out,and went on with his native shikari(hunter). They came to a very narrowpath, on one side of which was a precipice,on the other were steep cliffs. At the otherend the path was blocked up, so they couldnot get any further. The shikari got toone end and my father to the other. Tlu.rewas a cave between them, which theythought was empty. All of a sudden abear rushed out of the cave and chargedon the shikari, who placed the muzzle of hisrifle on the bear's chest, but was afraid toshoot because of hitting my father. Myfather was afraid of firing in case of hit-ting the shikari. The bear and shikariswayed up and down for a few minutes,till my father, taking good aim, fifed. Justas he fired the bear swerved to one side, soinstead of hitting it in the hearh and kill-ing it. the shot hit the bear high up on theback leg. The bear fell over the precipiceand rolled down, till a tree.which happenedto be sticking out. stopped him. Then thebear got up and crawled away, my fatherand the shikari following him. After hav-ing tracked him for four miles, by thedrips of blood, they came on stony groundwhere they could not see the tracks, sothey had to give it up.

H. E. BIGGS.* * * *

A NOVEMBER RAMBLE.BY THB RKV. E. B. MJSBKWETHEK.

f N the minds of very many people, themonth of November bears a very bad

character : and there is no doubt thatif you were to take the month weekby week you would find you had to dealwith a wonderful variety of weather.

But November is not wholly bad, thereare very many redeeming features in it,and if you know your business you eau get

a great deal of enjoyment out of its fast-shortening days.

A still, clear, bright, November day. Willyon come with me for a walk instead oflingering as you perhaps would prefer, overyour novel by the library fire, You willcome! that's good: and we will lose notime, because undoubtedly the longer weput off starting the less we shall be inclinedto go, and the fewer will be the attractionsas we proceed on our way.

You tell me you have never been on aScotch Grouse Moor yet: so, if you willallow me, I will take you for as bonnie atramp as any you have ever been. We turnto the right as we leave my garden; followthe main road f)r five hundred yards,and then our walk begins. We will turnup this lane which is the beginning of ourascent to the Moor.

As we stroll along, always getting alittle higher, we cannot help noticing thebeautiful tangle of bracken and orangecoloured beech, periwinkle, fern, and briar,green and gray and orange and yellow,with here and there the remains of somelate summer flower, such as the pink cam-pion and a belated foxglove, reminding usof past glories.

How picturesque is that stone housenestling among the trees, and yet com-manding one of the most beautiful viewsof the Clyde !

We are a little out of breath with ourclimb and this is a good opportunity for afew moments' rest: and surely it repaysus to turn our faces to the south-west, andto look upon the wide expanse of the beau-tiful Firth, as it lies shining in the Novem-ber sun with hardly a ripple upon itssurface. It is a beautiful sight: look firstover to the right and take in, if yon can,those beautiful hills of Argyll with theirever changing colours—now bright green,now grey, now deepest purple; and seehow prettily those houses lie scatteredalong the pine-clad shore, reminding youso of the villas on some of the Italianlakes.

Over there too, shining like glaas, is agreat stone quarry, a prominent land-markon either side of the Firth, on which thesavage hand of man a little while agopainted in the largest letters " Waddell'ssausages are the best." And to-day howbeautifully clear are the ' gray peaks ' ofArran.

You are in luck this afternoon : do youpee that line of smoke / There is a flotilla of

torpedo boats hastening up the Firth totake up their moorings at the Tail of theBank, the anchorage just off the busy townof G-reenock. How swiftly they are com-ing—and before we can get to the top ofthe hill they will be round the point andalmost at their moorings.

But we shall get an even more beautifulview of the Clyde further up, and so wewill push on.

As we still get higher we find we aregetting near a cover of pine and oak andbeech and birch; and rabbits seem toabound, in fact there are too many, as thatkeeper, busy laying traps, will tell you.

We notice that in the higher regionspheasants are not so plentiful, though ifyou would follow the keeper at feeding-time you would find yourself obliged toalter your opinion.

How still it is up here, and what a smellof the coming winter there is: up here itdues seem as if the earth was preparing togo to sleep.

We will not linger in the cover, as Iwant to take you as quickly as possible tothe Moor, before the sun goes down.

So we pass through a quaint woodengate and stile combined, set in an oldstone wall, and we come suddenly on awonderful expanse of purple and gray andbrown, with here and there great massesof rock standing boldly up, with a thincovering of soil on the top, and above thatthe beautiful heather. You will not ofcourse see the heather at its best; like allother flowers, it is nearly past; but youcan see enough to give you an idea of itsbeauty when in full flower, and yon beginto understand the meaning of those whoboast of the glories of the Scotch hills andmoors.

You must let me guide you a bit here.We will pass to the north of the curlingpond, on which a little later when thefrost comes, you might gaze upon a verylively scene, when with all thoughts ofbusiness set aside, the young Laird and theFactor, the Grieve, the Joiner, the Mason,and any amount of other people sink alldifferences of class and station, and meetin friendly warfare with their curlingstones.

If you have never seen a curling match,you can have no idea how great the en-thusiasm is, as player after player putsdown a better or sometimes a worse stonethan the one before him, until the "skips"on either aid* are left for the final tussle,

But to-day the curling pond is perfectlystill and silent, though if you came a littlelaterin the day yon might disturb a coupleof wild duck, and sometimes an unsociableheron or two.

And so we proceed, past the little housewhere the curlers keep their stones, andwhere they eat the luncheon, which is ap-parently " de rigueur " in connection withthe game of curling in Scotland, consistingof toasted or boiled herrings with salt andpotatoes, and washed down by copiouslibations of the wine of the country.

5Tou must let me guide you here becauseon each side of the treacherous path isspread out what looks like a smooth greenlawn waiting to be walked on, but really isready to let you into a bog over yourankles in slush and mud.

The very spot for snipe you will say, andyou are right, for in a moment up startseveral, and away they go zig-zagging intheir peculiar flight until they disappearround the shoulder of that heather-created"hill, with another green lawn at its base,studded with patches of those rushes andhigh grass, which the snipe love so much.

But if you have never been on a Scotchmoor before, you will soon be startled bythe sudden whirr of a pack of grouse,which get up from that bare spot in theheather where they have been making themost of the warmth of the now fast settingNovember sun. What a queer note is thatof the grouse—with its " Kek-kek-kek-kee-kek-cock"—as he swiftly flies, lowdown, just skimming over the ground,settling down as soon as he thinks he hasplaced a safe distance between himself andthe disturber of the peace.

You walk on, and on, always avoidingthe green spots, still a little on the rise,surrounded on all sides by undulatingslopes of heather and tall wavy grasses.

How fresh and invigorating the air is,and how easy it seems to walk; above youthe steely blue of late autumn; and gradu-ally getting lower and lower there is thepale sun, casting his beams upon tha hill-side in front of us, which is the highestpoint to which our walk is to extend.

We put up a fine great hare just now,and also several rabbits, and the little ter-rier which accompanies us has, for a longtime, been causing great annoyance to apair of plover who evidently look uponhim as an intruder, innocent though he is.of all harm.

Jt is not only grouse and plover that

claim our attention. Overhead and some-times on the ground there are numbers ofcurlews and sea-gulls, and better stillflocks of those pretty little oyster catchers,which for some reason have come in shore,and mount up to the high ground in searchof some kind of food.

I promised you a second sight of theClyde and now we are reaching the spotfrom which you shall have my promisedview. It is worth coming all the way tosee it. We look north and north-west,across the water, to Innellan, Dunoon,Kirn, Hunters' Quay and the Holy Loch,with its grand background of pine cladhills, which look simply beautiful with thesunlight upon them.

Then further to the north is beautifulLoch Long, winding on and on into thehills, until out of your sight, Arrochar isreached at the head of the Loch, and fromwhich if you are energetic you can quicklywalk over to the " bonnie banks of LochLomond."

The " Ben" is not in sight: with ap-proaching nightfall he has put on his night,cap, but you can see all the hills standinground him.

And away still further to the right, youcan follow the narrowing waters of theClyde, winding away past Greenock, pastDumbarton, with its quaint rock, on and ontowards Glasgow, " the second city of theEmpire," until the eye can follow its courseno longer.

Our attention is now drawn to our im-mediate surroundings.

There we stand, many feet above theFirth, looking down upon a peaceful home-stead, and we watch the great oceansteamers making their way slowly butmajestically past Gourock, and then pastthe Clock Light-house down towards thasetting sun. And on this particular after-noon a few enthusiastic yachtsmen, whodo not even now like the idea of layingtheir boats up for the winter, are havingwhat must be nearly their final cruise, andvery beautiful their white sails look againstthe dark hills behind them.

And as we stand gazing over the scene awonderful stillness comes, broken only bythe sound of the grouse, or the call of thecurlew, or the bleating of a mountainsheep; and we experience the first feelingof chill, as the sun with one last glow ofbrilliance sinks down behind the ArgyllHills, and the shades of evening begin toclose in around us.

Let us then retrace our steps: down hillnow, returning by a different path, stumb-ling now and again into a hidden pool ofwater, patting up numbers of grouse,wild from the shooting which as theseason advances disturbs them less than onthose first days when their experience ofits terrors is not so great.

And tnen strolling round the base of amass of heather-covered rock we say fare-well to the Moor, and plunge once moreinto the cover thick with tangled brackenand almost dark, across the field, frighten-ing the sheep as we pass them silently,until at length just as the shades of nightreally begin to fall we reach home wellpleased with ourselves and quite ready forthe welcome cup of tea which is readyfor us, and a lounge in a comfort-givingarm-chair and a possible 40 winks as areward for wholesome energy.

They say that November is a dull month,but like everything else, it is only dull anduninteresting to those who are not aliveto Nature's countless gifts which she is soeager to bestow on those who can appre-ciate them.

* * * *

NATURAL HISTORY NOTES.BY THE REV. M. J. BACON.

gsp»HERE is an undue prejudice against*& rats. They are generally regardedas nasty dirty repulsive creatures, whereasin fact it would be difficult to find ananimal more cleanly in its habits than thecommon brown rat. About his coat he isremarkably particular, so much so that toput a little tar about his runs is a sureway of keeping him at a distance. Batsare very knowing. When I was a boy atschool, I was in the habit, in company witha chum or two, of paying frequent visitsto an old carpenter whose workshop wasa loft over an old disused barn, the onlyaccess to which was a crazy perpendicularladder, hard enough for us boys to climb,and how the old man ever got up was amystery. The old -fellow was pesteredwith rate, which even levied toll on hisoil bottle, an ordinary medicine phial witha feather sticking out at the top. Howthey managed it puzzled him, as the neckof the bottle wa« too small to admit a rat'shead. So one night he sat up and watched,and saw one rat climb to a ledge just overthe bottle, let drop his tail into the bottle,and draw it out again for his fellow ratsto lick. Several rats performed this trick

in tarn till they had imbibed as much oilas they wanted. I believe this trick ofrats is an accepted fact.

It is not known, however, how rats carryoff hens' eggs, nnd hide them in theirholes, as they certainly do. We promisedour old friend a quart of beer if he woulddiscover this for us, and he accordinglyplaced eggs about on the floor, which asquickly disappeared. One day he told ushe had found out all about it. He saw (sohe said) one big rat throw himself flat onhis back; then the other rats rolled anegg, or may be two, on to him; and thenfour strong rats seized him by the legs, oneto each, and so carried the cargo cleanaway safely. Without further commit-ting ourselves, we agreed that the old manhad earned his beer.

I have heard of a farmer who got rid ofhis rats in the following clever way. Heplaced an empty barrel end upwards in hisbarn, poured water in to about the depth ofsix inches, and placed a few bricks at thebottom of the barrel so as to just clear thewater. Then he pasted brown paper overthe top of the barrel, and put a handful ofmeal upon it, which was of course de-voured that Bight. The next night he re-plenished the meal, and cut a slit in thepaper round it three sides of a square,thus forming a trap door. The first ratthat visited the meal fell through, andfinding himself in water climbed on to thebricks and began to scream. His screamsattracted another rat, who shared the samefate. Two rats can scream louder thanone rat, and so be heard further, so that intime nearly every r'at in the neighbourhoodfound its way into the old farmer'sbarrel.

I once took part in a raid upon rats,One of the mows of a big farm was fullof pease haulm, and the pease haulm wasfull of rats which had to be exterminated.There was one pathetic incident. A carterboy, who was one of us, suddenly clutchedhis leg tight just below the knie with bothhands, and roared lustily, " There's a rotup ma breeches I" " All right, boy," said aburly keeper. " Let I put a ferrut uparter tin."

In a country railway station just out ofCambridge there is a siding for coal trucks,&o. It was found that night after nightthe wheels of trucks left there were robbedof that yellow buttery lubricating stuffthe sight of which we know so well. Thestation-master suspected one of the por-

ters, and set himself to watch. At day-break he saw a flock of rooks come from aneighbouring rookery, and settle round thetrucks. With their strong beaks they hadno difficulty in opening the wheel boxesand extracting the butter.

The fox is a crafty customer, but so sus-picious that he is easily imposed upon. Ionce had a nice little grass paddock at theback of my house, in which I used to rearsome forty or fifty chickens at a time. Onemorning I found that Reynard had paidme a visit, knocked over several of mycoops, and destroyed many of my youngstock. I promptly went across to mysporting squire, and begged the half sheetof the " Times" containing the nextweek's hunting appointments. This Ihung on a stake placed in the groundopposite my little line of hen coops, and Iwas never again molested.

On another occasion I was told that oneof my pet wild ducks had stolen her nestin a spinney just across the road, within afew yards of where a vixen fox had got alitter of cubs. Here was a dilemma. If Ibrought away the eggs, the duck wouldnever sit on them again; and if I lefther to the tender mercies of the fox, shewas a gone coon. So I sat for a few mo-ments in deep thought, with my forefingerpressed against my brow, like the well-known portrait of Shakebacon, and thenwent across to the spinney with a bundleof short sticks about a foot long, and areel of white cotton. I stuck the sticks ina circle round the duck's nest, about a footapart, and some three or four feet from thenest, wound the cotton from stick to stick,and left the little duck to her fate. In thecourse of a month she appeared one morn-ing on my lawn, with quite a troop of fluffylittle ducklings in her train. The fox hadthought, as I hoped she would, that thecircle of cotton was some sort of trap, andthe duck only a decoy.

I wonder how many of our readers knowthe origin of the expression '-A gonecoon." A certain Captain John Smith,who had a world-wide reputation as anunerring ihot, went to America for somemixed shooting. On one of his expeditionshe had just " treed a coon," and was aboutto fire, when to his astonishment he hearda voice from among the branches shoutingdown, " Say, there 1 Is your name Smith ?""Yes." "John Smith?" "Yes." "CaptainJohn Smith?" "Yes." "Then I may aswellcome down, for I am a gone coon."

PROM PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

Last autumn was so wet that at timeswe had to abandon football and go for" runs." The favourite place for a run isKempton Brook, a stream six feet wide,which is about two miles from Harrow.The great amusement there, is trying tojump across it, or wading across it, or eventrying to swim down it. One day therewas a compulsory run for our House, andwe took with us a canoe which one boyhad made at the school workshop. It wasrather hard work pulling it; but when wegot to the brook we had great fun. It isa very twisting stream, and so every nowand then, the canoe would ^et stuck at acorner, and several times it capsized.

We hid it there and came again the nextday. It was still there, and there was agood deal of fun that day. Next day whenwe came we found that the stream wasrather flooded, and that the canoe hadfloated away from the bushes under whichwe had hidden it, and had been smashed topieces. So that was the end of our fun.But soon the weather got better and foot-ball was resumed.

Near the end of the term, one day whenwe were not playing football, I went for arun to Wembly Park, with a boy in anotherhouse. It is about three miles fromHarrow, and there is a beautiful parkthere, with a tower in the middle, but itwas closed for the winter when we wentthere. It was rather hard running thatday, because the fields were very wet ;another thing which added to our dis-comfort, was the fact that the farmersround Harrow make their hedges verythick and strong, so that we cannot easilyget through them ; for we are like " YoungLochinvar," of whom it is said that,

" He stayed not for brake, and he stoppednot for stone,

He swam the Esk river where ford therewas none."

Another day when I went for a run, Iwent to see the electric railway, whichthey are building between London andHarrow. Trains are already runningbetween these two stations, and they areextending it further. At one point in theunfinished part there is a very largeviaduct—a most elaborate pieceof masonry.Sometimes you can hear in the distance asound, like that of a gong, which hassomething to do with the railway.

J. KOBE TROUP.

The Rev. Lionel Ford, Headmaster ofEepton School, (B. H. 1876—1878), sendsus a letter recounting the successes of theSchool, last summer term—a record whichmust have given him much satisfaction,and on which we offer him our sincere con-gratulations.

Specially interesting was the success ofthe XI. who won 7 matches out of 10,Seven tin?es the team made over 280 runs(a total never reached in 1902), and four ofthese scores passed 350, the best perform-ance being 458 against Malvern, and 468for seven wickets against the NorthernNomads.

G. Marx sends us an account of a paperchase at Bradfield, in November. Wecommend it to the notice of HydropathicEstablishments, as suggesting valuablehints for cold-water treatment of rheu-matic patients.

" We had a lovely paper-chase the otherday. We started by going on the wrongtrack, then came back and got into a fieldwhich for about 50 yards was under 4inches of water, and very muddy. Onechap lost his shoe in it. Then we came toa very swift stream, about up to my knees,with a steep high bank on the other side,When over this we ran through a perfectmaze of brambles, which further on wasunder some inches of mud. Then wecrossed some ploughed fields, and came tothe line, with a deep stream on each side.I crossed one by a bridge, and tried to jumpthe other, but landed in the middle withwater up to my waist. I got out. We gotto the road, on the other side of whichwas a broad mill-stream, some 40 yardsacross. Some chaps swam it. I was justgoing to—I was wading out nearly up tomy shoulders, when a villager told me itwas not the shortest way, so I came back.We then ran for about two miles acrossfields under flood. On our right were fieldsunder flood, and on our left a large stream,with other fields beyond. We then got toTheale. I and some other chaps thoughtwe saw a short cut across some fields—there was a stream between us and them.I went in, an'l was wading across, whensuddenly I went absolutely under, but Igot out all right. We then ran across thefields, and came to some water up to ourwaists. Then we came to a stream toodeep to wade, and so muddy that we couldnot see the bottom. We tried to cross it

by a fence. One chap was crossing by ii,when part of the fence broke, and in hewent. But we all crossed safely, and thenacross another marsh. We walked most ofthe rest of the way home. The total runwas about 14 miles in two hours. I get onquite well in work now."

GEORGE MARX.

* * * *

A PLEA FOR GREEK.

|̂|fcNE hath said that the Germans were™ " sadly to seek "In the study and knowledge of classical

Greek-Certain 'tis anyhow that they printed their

worksUpon paper which words traced with pen

and ink shirks.Now some utilitarian " practical" fadsWould abolish the study of Greek "mong

the lads;" They butter not parsnips—Greek words "

is their cry—" Living languages pay—let dead languages

lie I"As though they be speechless—the people

of Greece—Since the time when the Argonauts brought

back the fleece.To most western languages (linguists

agree)Old Greek—old Italian—furnish the key.

REV. E. T. FBEHE.

Walter Malan, I.C.S., in a letter datedNov. 12th, 1903, writes:—" That photo-graph of the house and pond and ducksis very good. Talking of ducks, I had agood day with them last Friday (Nov. 6th)at Gur Jaspur, getting 25 of eight differentkinds—Mallard, Gadwall, Pochard, Teal,Cotton Teal, Widgeon, Shoveller, SpotBill. The shikari could hardly staggeralong under the weight. Ala Bus wasdelighted to see me, and said he had beenpraying for my safe return. I laughed athim about the pair of trousers. He saysthe coat which I gave him has been stolen—which may or may not be true ; and hewanted me to give him some cloth of thesame pattern, as he said he could have thetrousers made into a coat, if he only hada yard more staff."

ON JAM.

3EMMY Browser once spent a Christ-mas holidays with his grand-parents.

Grandfather Towser used to make him dolessons on wet days, One day he told himto write an essay on Jam. Jemmy was in-clined to swagger about the essays hewrote at school. He said, "All right,grandfather."and at dinner-time he showedup the following result of his morning'swork.

Jam is a thing of beauty and a joy forever. That is a quotation. You shouldalways start an essay with a quotation.Tfiere are many kinds of Jam—strawberry,cherry, rarsberry, and a lot of others.Strawberry and cherry are best. You canspread them on brembutter or have themin tarts. My uncle once sent me a twelve-pound jar of strawberry jam. It stood uplike a monument, and wanted a gravy-spoon. The chaps called me Jemmy Jam-jar. I did not mind—it was rather smart.One thing about Jam is its two langwidges,English and Latin. When it comes inLatin, if a master is waxy he roars it outso an you could hear it across the cricketfield. Sometimes a master thinks he seesfunny things about Jam. One day we hadto do the verse, The mater deserts the thirstof him about to drink. There were notes. Idid it Deserit undo, suam jarnjam poturi,sititn. The master said jam jampot wasn'ta dactyl, and he laughed till he cried, butthere was nothing really to laugh at.Another day he asked me how Cicero wouldput into Latin 1 mill not say more now,and I said Non dicam, plum jam. It wasa slip, of course I ought to have said plus,but the master laughed till he choked andcoughed and could not finish the lesson.The other chaps thought it prime. Mastersare easily amused. All this is called aclassical delusion. You should always tryto have one classical delusion in an essay,not more, else it's romantic.

* * * *Courage is the most important thing

insisted on in a Japanese boy's character,and all sorts of games are played to testthe character of the children. On winterevenings the boys sit round the hibachi,and a servant or some aged person tellsthrilling stories of dragons and giants,ghosts and goblins, and everything that ismoat creepy blood-ottrdliug. Then, whenthey have been worked up to a sufficient

state of terror, each boy must go into adarkened room where strands of wiok burniu a dish of oil, remove one strand andcome out again. The room grows darkerand darker, and the last unfortunate boyis supposed to see some terrible demon.But he must come out again with a smilingface, absolutely unruffled. Another fav-ourite game, equally eerie, is to gather to-gether in a graveyard under a lonely treeand plant flags in a haunted spot. Then hair-raising stories must be told ; after whicheach boy walks up the avenue alone, andpulls out a flag slowly, with dignity andwithout a nervous tremor.

T.P.* **

A Yankee, travelling in Devon, irritatedthe host and visitors of the hotel whichhe honoured with his presence by his in-ordinate boasting, saying apropos of what-ever was shown him, that they had it"'twice as good in the States." Eventuallymine host could bear it no longer. Pro-curing a live lobster, he caused it to bedeposited in the stranger's bed. After thehotel had retired to rest, the lobster didits duty thoroughly, with the result thatthe whole house was suddenly roused bya fearful hullabaloo proceeding from No,21. The landlord came up in righteouswrath to expostulate, when he was con-fronted by Jonathan, who held out thecrustacean and indignantly demanded ofhim, "What do you call that, sir?" "That,"replied the landlord with a smile (sharedwe must own by some of the other visitors)"That, sir, I call a Devonshire Flea. Idaresay you have them twice the, site 'in. theStates 1"

* **They were discussing the late storm as

I passed them, on the steamer's deck—anda pompous little man said: " I assure youthe waves were quite as high as—or if notquite as high, at least not much less highthan—if not actually as high, as they werein the great storm of '97, or it might havebeen '96—because a friend of mine toldme that in the year after the great stormhe heard that the crops in Yorkshire—orwas it in Somersetshire 1 No, I think itwas in Berkshire—or it may have beenin Hampshire—" I did not hear the rest.

There had been war-rant enough to war-rant the conviction that man's laughterwould be written man-slaughter by Russiaand Japan.

Mama, reading from the lllmtrated Lon-don Newt, Aug. 22, 1908: '-The craze forliving jewellery has been revived in smartSociety, and a chameleon attached to a thingold chain is amongst the most papularornaments of the moment."

Kitty, " Oh, mama, is a chameleon ananimal ? I thought it was a preciousstone I"

* **The following jingle, ascribed to a Brieh-

ton Biding Master, is forwarded by W.Rayden, Eaq.

Hadvice to ha Norseman.Yer 'ead an' 'art'Old proudly hup ;Yer 'ands au' 'eels'Old down ;Yer kneesInter yer 'orses side,Yer helbowsTo yer hown.

Why is a novelist more wonderful thanother people ? Because he carries his tailsin his head. Why was Sir Walter Scottmore wonderful than other novelists ?Because he carried his grandfather's tailsin his head.

* **Master: '-'Cteiaf demanded hostages of

the lAngvnes,' go on Simpkina."Simpkins: "Caesar. . . — . . .—"Master.- " Go on 1 Caesar, seize her. tease

her, squeeze her—Anything is better thannothing 1"

* **American entering chemist's shop, to

man behind the counter: " Can you lendme a dollar to have this prescription madeup, guv'nor ?"

Man behind the counter, reading pre-scription : " Nerve tonic ? Eh 1 You don'tneed any I"

* **Bells at Sea.

The forenoon watch comes on at 8 a.m.,and lasts till twelve. Each half-hour thebell is struck, thu» 8.30 i» on« Dell, nineo'clock two bells, and so on till twelve,when it is eight bella. Then the nextwatch takes duty, and remains till 4 p.m.;12.30 is one bell, one o'clock two bells, andso on. From four to six o'clock is the firstdog watch, from six to eight the second.These short watches alter matters so thatthe same watch does not go on at the same

hours. From 8 p.m. till midnight ie thefirst watch, from midnight till 4 a.m. themiddle, from four till 8 a.m. the morningwatch, and there you are. Two bells inthe middle would therefore be 1 a.m.

Prize Competition.Our second attempt to afford diversion

under this heading met with a little moreencouragement than the first; but as it isclear that the experiment is not generallyappreciated, it will not be repeated. Thesuccessful competitor is Mr. H. F. Eeed,formerly a master at Eagle House, towhom we have forwarded the prize.

The invitation to write eight Uiwi ofpoetry on any siibjeot, ending with tatt. bell,call, tell, day, light, play, night—certainlyreceived flattering attention.

We give some of the compositions.

The fairies determined to give a ballUnder a big blue bell;

They sent out goblins their guests to call,And abroad the news to tell.

At length arrived the appointed day,And as soon as the stars gave light,

All fairy-land joined in their mad wild play,And danced through the live-long night.

H. F. REED.# *

*I went to play football,

And failed to hear the bellAnnouncing school roll call—

Result—I will not tell 1The Doctor, that sad day,

Saw it not in my light;'Twa» painful for a time to sit or play.Or, if the truth be told, to sleep at night.

REV. VERB AWDBY..

One evening I was dressing for a ball,When on my ears their sounded the fire-

bell!Half shaved I promptly answered to the call,

And we were off, quick as my words cantell.

A paper mill I'd visited that dayWas now in flames, blazing with lurid

light-A splendid scene!—but it was no child's

playFighting the great Fire-Fiend that live-

long night.REV. VKBE AWDBY.

All ye who smite the hurtling cricket ball,Regard my warning, clear aa any bell;

If ye would run, forget ye not to " call,"Or, Nought your score the telegraph will

tell.Note well ray solemn warning day by day.

Friends, I beseech' yon I do not hold itlight!

Remember it whene'er ye cricket play,If ye would have an average at night.

H. H. M. HARRIS,Highland Light Infantry.

Though the tough cough, or hiccoughplough me through,

O'er life's dark lough my course I'll stillpursue.

* v

*

Poetry always looks well in print, what-ever the quality may be. So we invitemetrical ventures on the rhymes, dream,

•blow, stream, glow, hill, deep, still, sleep.

Our Congratulations to Mr. LeslieNoel Malan, Boyal Engineers, on his mar-riage with Miss Christine MargueriteMalan, which took place on Oct. 17th, inthe Cathedral, Bombay.

Also to Mr. H. Cyril Forster, RoyalFusileers, on hia marriage with Miss AliceEdrica Woodward Crofton.

* * * *NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS.Rev. M. J. Bacon.—Your other papers

are reserved for further consideration.Rev. V. Awdry.—Your spirited poem is

reserved for the Summer number.Rev. E. B. Merewether.—Your paper on

' Reminiscences' is reserved for futureconsideration.

* *#The -Eagle House Magazine is issued

once a term. Annual subscription, TwoShillings.

Letters and articles, in prose or verse,will be welcomed from all "our readers.

BY M. I. R. POLKINGHORNE, B.A.

CHAPTER I.

Sir Peter St. Leger, Baronet.

f T was about ten o'clock on Saturdaymorning, the 27th of September,when Derrick strolled on to No. 2platform at Paddington Station and

began to walk slowly up and down as hewaited for the train that was to take himback to St. Dunstau's. Derrick, the cap-tain, was a fine fellow in appearance, talland broad-shouldered, with very brown,clear cat features and deep-set blue eyes.Yet his was a very stern face for a boy, andmany a luckless youngster quaked andquailed beneath the Captain's glance, whileeven his comrades of the sixth thoughttwice before they did or said anything torouse his wrath. For Derrick had a power-fnl weapon—one which he never failed touse, whether it was to urge on the slackersat cricket or football, put down rowdyismin his own house or avenge his privatewrongs—and that weapon was hia tongue.He had a talent for saying sharp stingingphrases that made his hearers flush andwince when one struck home to them ; soeven though he was Captain of St.Dunstan's, he was not a very popularfellow. True, the boya roared his name inthe cricket and football field, clapped andstamped when he received his usualhonours on prize day, and pointed him outto their people as one of the heroes of theschool, but further than that they were n jtprepared to go. He was very useful. Hecould keep the political affairs of the smallschool world which he ruled always abovewater. If things went wrong he was

blamed; if things went right all the odiumthat well maintained discipline sometimesinspires fell upon him, but none of thecredit.

He had no chum and personally he wasunknown for he never encouraged -oafovertures of friendship.

" He's as hard as nails," said Warderonce when the Sixth were discussingDerrick's character. " I shouldn't oare-*ogo to him for sympathy."

" Don't know," remarked Hammondthoughtfully, " I think Derrick is as softas putty in some places. Did yon fellows

, ever know he had a brother ? "" No," was the general chorus." Well he had," went on Hammond

quickly. " I was in his study once whenhe was hunting in his desk for somethingand he accidentally turned up a photo of ayoungster, a jolly little chap about ten. Ihate pretty boys generally, but this little'uu—pon my word you fellows —"

" Oh, yes. we know," interrupted Wardeiimpatiently, " go on."

" Well, of course, I asked who it was, andDerrick positively dragged the thing outof my hand. ' It's my brother," he said inan awful sort of tone. ' Oh,' I said, ' adecent little chap, when's he coming to St.Dunstan's ? ' My word, you fellows, howhe glared at me. Then he sort of froze allover, you know his way, and shrugged hisshoulders, and said awfully quietly, ' He'sdead.' Well, somehow, I felt I'd put myfoot into it, so I cleared out as soon as I

could. But you'd never think Derrick waslike that would you ? "

" Like what ? " asked Manners blankly." Well you'd never think he could be

awfully soft on anyone I mean," explainedHammond impatiently.

" How on earth do you know he was ? "objected Warder, "I don't see your storyproves anything."

" Don't see then," snapped Hammond." It doesn't matter to me. Only I knowthis, that Derrick, with all his bitternessand sneering and all that sort of thing, isa jolly sight better than any of us."

"Hallo," laughed Sims, " Here's Ham-mond getting sweet on the Captain."

" Oh no I'm not," retorted Hammondcoolly," because I don't know him, no moredo any of you; if you did—" He shruggedhis shoulders and left his sentence un-finished.

" I suppose you mean we'd all be sweeton him," chuckled Sims.

" I do," said Hammond decidedly to thegeneral astonishment of his fellows.

But to return to Derrick, where we lefthim at Paddington Station. The platformwas nearly deserted and the Captainstrolled up and down frowning moodilybecause his watch had gone wrong, and hehad consequently arrived a good half hourbefore his train started. As he tamedround he noticed at one end of the platforman old lady with a little boy. The formerdid not interest him much, but he couldnot keep his eyes off the boy. He was alittle chap about ten, a mere baby with abrown chubby face, great saucer-shapedblue eyes, and a rosebud mouth. He hada small black terrier with him and beganto career up and down the platform withthe dog prancing and barking at his heels.

"Who's first, grannie?" he shoutedexcitedly, as he raced past the old lady, hissmall trousered legs working vigorously tokeep up with the dog. He flashed saucyglances at Derrick every now and then, andat last the Captain stopped in his walk,leaned idly against a seat and watched theboy with half closed eyes.

" Peter, don't make yourself so hot.dear,"he heard the old lady say once.

" All right, grannie," puifed Peter. " Itlets off steam you know." He was racingdown near the edge of the platform as hesaid this and, in turning, his foot slipped,and in a moment he would have been underthe wheels of a train which just thencame gliding in, had not the Captain, with

a swift rusk, caught him by the arm andswung him back into safety. It was doneso quickly that few people noticed the boy'speril and no commotion occurred, butPeter's grannie hastened to them with avery white face and trembling lips. Shedid not say anything. She only pressedDerrick's hand, but her eyes spoke volumesof thanks. " Peter is so dreadfully wild,"she said rather plaintively as they walkedback to her seat, Peter, now very subduedand very quiet, trotting by Derrick's side.

" He is going to school, you know," con-tinued the old lady as she sat down.

"OhI " said Derrick, feeling he ought tosay something.

"Yes," she said, " Of course I shall misshim very much, and I really dread to thinkhow he will get on, because he has beenrather spoilt I am afraid."

"Oh, he will get licked into—that is—Imean he will get along all right," saidDerrick, blushing to find himself talking,while his eyes wandered to Peter who wasnow walking quietly up and down with hisdog.

Then the old lady grew very friendly andDerrick found himself listening to accountsof Peter in long clothes, Peter in thenursery, Peter in trousers. Peter ad infin-ituni. Yet the Captain listened patientlyperhaps because in his mind's eye he sawanother little face very much like Peter's,and heard another little piping voice callinghim by that name he never heard now.'Ted,' 'Ted ' (for the Captain had norelations, except a surly old uncle, hisguardian, who lived in India), or. of course,he may have listened merely throughpoliteness. At any rate, whatever hismotive was, he smiled grimly to him self ashe sat there in his new character of an oldlady's confidant. He learned that likehimself Peter was an orphan.

" Where is he going to school ? " heasked during a lull in the old lady's narra-tions.

"To St. Dunstan's," she said quickly." Oh ! " said Derrick in surprise, " Why

that's my college. I'm going back now, youknow. My name's Derrick," he added,raising his cap.

" Derrick," cried the old lady brighten-ing, " Oh, I remember. Dr. Redwood spokeabout you. You are the Captain, are younot 1

"Yes," said Derrick.She looked at him thoughtfully for afew

minutes, then she said suddenly— .

" Do you know I am sorely tempted totake a very mean advantage of you? "

Derrick stared at her in surprise.She laughed softly." You don't understand me, I'll explain.

I am a very quick judge of character, dearboy. and I know if you promised to do any-thing one could trust you to do it, whateverthe consequences were to yourself."

Poor Derrick flushed crimson at thisoutspoken compliment.

" So, "she continued, smiling, "I feel great-ly tempted to ask you to look after Peter.I know you cannot do much. I quite under-stand it does not do for big boys to spoilthe little ones ; but if 1 could feel Peter hadsomeone to go to if he were in trouble,someone to give him a leg up, don't yousay?" And the boyish slang fell veryprettily from her lips. " I should feel sohappy about him."

" I promise you I'll do my best." saidDerrick slowly, although he had great mis-givings on the subject of Peter's coming tohim for help or advice. Small boys as arule shunned his company. " The Cap-tain's a beast" was generally their opinion.Then he made an offer which he regrettedthe moment the words had passed his lips.

" He could fag for me, if you Use," hesaid, for he had lost his fag of last term asthe boy had left.

•' Oh, I should like it immensely," shecried gratefully, " I hope I am not askingtoo much. You will understand, won'tyou. that I do not want impossibilities. Iknow Peter must get into scrapes, beteased, and go through the ordinaryroutine of school-boy life, but there aretimes when perhaps a word from an olderboy will have much influence, especiallyfrom the captain of the school."

" I promise you I'll do my best, but —"And here Derrick flushed a little. " I—Iam afraid yon have pitched on the wrongfellow to, to —"

"No, no," interrupted the old l&djt

smiling. " Ah, here is the train."In a few minutes Derrick found an

empty carriage and pitched in his own andPeter's traps. Then he shook hands withthe old lady who thanked him again forsaving Peter's liie and for his promise,much to the Captain's embarrassment, andhe stood back while Peter and his grannietook an affectionate farewell of each other.

'• Good-bye, Peter, dear, Jenkins is in thenext carriage and will see that you havelunch at Exeter. Good-bye, dear."

Then the train started with one-third ofPeter out of the window, waving farewell.

Derrick had now some time to himselfand the first thing he did was to anathem-atise himself for making friends withstrange old ladies, and appointing himselfnursery-maid-in-chief to a wretched littlenew boy all because—

" Bah," he muttered savagely, " 1 alwaysthought I was a fool and now I know it."

Having growled at himself hefelt better,and turned to see what his travelling com-panion was doing. The opposite side of thecarriage was littered with books, papers,chocolate boxes, and fruit, and in onecorner Peter was curled up with a Graphicopened and propped up in front of him sothat Derrick could not see his face, butfrom behind the book there came toDerrick's inexperienced ears a curioussound, something like the crunching andmunching of sweets.

'• Greedy, hard-hearted little beast,"thought the Captain. " I say, young'un,"he cried, shying his cap at the book, " Whatare you doing ? "

The Graphic came down with a run andpoor little Peter's face was disclosed, tear-stained and woe-begone, his red button ofa mouth trembling suspiciously, and hisfair hnir ruffled. A pitiful little object 1

"I'm reading," he said indignantly,"You're very rude."

For once Derrick had not a retort ready.He went back to his paper and said nothing,and Peter retired again behind the Graphic.

At Exeter the man whom Peter calledJenkins came to the carriage and took theboy off to the refreshment room, whileDerrick stretched his legs on the platformand waited for the train to start. Suddenlya hand clapped him on the shoulder and avoice cried, •' Hullo, Derrick."

Derrick swung round." Hullo, Sims," he said curtly.Sims was a tall, lanky member of the

Sixth who did not go down well at St.Dunstan's. He was inclined to be snobbishand I think everybody knows what thatmeans without further explanation.

He got into Derrick's carriage and thetwo boys talked together in 'a desultorymanner.

In a few minutes Peter re-appeared andbundled into his corner.

"HulloI " cried Sims, " Who's this."Peter stopped and stared at Sims, and

Sims stared back at the small boy." I'm Peter," he said simply.

"A new kid," explained Derrick care-lessly, " He's going1 down to St. Dnnstan's."

" Oh, a new kid," said Sims, " Well you'rea cheeky little beggar. Here, clear up thismess of yours "—indicating the piles ofpapers and sweets. "D'yon hear. Lookalive."

Peter gazed in amazement at the big boy,hot at a word from Derrick he obedientlyheaped up his belongings in one corner.

At that moment Jenkins poked his headin to the carriage window.

" The train starts in two minutes, sir,"he said, touching his hat to Peter. " Doyou want anything ? Her ladyship said—"" Oh no, Jenkins," cried Peter jumping up," Don't forget to look after Cockatoo."

" Very good, Sir Peter."Sims started at the title, and stretching

out his hand took up the boy's cap." Peter St. Leger," he read in a whisper.

" Oh I say, Derrick, he is Sir Peter St.Lager. They are an awfully good countyfamily. My people and his are ratherchummy, you know."

But Derrick did not show any interestand was apparently absorbed in his illus-trated paper.

"Dear me, so that is the little baronet,"mused Sims, gazing at Peter's back almostreverentially.

Then as the train started they heardJenkins' hurried " Good-bye, Sir Peter,good-bye, sir," and Peter's piping voice ashe hung out of the carriage and gave asit-ill, " View halloa." "Tell grannie I'mawfully jolly," he shouted. He droppedback into the carriage and Sims, toDerrick's disgust, actually began to makeovertures to the small boy.

" Well, how do you think you will likeschool, St. Leg«r ? " he asked as agreeablyas if he were talking to the doctor.

Batf Peter's face wrinkled up with snp-pffessed laughter, and he did not answer.

" What is the matter ? " asked Sims insurprise. '• What are yon laughing at St.Leger 1"

" Ho I ho! ho I" chuckled Peter, •' It's—it'sso funny. I'm not a Saint. That's not myname."

" What d'you mean ?' ' cried Sims angrily." Why I'm called Sellenger," piped Peter,

laughing. " Of course it's spelt St. Leger,but I thought everyone knew it's pro-nounced Sellenger."

Sims grew furiously red. This hardlytallied with his assertion to Derrick of hisintimacy with the St. Legers; but as

Derrick was stillreading he sincerely hopedthat he had not heard. He retreated be-hind his own paper and the journey wascontinued in silence.

When St. Dunstan's was reached theboys parted company, and Derrick saw nomore of Peter for the time.

In the Common Room he heard Simsgiving some account of Sir Peter St. Legerand laying great stress on the correct pro-nunciation of the name.

"I say," he said, turning to Derricksuddenly, •• I think I '11 take him for my fag.I'll swop him for young Riggs."

"Sorry," said Derrick, flashing andsavagely regretting that unlucky promise." But I've taken him."

" Good gracious," sneered Warder scorn-fully, " What are the Sixth fellows comingto. that they run after a kid with a handleto his nan-e."

Derrick coloured angrily and strode outof the room, wishing fervently that Peterwas the son of a dustman—a shoe-black—ascavenger—anyone rather than Sir PeterSt. Leger, 13th Baron of Beechcroft inBuckinghamshire.

* *#

CHAPTER II.Sir Peter St. Leger—Hero.

The Captain soon found that Peter re-quired little looking after and that hispromise was not likely, as he feared at first,to entail disagreeable consequences to him-self

Peter shook down into his place at St.Dunstan's. He never put on any side, andthe fellows soon forgot his title. Hisanswer to the question: " What's yourname? " was always "Peter," and Peter hewas called by all, even by some of themasters. He was just an ordinary jollylittle school-boy, neither very clever norvery stupid. He did not take St. Dunstan'sby storm, but in his first week he foughtRanger of the Third twice, got two' impots,' broke three of the Captain's cupsand bagged a pillow from Dormitory B. forthe famous fight between the Muffins andthe Crumpets—two factions among theLower Third—Peter was a Muffin—a state-ment which greatly puzzled his GrannieLady St. Leger, when she read his letter.This, taking everything into consideration,was a most creditable beginning for a newboy.

The Captain was very curt and sternwith his new fag, as indeed he was with

all the boys, iortiter inre he might understand,sinimter in inodo never.

Almost to his dismay,however, Peter showedgreat liking and admira-tion for him, and all hissharp speeches and cuffsmade no unfavourableimpression on the boy.

" I know you aren'treally wrathy with me,"he would say to Derrick.So he fagged away wil-lingly for the Captain,treated him to nny amountof information about hisGrannie, and even listenedto his occasional words ofadvice ; and Derrick —well, he called himself afool and then excusedhimself by thinking ofthe unfortunate promisehe had made. It was, hewould say to himself, abit of a bother that thekid should take such afancy to him, but asPeter's affection was veryundemonstrative and noone suspected it, the Cap-tain tolerated it. Itpleased the boy, and itdid not hurt him. Oh. yes, the Captainwas very wise and cautious, but therewas just one person about whom hesometimes made great mistakes, and thatperson was himself.

One dull March morning on a certainholiday. Derrick and a few other fellowsof the Sixth were down on the beach drag-ging out the Coastguards' boat. Seagull,which they had borrowed for the day.

" Oh, I say," piped an enger voice, as theytook their seats. " Can I coine with you ?I'll cox you."

"No thanks." drawled Croft, as helooked at Peter's small figure. " We don'twant to be upset."

" I won't upset you." protested Peter,earnestly. " May I ? May I, Derrick ?"

" No, you may not," said Derrick, curtly." Now cut."

" Oh, let him come in if he likes." saidHammond, good-naturedly. " He can fagfor us. Jump in, kid, provided you don'tsmell of peppermint or mention yourGrannie more than once,"

' H E COULDNOT KEEPHIS EYESOFF THEBOY."

After a glance in Derrick's direction topee that he really did not object, Peterscrambled in and curled himself up in thebow.

"Oh bother," exclaimed Derrick, afterthey had been rowing along the coast forsome time. " Here comes the rain." And ashe spoke a black cloud crept across the skyand the rain came down in heavy torrents,while a stiff breeze sprang up.

" We're in for it, I'm afraid," saidDerrick, as the wind blew the peltingrain against their faces.

" I vote we put in somewhere andshelter," suggested Hammond. " We shallbe soaked in a minute."

" There's the very place," cried Croft,pointing to the shore. "See that cave."

In a moment they had turned the boat'shead, and a few vigorous itrokes broughther close to the land. The boys jumpedout and hauled her high and dry on thebeach. It was lashing hard now, andsweeping gusts of wind rolled the waves inupon the rocks with a loud roaring sound.

'• Just in time," laughed Lees, as thsy allraced up to the cave and sought shelter inits dark shadow. " I expect its only apassing squall."

" I don't know about that," mutteredDerrick, as he gazed out oh the gloomysea. Great dark clouds were rolling upfrom the horizon, and the wind howleddismally around the cave ; and Derrick ashe looked at the white-crested waves con-gratulated himself that they had been nearthe shore.

" Let's explore this cave while we wait,"cried Hammond. " I believe its the fumousRackett Cave, and is supposed to go under-ground for miles. It's connected with theold mine on Penly Moor, you know. Comeon."

This suggestion was hailed with applause,and the boys scrambled over the rocksfurther into the interior of the cave. Asthey went on the ground became smoothand sandy, and the vaulted roof archedhigh above them.

" What a ripping place," said Croft, en-thusiastically.

" I've got a candle," cried Peter's shrillvoice. "If yon chaps have any matcheswe—"

He stopped as a loud, rumbling, crashingnoise burst on their ears, and the littlelight in the cave suddenly died out andleft them in the darkness.

" What is the matter ?" cried Hammond'svoice. " Oh. I say, let's get out of this."

" What is it 1" cried the others." There's been a land-slip or something."

said Derrick quietly. "The mouth of thecave is blocked."

"Good heavens, we are buried alive,"groaned Lees in a trembling voice, whilehis words sent a thrill of horror throughthe others.

'• Oh, shut up," growled Derrick, the firstto recover himself, as he felt Peter cling-ing to him in fear. "Strike a match, youfellows ; Peter, where's your candle ?"

A match was struck and the flickeringlight lit up the pale faces of the boys.

" Now the first thing to do is to thinkhow to get out," wentxon Derrick, calmly.

"•Get out ? " gasped the others." Well, you don't want to stick here, do

you 1 " retorted Derrick."No, but my dear fellow." said Ham-

mond, " how are we going to get out ? "" Dig ourselves out," suggested Croft.But as they examined the blocked mouth

.of the cave a glance showed them that

without pick-axes or instruments of somesort this was impossible, for the roofseemed to have fallen in for some distanceand consequently there was a wall ofseveral yards thickness between them andthe open air. Truly they were in a terriblesituation.

" Well," said Derrick, slowly, "I supposewe mast wait until we are dug outor—"

"Or what?" asked Hammond, as theCaptain hesitated.

"Or find our way to the opening of themine."

"Oh. I'd rather stay here," said Croft,decidedly. " We don't know the way. andwe might get lost, or the roof might fallin further on and then we should be worseoff than now. After all it can't be longbefore we are found. What do you thinkyou fellows ?"

" Look here," interrupted Derrick,quickly, " I don't want to make thingsworse, but as you know everyone thinkswe were going to Long Island. They willnever think of looking for us here, andthe tide is coming in so the boat will bewashed away. I tell you there is a verypoor chance of our being rescued fromhere, but if we find the opening of themine we can climb up or soon make ourselves heard by shouting."

"But we don't know the way," objectedCroft.

•' I have some idea of it." said theCaptain. " Pierce at the Coastguard Stationshowed me an old map of the mine. 1know its awfully risky, but it seems betterthan sitting here doing nothing."

"I think Derrick's right." said Ham-mond, and after some discussion the restagreed with him.

They started off guided by the faintlight of the candle, Derrick with a veryheavy heart as he thought of Peter.

" I wish to Heaven we hadn't broughtthe kid," whispered Hammond to him asthey stumbled along, but Derrick made noreply.

" Hullo I " cried Croft, who was leading." Here's a fullstop."

They pressed forward anxiously at hiswords, and saw that a smooth surface offlat rock barred their progress.

" Perhaps we can get round it or overit," suggested Derrick.

They eagerly examined all corners, butno opening could be found ; then suddenlya cry from Peter startled them,

" Oh 1 say, Derrick," he shouted ex-citedly, " the rock doesnlt touch the floorof the cave, perhaps we can squeeze under-neath, look."

He was digging away at the sand as hespoke, and the boys looking down saw adark narrow slit between the rock and theground.

" By Jove," cried the Captain. " But 1am afraid it has no opening the other side,"he added, as he examined it. " It doesn'tlook very inviting."

" If we got stuck in there it would be nojoke," muttered Croft, who was inclined tobe stout.

"Let me wriggle through," cried Peter,flinging off his coat and waistcoat. "Ishan'tget stuck, and I can tell you fellowsif there is an opening."

" Here, take the candle and matches,"said Derrick, thrusting them into Peter'shand. " And mind you don't stick."

In a few minutes Peter wriggled into thehole. The opening was very narrow, andin some places he could hardly breathe.He could just squeeze himself throughwith the greatest difficulty. Then suddenlyas he raised his arm it encountered noresistance, and with a feeble triumphant' Hurrah' he dragged himself out at theother end, and stood upright fn hisfeet.

Then he knelt down and put his face tothe opening. "DerrickI" he shouted,breathlessly, " Can you hear me ? I amthrough. It is all right. Come along."

In the joy of his discovery it neverentered Peter's head that the Sixth Formfellows would find it impossible to getthrough the space through which hia littlebody had only wriggled with the utmostdifficulty.

" All right," shouted Derrick's voice inthe distance. " We're coming."

Peter waited patiently in the dark, waitedfor a long time as it seemed to him ; thenhe heard Derrick's voice again.

" It's no good, Peter, we can't getthrough."

" Oh, rot," cried Peter, piteously. "Youmust. Dig up the sand. Here, I'll dig upthis end."

And he wriggled in again, clawing atthe sand with his fingers, and sendingshowers of it out at the opening. Heworked frantically, cutting his hands andalmost choking himself.

" Derrick 1" cried Peter, ' 'try again.It's an awfully little way."

•' We're trying,*' answered Derrick'sstifled voice.

" Give me your hand," shouted Peter,sweeping out his small arm and longingto feel it clasped by Derrick's strongfingers. " I'll pull you through."

And Derrick who was straining everymuscle to work his way between the rocks,smiled grimly at this offer.

"It's no good, you fellows," he said,panting, as they all in turn made theattempt. "The floor's of soli i rock—wecan't make the opening any bigger."

The others did not answer; the dis-appointment had almost unmanned them.

:' Come back, Peter," cried Derrick. It'sno good. We must wait until we are dugout."

For a moment Peter did not answer. Helooked at the awful darkness that sur-rounded him and shuddered. Even deathon the other side of that wall withDerrick's hand in his would not be so verybad—but to die alone—alone and in dark-ness ; yet that would probably be his fateif he attempted to find the opening of themine. But if ho could find it—if he couldsave Derrick.

The thought set Peter's heart thumpingwith excitement, and steadied hia voice ashe called again to the boys on the otherside of that wall,

" Derrick, I'm going to find the openingof the mine and get help. I shan't belong, but please tell me how to get there."

•• You'll do no such thing," came Der-rick's muffled answer. " It's madness.Come back here at once."

"No I shan't."said Peter., determinedly." Hurry up and tell me the way."

"Tell him, Derrick," said Hammond." He's a plucky little chap and he may getthrough—if not—well there's not muchchance if he stays with us."

" I know," muttered Derrick, hoarsely," but he is all alone and—and such ababy."

" Baby or not, he's got a jolly lot ofpluck," said Hammond. " Come, Derrick,give the little chap hia chance of being abrick."

So Derrick feeling aa if he were utter-ing Peter's death sentence, shouted throughthe opening the few direction he knew.

" All right." came Peter's muffled voice."Good-bye, Derrick, I shan't be long."

Then they heard the small boy's footstepsdie away in the distance, and a deep silencefell upon them in the darkness of the cave

"COMB BACK, PKTKE," CBIBD DEBBICK, "WE MUST WAITUNTIL WE ARK DUG OUT."

as they fervently wished Peter the ' Godspeed' they had not dared to utter.

And Peter, by his candle's feeble lightpushed boldly on down the gloomy passagebetween walls of dark slimy rocks. Hisprogress now and again became very diffi-cult, and great masses of stone barred hisway over which he climbed and struggled,pushed and squeezed, weary yet undaunted.Now ho was stooping, bent almost doubleas the roof of the cave became lower; nowwading through pools of stagnant water,his hand high above his head, holding thelittle bit of candle that gave him his onlylight. He was wet through, his shirt tornand his shoulders bruised and scratchedfrom the rocks. His breath came in greatpanting sobs, and only the thought ofDerrick kept him from throwing himselfdown in utter exhaustion and despair. Atlast, as he scrambled over a projectingrock, his foot slipped and he fell heavilyforwar.l. His leg doubled up underhim, and his head struck against a stone.For a moment the blow stunned him ; thenfaint and dizzy he made an effort to rise,but an agonising pain in his leg broughthim to the ground again with a groan. Hehad dropped his candle, and he heard it goout with a little spit as it touched the

damp floor. Helpless andin darkness, Peter lay withhis face buried in his arms,while bitter sobs of despairshook hid small frame. Atlength he sat up, and ashe did so he started, andhis heart beat quicklywith hope, for away in thedarkness of the cave thereglimmered a faint greylight. Painfully he draggedhimself along the floor ofthe cave, and after he hadgone some little distancethe air became cooler, al-though the light was verydim. He looked up andfound he could no longersee the glistening roof ofthe cave ; then somethingdropped on his head. Heheld out his tremblinghand, and again he felt afew spots. It was rain.With a joyful cry Peterraised hinreelf and peeredanxiously into the dark-ness above his head, and

as his eyes grew accustomed to the gloomhe could distinguish what seemed to bebushes and shrubs, and through thebranches gleamed the white patches ofthe sky above.

He had found the opening of the mine.He clapped his hand to his mouth andshouted, shouted again and again with allhis strength until his voice grew hoarseand a dizzy faintness assailed him; batbefore he lost consciousness he fancied heheard an answering shout.

When he opened his eyes again the coldMarch wind was blowing in his face, thegrey evening sky was above him, and hewas lying in a moorland shepherd's arms.Then Peter remembered, and he attemptedto explain Derrick's peril. He was sur-prised to find how weak he was, and onlyafter great difficulty could he gasp out thewords that sent the men who had effectedhis rescue racing post haste to Peuhnrstfor means and help to dig out the im-prisoned boys.

It was eight o'clock the next morningbefore the little party of rescuers andrescued returned, and were met in thecollege quad, by an eager crowd of boyswhose cheering was very subdued because,

as the whisper ran quickly round, Peterwas dying.

" What's that ? " cried Derrick, sharply.He was looking very pale and haggard afterhis long imprisonment.

Then scattered and doubtful informationwas poured upon him from all quarters—"Peter had got a chill,'1 "Peter was de-lirious, Lady St. Leger had been telegraphedfor," until Mr. Malcolm appeared andcarried off the rescued boys to his study,where a sumptuous breakfast awaitedthem.

" Is it true about Peter, Sir ? " saidCroft, asking the question that trembledon Derrick's lips.

" I am afraid St. Leger is very ill," saidMr. Malcolm guardedly. "You see he hashad a nasty blow on the head, and has lainfor a long time at the bottom of that dampplace. It was fortunate I was walkingacross the moor at the time and heard hisshouts."

After breakfast, in obedience to theHead's command, Derrick went to seePeter, but the small boy was delirious, anddid not know the Captain, and the latterwas too awkward and inexperienced toattempt to nurse him, and it was onlywhen Lady St. Leger arrived that Petergrew calmer.

" I will send you word how he is," shewhispered to Derrick, reading somethingof the boy's misery in his eyes.

The day wore on, and the Captain wentthrough it in his usual stolid fashion, onlyhe was perhaps a little more sarcastic anddisagreeable than usual.

" Hard brute," muttered Croft to Ham-mond. " It would be only decent to showsome anxiety for the little chap who savedour lives."

But Derrick made no sign and the en-quiries about Peter's health were made bythe other boys. It soon became knownthat the crisis would be passed abouteleven o'clock that night. If Peter livedthen, all would be well.

In every domitory that evening therewere hearty wishes for Peter's recoveryand more than one small boy felt a lumpin his throat as he realised that to-morrowalthough the sun would be shining and theold cracked school bell ringing there mightbe no Peter.

Derrick did not go to bed, He knewLady St. Leger would send him over amessage so he went to his study and satthere waiting.

He had his Latin author in front of him.It was the Eudene of Plautns, and thebook was open at the love scene betweenSceparnio and Ampelisca. His eyes wander-ed over the words and he mechanicallyrepeated them to himself, but there wasonly one thought in his mind, only onewish and the intensity of that wish formeditself into words which buzzed monoton-ously through his brain. "Oh God, not him,not him too."

In the deep silence of his study heseemed to hear the words repeated aloudand the faint ticking of his clock caughtup the refrain. Tick-took, tick-took. Nothim, not him.

Yet he saw all the words on that page ofPlautus, and he read it through, stoppingto turn the leaf as he reached the last line,and Croft, looking in, would have indeedfound something to wonder at in theCaptain's apparent indifference.

Suddenly a step sounded outside his door,a sharp tap, and the school porter enteredand gave Derrick a little twisted note. Asthe man withdrew Derrick tore it openand read with a deep drawn breath the fewwords it contained—

" Peter will recover, thank God.MABIB ST. LEOER."

A mist seemed to swim before the Cap-tain's eyes, his arms dropped ovor his openbook and he buried his face in them with alittle groan.

It was the chapel clock striking twelvethat aroused him. He got up, carefullywiped the open page of Plautus with hishanderchief, pitched the book in a cornerand turned out the gas.

" What an abject fool. I am getting," hemuttered savagely as he left the room.

He entered his dormitory quietly andwas passing down between the rows ofsmall beds, when a subdued whisperingreached his ears, and in the moonlight heperceived twelve small youngsters squat-ting on a bed, originally meant to hold one,and realised that there was need for theassertion of his pref ectorial authority.

" What's the meaning of this ? " he criedsternly.

" Please Derrick," said a lugubriousvoice from the figure perched on the pillow," We're the Muffins ; we're holding a com-mittee meeting in Peter's bed ; we thoughthe might like it."

This Speech was interrupted by varioussniffs and snuffles, for Biggs was nothingif not gloomy.

" I don't understand," said Derrick, toomuch astonished to scold them.

" It's like this," explained Partridge," Peter's going to die, and Peter's a Muffin,so we thought we would like to raise atombstone over him. It's Riggs' idea."

"A plain, simple marble cross," snuffledEiggs, ''Very simple and quite plain."

He had read somewhere that true griefshows itself in simplicity.

" We've collected ten shillings," went onPartridge.

'• And three farthings," added Waring."And we thought we'd have a Latin

motto cut on it," continued Partridge." In plain black letters," snuffled Eiggs

lugubriously. " Very plain you know."" And the motto we want begins ' Sta

viator,' " cried Partridge. '• It's somethingabout trampling on a hero's bones, andPeter is a hero you know."

" You mean ' Sta viator, heorem calcas.'But you little duffers, Peter isn't going todie,-' cried Derrick, who had listened inamazement.

" Isn't going to die," echoed Riggs indismay as he saw his plain marble cross,Latin motto and other preparations forthe dead hero vanish completely away.Really it was most inconsiderate of Peter.

" No," cried Derrick half laughing, "Nowcut to bed at once."

And he passed on to his own bed with asmile playing about the corners of hismouth that greatly changed the stern hardlook his face usually wore.

"Golly," exclaimed Partridge, as they alltumbled gleefully into their cots,. " TheCaptain actually forgot to jaw us for beingout of bed. Don't you think he's jollydecenter than he used to be ? Anyhow Isay hurrah 1 that Peter isn't going to die,you chaps."

In the morning Derrick told Lady St.Leger about the committee meeting of theMuffins, and a few weeks after when sherelated the story to him, Peter positivelyrevelled in the plain marble cross with itsLatin motto that was to have stood overhis bones.

" It seems almost a pity I didn't die,Grannie," said Peter pathetically. " Fancy afellow having aLatin motto over his grave.'1

" Oh don't, dear," cried Lady bt. Legershuddering, for the glory of the cross andmotto did not appeal to her. "But Peter,dear, the doctor said you might have somefriends to tea with you to-day. Wouldn'tyou like to have the Muffins ? "

"No thank you, Grannie," said Petercalmly, " I 'preciate their kindness. Itwas awfully good of them to come andcheer under my window, and specially goodof Riggs. Just fancy a plain marble crossand a Latin motto. But no thank you,Grannie, I won't have the Muffins, I'll haveDerrick, please."

And Derrick actually came.EPILOGUE.

It was the evening after the battle ofAtbara, and the grey darkness of theEgyptian sky was falling like a pall overthe weary but victorious English camp onthe side of the shallow pools of the Atbara.

Two English officers stepped out of theMess House on their way to their tents,and as they approached their own lines asound of cheering reached their ears.

" D'you hear that, Derrick ? " said theyounger man, "They're cheering you forwhat you did to-day. It means a V.C. youknow, old man. Listen to "em."

" It's a pity they haven't somethingbetter to do," growled Derrick fiercely.

The other chuckled." It reminds me of the day you left St.

Dunstan's. D'you remember what a sendoff the fellows gave you. Goodness 1 howthey cheered, and yet some chaps said youweren't popular and —"

" Don't remember it at all, Peter," inter-rupted Derrick calmly. "Tell you what Ido remember though."

" What ? " asked Peter curiously." Why it's the anniversary of that day

you saved me and those fellows from beingburied alive in Rackett Cave," said Derrickslowly.

" Well you saved my life at PaddiugtouStation, so we're quits there," laughedPeter.

" But you have done more than save rnylife, young'un," went on Derrick obstinatelyand shyly, for this was a subject he hadnever broached before. " I owe you a jollysight more than that, I was getting abeastly, sneering—"

" Oh I say, dry up," cried Peter in alarm." Here, hang it, I'm off. Good night."

" All right," laughed Derrick, " Don't befrightened, I won't explain, I see youunderstand."

"I don't understand ; I dou't know whatyou mean,"shouted Peter wrathfully as hedeparted.

But Captain Derrick chuckled quietly tohimself as he watched the retreating formof Peter, the youngest sub. in his regiment-

SOME POPULAR DOGS.BY H. KENDRICK, JUNR.

III

WIKK HAIKEfl TKKEIBK.

HE keeping of dogs has becomeremarkably popular in thesemodern days, and it is the ex-ception rather than the rule to

meet a country pedestrian without hisfour-footed companion. There are, how-ever, a number of misconceptions withregard to the keeping of these faithfulcreatures. Some people seem to considerthat a dog can be made perfectly comfort-able in a draughty barrel in any stableyard. Chained to his uncomfortable homeall night long and a great portion of theday, is it any wonder that neighbours com-plain about the noisy animal ? The' firstprinciple to be adhered to must be that ofgood housing, and kennels, of all sorts andvarieties, are now advertised so cheaplythat it scarcely pays to make one* andthere is certainly no excuse for keeping aa dog in anything but a comfortablehome.

There is considerable misconception

also among dog-owners as to how to feedtheir animals. Some persevere with dog-biscuits alone, and boast about it. Such adiet is disastrous, for the dog comes of apurely carnivorous race, yet, contrary toall natural instincts, he is allowed not ascrap of his natural food. Dogs musthave a certain amount of vegetable foodfor, if fed exclusively on meat, they soonbecome gross and the odour is unpleasant.The digestive organs must be kept fairlyactive and have a reasonable quantity offood to work upon, and a great portion ofthis food must be non-stimulating. There-.fore give your dog a fair proportion ofmeat and make up his meal with biscuit,bread, rice, potatoes or other similar sub-stances. Never limit your dog to one mealper day, which he will gulp down infurious haste, for the digestive organs inthis way will soon become upset. Theprincipal meal of the day should be givenin the evening1 and after it the dog will

sleep quietly all the night and be brightand active in the morning.

There ia another point which is oftenoverlooked and that is the absolutelynecessary essential to health—exercise.The various skiu diseases which attackdogs are, almost all attributable to over-feeding or lack of exercise. Make a pointof taking your dog out yourself. It will notonly do the dog good, but do yon good also,and the animal grieves for the companion-ship of its master. It may seem absurdto mention grief aa a cause of illness, butthose in the know will readily admit that'fretting' and home-sickness are frequent-ly the caase of tangible illnesses. It istherefore only proper and humane to lookafter the dog yourself and you will findthat in every case the attention yon giveit will be amply repaid.

It is a difficult matter to recommend anyparticular breed. They are so numerousand all possess so many good points, thatit is almost impossible to differentiate.There is no doubt, however, that the

FOX TBBEIBE.

Terrier family is one of the most popularat the present. We give pictures of aSmooth-haired Fox Terrier, and of a Wire-haired Terrier, both of which are extreme-ly pleasant companions. They are smartin appearance and take up very little

room. These are both useful qualifica-tions, where space is a consideration. Itis not difficult to breed these dogs, andthe common belief that a host of troublesbegin with the weaning of the pupsis without foundation. The youngstersshould be encouraged to lap as soon asthey commence to crawl and they willthus be fairly well able to take_ care ofthemselves, when the mother affords .themno further nourishment, and there willconsequently be no check in their growth.

There is a story told of a young lady, inScotland who, on returning from a walk,was met by her Terrier which, taking holdof her dress, began pulling her back withall its might. Yielding to the dumbimportunity of her favourite, the ladyallowed herself to be led to the kitchenfire where the dog commenced to fondlylick her hand, but still unable to com-prehend the unusual conduct of her pet,she was about to retire when the animalsprang across the floor and, taking in bisteeth the handle of a pan in which the

children's porridge used,^^^_^^^_ to be prepared, began to

drag it towards its mis-tress. The mystery wasat once solved. The dogwas, through the neglectof servants, in a famish-ing condition, and tookthis effective method ofmaking known its wants,which were, of courseattended to.

The Borzoi, or RussianWolfhound, has recentlyfound a stronghold inthis country, and nowthat it has arrived it isbecoming more populardaily. There is scarcelya more elegant memberof the canine race, forit combines a powerfulframe, nobility of appear-

^^^^^^^ ance, and great speed inrunning. This hound isa large one, and in heightis from 26 to 30 inches.The favourite colour is

white with orange grey or fawn patches,and a head evenly 'marked. Some are allwhite, and these are considered to be ofgreat value in Russia. Others are whitewith black patches, and there are varietiesof coats—one profuse and somewhat curly,

and the otber silky in texture and muchnatter. The Borzoi possesses a very longand narrow head, with great strength of jaw.

The Greyhound represents a popularvariety with a large number of inhabitantsof these isles and for fleetness of limb

cauldron was suspended in which the dogs'meat was cooked. When the meat wasonce in the pot and surrounded by a blaze,the cook naturally thought he might de-part to attend to other duties. Such acourse however could not be followed, as

BOBZOI

there is nothing to surpass it. Theanimal is built on racing lines. The backis gently arched.the legs perfectly straight,and the cat-like feet with solid pads, addto its ability in the stern chase. The grey-hound is found anything from 24 tq 27inches in height and from 40 to 70 Ibs. inweight. Everyone knows of the wonder-ful running powers of these dogs asexemplified at the race for the WaterlooCup each year, and the value of the fleet-est of the fleet is occasionally only equal-ed by the value of the finest racehorse.

The well-known Mr. Youatt tells a goodstory which goes to prove that the Grey-hound is not the silly animal which somepeople appear to think him. Two Grey-hounds were concerned and their greatweakness was meat, to possess which theywould risk anything. This was serious,not so much on account of the value ofthe plunder, bnt that the consumption ofit makes the dogs too fat and lazy forcoursing purposes. Adjoining the kennelthere was a room. in which, an iron

the theft of the boiling meat was certainto be the result. One dog would rearhimself against the side of the pot, patopen the lid with bis paw and taking anyprpjecting scrap of the joint within histeeth, he would whip out the whole on tothe floor, and when cool both the dogswould quickly eat it up. First of all theplan of tying down the lid with cords wasadopted, but the dogs soon found out howto bite these asunder. Iron chains werethen substituted but still the dogs' in-genuity was not to be baffled; they con-tinued to rear themselves on their hind legsand, applying their strength at the samemoment, pushed the boiler fairly off thefire and sent it rolling on the floor, butalthough the iron chains prevented theirgetting at the meat, they were able to lapup the broth as it streamed on the floor.

Another dog which we illustrate is theDachshund. This is a peculiarly shapedanimal, formed on somewhat the samelines as the Basset-hound, having the samelong body and similar short and crooked

fore-legs. The baek of the Dachshund isslightly more arched than that of theBasset-hound and he has not so muchmuscle in the hind quarters and is ofcourse considerably smaller. The colour isred, black and tan, liver and tan, or dappled.He is generally found smooth coated.This dog has a very nice skin, whichmakes him particularly suitable as a petdog, and he is a favourite with ladies,being naturally clean and good tempered.Owing to his peculiar appearance, Punchhas described him as "a sort of dog yousell by the yard."

There is another variety which findsfavour in an entirely different directionto the Dachshund. It is the Collie, and

most prized legacies in the canine world.The Ettrick shepherd relates that on

one occasion he happened to say, in thepresence of his dog, " I am going toBowerhope for a fortnight, but I will nottake Hector with me, for he is constantlyquarrelling with other dogs." Hector wasabsent next morning, and when his masterreached Bowerhope there he found hisdog sitting on a knoll, awaiting his arrival.Hector had crossed a flooded river to reachthe place where he was seated.

On another occasion 700 lambs, whichthe shepherd had under his charge, brokeaway in the middle of the night andscampered off in three different partiesacross the bills. " Sirrah." cried theshep_

DACHSHUND.

its sagacity as a sheep-dog gives it at oncea unique position in the annals of thedog world. A typical specimen of theCollie variety has strong feet, as an advan-tage. The eye is bright and intelligentlooking, the head tapering, and the earsfall over at the tips. The body of theCollie is formed on very beautiful lines.The coat is long and flowing, especiallyabout the neck and under portions of thelegs. Underneath the coat proper thereia a subsidiary coat, close and dense in thetexture. This is a provision by naturewhich renders the dog almost imperviousto cold and damp. The tail is long andflowing, and completes a very noble animal.Whether as a show specimen or a workingdog, the Collie is without doubt one of our

herd to bis dog, " they're awa'." Tbenight was so dark that he did not see thedog, but the faithful animal heard hismaster's words and immediately set off.Meanwhile the shepherd and his com-panion spent the night in traversing thehills for miles around, but could neithersee the flock nor the dog. On their wayhome in the morning, however, they dis-covered the lambs at the bottom of a deepravine and the dog standing in front ofthem, looking all arouml for pome relief,but remaining true to his charge. Notone lamb in the whole flock was missing.

In conclusion I would add, that pro-vided the general rules of health arestrictly adhered to, dogs are not difficult tokeep in perfect order.

SOME ANIMAL CURIOSITIES.

'HERE are thousands of gulls farinland in the spring, and amongthe small but busy ones thatsearch about so keenly for

eatables you will often notice a muchlarger gull—brown or white and black.He disdains to take part in the strugglefor pieces of bread at the riverside, orworms in the fields. He hangs about theoutskirts like a field-cornet till some smallgull gets hold of a good portion. Then heswoops down on the lucky finder, andmakes a savage drive at him with his bill,buffeting him, too, with his great wings.

The smaller one dodges, and tries to getaway, but is hampered by ttie food whichhe carries. At last he has to drop it andfly off, squawking indignantly. The piratecatches the food before it drops, andswallows it. He keeps up this programmeall day, and is always fit and well-fed.In summer he varies the diet by visitingthe rocky ledges on the coast and stealingother birds' eggs.

The dormouse does a good deal of hoard-ing-up during the autumn months. Helays in a good store of nuts, and otherediblea, to take the edge off his appetitewhen he wakes up during his winter sleep.These are often stored in hollow parts ofwillow-trees near the ground. Unfortu-nately, the water-rats, that abound in suchplaces get to know of all this commend-able industry. They watch the dormiceat work, and then go and levy a tax onthe granary, or, in other words, eat asmuch of the stores as they can. There isno authority for the dormice to appeal to,for they are without the franchise; andmight is the only right in animal com-munities. The unfortunate dormice havethus to start all over again, or die ofstarvation. As water-rats are increasingin numbers considerably, dormice aredying out in low-lying districts.

The American rattlesnake has a way of

quartering himself on the prairie-dogs—little guinea-pig-like beasts that settle incolonies on the plains. The prairie-dogsmake burrows for themselves, and livetherein ; but in nearly every other burrowa rattler is quartered. The lawful ownersdare not try to turn him out, so he staysthere; and too often he apt to help him-self to a young prairie-dog by way ofdinner. Most of his meals are upon otherbeasts, but when times are hard he doesnot hesitate to make a meal of his hosts.He frequently goes to another burrow forhis dinner in these cases, but at the best,is a great nuisance.

There is a small but diligent kind ofbeetle, common in all parts of Britain,called the waggoner, which exists inthrifty assemblies of a dozen or so. Helives on soft wood to a large extent, andmakes a combined house and food-storeof a young tree, by boring into the trunkand making a regular habitation of it,with galleries, apartments, and so forth.Here the tribe lives and prospers, tillanother beetle, known as the watchman,comes along. This person has a rootedantipathy to work, and does no wood-boring, though his principal diet is softwo id. Watchmen simply look out forthe habitations made by the waggonertribes, and take up quarters there. Theyexist on the wood as it is dug out by thewaggoners, until the latter are eaten outof house and home. The sad part of it isthat the watchman likes to vary hiawoody diet with meat at times, and he isnot above eating one or two of his work-men, if they are plentiful.

A baser libel was never penned thanthat amazing bit of natural history whichdescribed the sloth as the laziest animalknoi"n. Like the snail, the poor slothwas never cut out for anything better.Even when his worst enemy, the keen-toothed jaguar, is hounding him through

the gfreen arches of the tropical forest,the wretched sloth cannot add anotheryard an hour to hia speed.

Here, in England, it is easy to find adozen cases of wild creatures whose dis-like for hard work far exceeds the sloth.The first duty of any self-respecting birdis surely to build a nest in which to raiseits young. Yet look at the number whichshirk this necessary proceeding. Thekestrel never dreams of such exertion.The last year's home of a magpie suitsMr. and Mrs. Kestrel to perfection. Theydon't care much about the roof the care-ful magpie has erected, so that theyroughly beat aside before laying theireggs. The sparrow-hawk, too, finds some-thing of the same sort very handy. Thehouse where Mrs. Carrion Crow broughtup her last year's brood does well to go onwith. Even the lump of rough odds andends which has once done duty as asquirrel's nest is not to be despised.' The -cuckoo has passed into a proverb,not only as the laziest of lazy birds, but asa downright thief and poacher. She notonly presumes on the kindness of otherbirds to lay her egg in their nests, but heryoung, when hatched, cruelly evicts itsfoster brothers and sisters to perishmiserably on the cold earth below. Thecheeky sparrow, too, has many of thebad habits of the habitual tramp. Hisnest, when he makes one, is of the mostuntidy description, and a house-marten'smud-built abode is very much to his tasteif he can seize it during the absence ofits proper ownelr.

Some creatures are much too lazy tofeed themselves. There is a large warriorant the ancestors of which, many genera-tions ago, captured smaller ants as slaves.In the course of ages the fighting antshave become so helpless and incapablethat if their slaves do not attend themthey simply perish, not knowing how orwhere to procure the necessary food.

To such an extent, indeed, has this de-generation proceeded, that the very struc-

ture of the Amazon Ant, as it is called,has slowly altered, till its mandibles havelost their teeth and are become merenippers—deadly weapons indeed, but use-less except for purposes of war.

Not only do their slaves feed *hem,but also carry them on their backs fromplace to place.

The fish-hawk is another creature thatprefers its hard work done for it. It hoversover the gulls as they are fishing, spotsone rising with a plump mackerel in itsclaws, and swoops down like a thunder-bolt. The poor gull, scared out of itssenses, drops its feast, which the pirateseizes ere it reaches the water, and de-vours itself.

In the water one finds various creaturesthat are not possessed of sufficient energyto do their own travelling, and so calmlyimpound something else to act as steed.The remora, or sucking-fish, thinks nothingof a thousand-mile trip fastened tight onthe back of a shark or the hull of a ship,and when it lets go never dreams of offer-ing a fare, or even so much as a thank-you.

Another small fish with a big Latinname travels in the mouth of the Bra-zilian catfish.

Crabs, some of them, are not speciallyenergetic. The little pea-crab generallyfoists himself upon the inussle or oyster,and lives in comfort on the spoils of hisunwilling host. The hermit-crab seems,through ages of laziness, to have lost thepower of forming for himself a shell ofany kind; so to save himself from beingthe tit-bit for the first prowler he hideshis jelly-like form in the recesses of thefirst old shell he comes across.

The number of creatures which trade onothers for homes and places of refuge islegion. Owls live in prairie-dogs'burrows,petrels of the Chicken Islands in lizards'burrows, whilst snakes of every descrip-tion take refuge in the holes dug byrabbits, tortoises, or other earth-tunnel-lers.

BY

THE REV. A. N. MALAN, D.D.

mR. BARKHAM was thoroughlyannoyed. He wanted a walkand a whiff of fresh airbefore school—it was rain-

ing—and hia umbrella was not to be found.Mr. Barkham denounced the man who hadcalled on him that morning as an un-principled scoundrel. The man had sentin his card, stating that he had come onimportant business ; he had told anextraordinary story, and had evidentlyconcluded his unwelcome visit by walkingoff with the umbrella.

Fuming with indignation, Mr. Barkhamput on a macintosh, and hurried off to thepolice station. He told his grievance inforcible words, as he handed over thecard, bearing name and address—Mr. J.Spinks, 129, Wimble Street, SoTio. Hedescribed the individual as of shabby dis-reputable appearance, dressed in ill-fittingclothes, and he hoped the police wouldcatch him. Their efforts were ineffectual—the address on the card had no real exist-ence—Mr. Barkham could only endure themortification of feeling himself the victimof roguery and deceit.

The incident had in some measure lostits sting when the summer holidays came,and Mr. Barkham went off to spend amonth in Devonshire.

Buddlecombe is a pleasant little seasideplace, with good opportunities for cricket,lawn tennis, and golf. A steamer puts inwhen it is not too rough. There is nopier—the steamer feels its way to thebeach, runs its nose into the shingle, letsdown a gangway from the bows: you walk

up, ladies and gentlemen, and away yon go.The bathing is all that deep sea can

make it, but the merciless stones are atrial to the feet, and the strong tide warnsthe swimmer to know his own powers.One day the policeman took a dip, andgaily swam out to sea. The tide carriedhim down channel; he got ashore withdifficulty, and had to hobble the gauntletback to his starting-place amid the jeersof young Buddlecombe.

Every visitor makes a point of going1 toClyst Gannon. It is only a few stationsfrom Buddlecombe. Mr. Barkham madethe excursion on a very warm day. Threeelderly ladies, with a long-haired dog, aparrot in a large cage, and manifold boxesand bundles, gave him plenty of occupationbefore the train started. He settled theminto a carriage, and, not liking the com-panionship of parrots and long-haired dogs,be got into the adjoining compartment.There he found comparative luxury—onlythree other men in the carriage—a cornerfor each of them.

The train went merrily On its way. AtPlymbury a large concourse of passengersstruggling for accommodation, soon filledthe carriages beyond the Company's regula-tions. A family party beleagured Mr.Barkham's compartment.

" Gome along, 'Liza—we must get inwhere we can. 'Taint no use being par-tic'lar. Smoker ? Never mind. My 1 ain'tit 'ot!"

'Liza, followed her mother, who carrieda baby. Three sturdy girls succeeded inpushing an enormous grandmother into

th« carriage. Three small boys followed,and two larrikins brought up the rear.

There were now fifteen all told in thecarriage, not counting the baby, and grand-mamma took up room for three. Thesmall bt>ys slobbered over penny-in-the-slot chocolate, and fought for the windows,clutching at any knee that offered vantage,and leaving their trade marks as theyforged ahead.

'Liza's mother threw out occasionalhints that they were only going as faras Puddlestone. Mr. Barkham, takingcourage at the thought, pondered onepisodes in Foxe's Book of Martyrs, andwondered if roasting before a slow firewas worse than stewing in the suffocationof an over-crowded railway carriage.

Matters improved at Puddlestone—ClystCannon was reached at last, and Mr.Barkham alighted on the platform. Whiledebating on his further movements heheard a call for help, and saw a passengerstruggling with a large bag wedged in thedoorway of a carriage.

" Will you kindly take my bag. Sir—there is only one porter in the place—Ihave other parcels."

Mr. Barkham lent a hand, while thepassenger collected his chattels. Whenthe baggage was marshalled in some orderon the platform, the passenger said—

"I thank you for yoiw timely assistance,8ir. I'm suffering from rabies producedby squalling babies. Ah! there's some-thing irregular about our pronunciation ofof Latin—we profess to follow the Englishmode—then, what are we to say 1 Babiesand babies, or rabies and babies ? I willwrite to Notes and Queries on the subject."

The passenger was dressed in a well-cuttweed suit, and his face seemed familiar toMr. Barkham. But the passenger wasfirst in the field of recognition.

" Ah," he said, " I thought I knew yourface, Sir 1 Delighted to meet you again !You remember me—J. Spinks ?"

t' Oh, yes," said Mr. Barkham." Well, I am surprised to meet you in

such an outlandish place. What bringsyou to Clyst Cannon ? "

"I'm stopping at Buddlecombe, and theguide-book mentions Clyst Cannon as in-teresting for the ruins of an old feudalcastle."

" Bunkum, Sir, all bunkum—you mightas well be asked to admire a heap ofstones by the road-side. I invite you togo one better. Let me stow you a bit of

the country from a sent in my dog-cart.No refusal I I will give you lunch, anddrive you back in the cool of the evening.And oh—by the way—I took the liberty ofborrowing your umbrella the other day,which I forgot to return—you shall haveit with full apologies for my rudeness."

Mr. Barkham was so bewildered by theunexpected meeting, the transformation ofthe disreputable individual who had pur-loined his umbrella, the humour of hisfrank confession—that, before he couldfully grasp the situation, he found himselfseated in the dogcart. The groom nimblystowed the luggage, Mr. Spinks mounted,and at a light crack of the whip the marestepped out bravely, and away they whiileddown the long street. Mr. Barkham felt theexhilaration of flying through the fresh airwith keen enjoyment, after his late experi-ence of the train. His companion madehimself most agreeable, with a fund ofanecdote and interesting informationabout the neighbourhood. But he wasthinking of the former interview.

Suddenly Mr. Spinks turned his face fullupon Mr. Barkham.

•• Now, Sir," he said. " tell me honestly—did you take me for a swindler, or alunatic, when I paid you a visit 1 "

"Well, Sir," said Mr. Barkham, "yourbehaviour was a little eccentric. Theaddress on your card could not be identi-fied."

"Oh—so you called in the aid of thepolice ! Ah, I must be more cautious infuture. Let me explain. I have noaddress when I go to London. I spend anight at one hotel, and the next at another.I like variety. One day I passed a shopwindow in which visiting cards were dis-played—printed while you wait. I had afancy to see how it was done. The manprinted my name, and asked for anaddress. Wishing to oblige, I coined one.He made no objection. I regret that itcaused you inconvenience."

"It was only a passing annoyance, butmay I ask what brought you to Sandhurst ?You expressed surprise at my coming toClyst Cannon—let that be my excuse forthe inquisitive question."

" I was spending a few days at Crow-thorne, and, being- an admirer of CharlesKingsley, I was on a pilgrimage to Eversley.It looked threatening for rain, and I had noumbrella. So I matured a little plot. Icalled at your house and borrowed thearticle wanted."

" Your fertility of resource is remark-able I But the experiment was liable tomiscon s truction—"

" A trifle odd, perhaps—nothing worse—I forgot to return the umbrella, and haveapologised for my forgetfulness."

" There is one more little point," saidMr. Barkham, " I cannot help contrastingyour appearance to-day with your—er—er—"

" Put it strong, sir; don't spare me—say,shabby beggar-man appearance, I deserveit, but let me explain. My friend at Crow-thorne is one of nature's gentlemen, thoughhis lot is cast in humble circumstances.My luggage went astray. I got wet, andhad to borrow some apparel from my host."

Mr. Barkham admitted that the explana-tion was satisfactory.

They were now driving over high ground,with a panoramic view of genuine Devon-shire outspread before them. Heather-cladregions, golden with gorse, sloped in gener-ous folds towards the sea. Multitudinouselms crowded the vast expanse of low-lyinglands. Villages with stately church-towers,the gleaming waters of Bxmouth estuary,the slumbrous hills rising beyond—everyfeature of the landscape contributed to apicture of varied beauty.

" That is my cottage," said Mr. Spinks,presently, pointing with the whip to agabled roof among elms, down ia the vale.By an easy descent winding through a lane,cool with the shade of over-arching trees,and blotched with sifted sun-gleams, theysoon reached an open gate.

" Monarch of all I survey!" said Mr.Spinks, as the mare pricked her eara andsped up the drive, fringed with greenestturf. Beds of old-fashioned flowers, rosetrees laden with bloom, and well-trimmedshruba, graced the approach to the cottage.It was covered with draperies of clematis,jasmine, honey-suckle, and rambling'roses.Two spreading myrtle bushes stood assentinels at the door of this artist'sparadise. "Welcome to Myrtle Dene!"said Mr. Spinks. " Enter, sir, and find acool respite from the fiery beams of Apollo."

They passed in, and the guest wasushered into a room with open windows ateach end, which gave free play to the breeze.

" The lunatic's den, sir! Take that chair—you'll find it comfortable. Let me offeryou a Havanah in prime condition. KingEdward himself, God bless him, couldhardly find a better."

Mr. Barkham, filled with amazement,

settled himself to enjoy the fragrant ,weed.He let his eyes wander round the room.Water-colours elegantly framed, cabinetsfilled with curios, brackets laden withquaint ornaments, ivory netskies, statn-ettes in bronze, marble, and alabaster;Indian and Chinese carvings, polishedagates, medallions, grotesque gnomes, war-clubs and weapons, suggesting the skill ofSouth Sea islanders, cases of stuffed birdsin gorgeous plumage—these adornmentswere arranged in a bewilderment of colourand variety. Panel-work of black oak wassurmounted by a broad dado of foliatedpattern in brown and white wood. A book-shelf well stocked, a library table not toocrowded with the paraphernalia of the pento leave space for a bowl of blush-roses, arevolving library-chair, and the two arm-chaira in which the guest and his host sat,completed the furniture of the room.

Mr. Barkham gazed in amazement tothink that he had denounced the master ofthis wonderful array as an unprincipledrogue I He detected a twinkle of humourin his host's eye.

" You have a most charming study, Mr.Spinks ; 1 am lost in admiration I "

" Well, sir, you see, I'm a lonely man,blest with suflicient means to indulge mytastes. I have picked up odds and endsabroad, and when I'm at home I have tomake my own amusements. I sketch agood deal—those are some of my daubs onthe wall. I pick up pebbles, and poliskthem—" he got up and took a specimenfrom a cabinet—" here's a beautiful bit ofshell-agate from Sidmouth."

Mr. Barkham examined it, and expressedhis appreciation of its merits.

" And what are those medallions ? " heasked ; "Antiques from Pompeii?"

"No, sir—mere swindles, worthy of theswindler you took me for—sections ofthigh-bones of Devonshire oxen and plasterof Paris. . . Those coloured ones arehorse-chestnuts—when dried, they cut likeivory. . . These gnomes are carved fromthe bark of Finns Pinaster, with chestnutheads—fine occupation for winter even-ings. . . These war-clubs are fashionedfrom limbs of trees—I'm fond of prowlingabout the woods, and always carry a pocketsaw. . . I worked the dado with a red-hot poker—common deal."

" I have no words to express my admira-tion," said Mr. Barkham; " I bow to you,Mr. Spinks, as an artist of versatile geniusand unrivalled skill I"

" You flatter me, sir I A Yankee turn forwhittling would be nearer the mark. Mymother came from Boston."

The tour of the room was hardly finished,when luncheon was announced. Anappetising repast was served, with wortle-berries and cream to conclude. Afterwardsa siesta, with desultory corersation be-tween puffs of f ragant smoke. Mr. Spinkstold pithy anecdotes of his varied ex-periences. On one occasion he had beenpresent at a cannibal feast in Africa." They served up man, roast and boiled. Itried each—tender and good—somethinglike pork." He told an amusing yarn abouttwo of his neighbours—Captain Penguin,Inspector of the Coastguard, and SirHenry Eeslake, of Lymcross Court. SirHenry was a little man, very deaf, some-what of a recluse, not well known in theneighbourhood. One day he went to call onCaptain Penguin, whom he knew intimate-ly. He walked into the house withoutringing the bell—went into the dining-room and drawing-room. Not finding theCaptain at home, he sat down to write hima letter. A new maid found him seated inher master's study. She accosted him—hecould not hear a word she said, and gotangry. She was frightened, and, takinghim for a burglar, she went to a public-house hard by, frequented by sailors. Sheasked them to come and turn out a vaga-bond. Only too ready for a row theyrushed to the house, seized the old gentle-man by the scruff of the neck, and kickedhim out of the house.

The afternoon waned, and Mr. Barhamhinted that it was time to leave.

" Bight, sir—always speed the partingguest—we'll order the trap. Meantimeyou must see my Great Dane. I call himColbrand, after the Danish giant, whofought with the Earl of Warwick in thedays of Athelstan. . . Ah, I was for-getting, I must restore your umbrella. . .Here it is."

Mr. Barkham received it with thanks,and they went to the stables. While themare was being harnessed, Mr. Spinksopened the upper door of a loose box. Adeep growl greeted him, and the majestichead and fore-paws of a hound, as large asa calf, appeared over the edge of the lowerdoor. The master went up and caressedthe huge beast. Then he suddenly said tohim, " Colbrand, you old scoundrel! " Thedog cowered back to the furthest corner ofthe box, grovelling in the straw.

" Power of the human voice, sir I' ' saidMr. Spinks; " When I first had that hound,he was so savage that I dared not go nearhim. I tamed him in a week. I shut himup in the yard, and three times a day I usedto stand at that open window and repeatthe word scoundrel to him twenty times.At first he only growled and tried to leapat me. Then he seemed surprised, andgradually showed symptoms of shame. Atlast the first utterance of the word utterlycowed him. Then I went into the yardlike a lion-tamer—fed him—made friendswith him. The magic word was my talis-man. Whenever he forgets himself itquells him in a moment."

Mr. Spinks went into the box, and playedwith the monster. " You want some water,old boy—would you kindly fill the bucket,sir—mind how you turn the tap."

Mr. Barkham took the bucket, andturned the tap. Instantly the bucket wasdashed from his hand by a rush of water,fierce as high-pressure steam escapingfrom an engine. Mr. Barkham hadpresence of mind to turn back the tap.The uction was followed by subterraneannoises which might have been the preludeof an earthquake. The brick pavementwas upheaved, and a fan-shaped fountainburst like a sheet of corrugated glass highinto the air. The effect was magnificentFully to the height of 50 feet spouted theflood with violent effervescence. It wascaught by the breeze, and dispersed invapourouu clouds with beautiful rainboweffects. Mr. Barkham raised his umbrellato keep off the drenching rain. He" won-dered how the simple turning of a tapshould produce such extraordinary re-sults.

Mr. Spinks showed no surprise. He leftthe loose box, and sharing the umbrella,he led Mr. Barkham to a shelter from thestorm'.

" Ring up the contractor, John," hecalled to the groom. " Oh, my water-works 1 "

"It is a grand show I " said Mr. Barkham." Grand, Sir ? Do you think it a show

provided for the entertainment of myguests? There's nothing grand in having20,000 gallons of water discharged in athunder-storm, and then to be left without adrop for a week I "

" Is that so ?"" Let me explain. When I bought this

place, the water had to be fetched from afarm a mile away. They told me I could

get ah inexhaustible supply by sinking awell. I sank a well 200 feet and got none.There was a splendid spring on the hillyonder, but it ran down the wrong slope.I hatched a noble scheme—bo divert thestream, bnild a reservoir, and lay downpipes to the cottage. I settled with a manto do the job for £300, and keep it inrepair for a year. It has been finishedtwo months, and the contractor has hadhia hands pretty full. We have had threebursts similar to this already. I accusehim of laying down inferior pipes. Hesays they are the best made. I tell himthey ought to be three times as strong—he says no pipes could stand water at 400

feet pressure. 1 tell him he should haveknown that before he took on the job—hegrowls and calls himself the biggest foolborn. I don't care to dispute that state-ment. Luckily he is on the spot, so hecan start again to-morrow. The stormwill have abated by mid-night—and I shallhave no water for a week."

The dog-cart was brought round, andthey drove to Clyst Cannon, where Mr.Barkham took leave of his host with pro-fuse thanks for his hospitality. And as hejourneyed back to Buddlecombe, Mr. Bark-ham reviewed the day's experience, andreflected that it ia not always fair to forma judgment on first appearances.

FABLES.THE OAK AND THE IVY.

yon allow me, sir ?" said theivy to a gnarled old oak. . " I

won't intrude without your permiasion."The oak looked down at hia feet, which

the ivy waa covering, but made no anawer." What a ragged old fellow you are,"

said the ivy, when she had reached halfway up the massive trunk. " I havecovered knots and knobs innumerable inyou : you may thank me for looking sohandsome."

" Do you think we shall sell for much ? "said the ivy, as she grew up to the topmostboughs. " I see they have been marking us.I presume we are in the same lot. You areaware that you owe all your beauty to me."

The oak was felled, and the ivy laywithered and trailing on the ground."Alas!" she cried. " how could I so for-get myself? t knew I was but ivy whenat the bottom of the tree, but when I gotto the top I thought I was an oak"

* * * *JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS.

going to hang Snap'" saids' Frisk, my lady's Blenheim, as she

stood wagging her tail with great anima-tion on the top of the kitchen-steps look-ing out into the yard.

" Well, who'd have thought it I " saidGrowler. '• But I'm not surprised when Ireflect ; that was what master and thegroom were talking about yesterday, nodoubt, for they looked at him."

"They're measuring his neck for a rope,"said Frisk, scampering off.

•• Snap's going to be hanged," saidGrowler to Tray.

•' Indeed 1 well, I thought he looked verylow-spirited all day yesterday. I'm notsurprised at all; but are you sure ?"

" Oh, I fancy he has the rope round hisneck already."

" Only think of Snap," said Tray to Lion,the Newfoundland dog.

"What about him?" said Lion, appar-ently more inclined to think of somethingelse.

" Going to be hanged, that's all.""And enough too," said Lion. " When ?"" Oh, I doubt if he isn't hanged already ;

I fancy the rope was about hia neck sometime ago."

"Poor fellow ! what's it for ? "" I can't exactly tell. The groom's been

complainingof him to the master, I believe,from what Mr. Growler says."

" I thought he was a great favourite.""Ah! but we've all seen a great change

lately."" When did you notice it 1 "" I don't know that it was spoken of till

this morning; bat anyone might have seenit long ago."

" I never saw it."At this moment Snap ran into the yard

with a new collar on."Hey, what's this?" sg^d Lion, as Snap

trotted from one to another to ahow hisfinery ; while Frisk looked down from thetop of the steps and whispered rathersheepishly to Growler, "Who'd havethought they were measuring him for acollar 1"

A TRIUMPH OP ENGINEERING.

PLYMOUTH BREAKWATER.

mATURE did not altogether do thework of making PlymouthHarbour, although it was inuse long before its present

splendid security was acquired. As aroadstead, the Sound was made insecurefor centuries by its exposure to gales fromthe south, and it was only when theengineer's art was called into activity thata remedy was found. The remedy consistsof the noble Breakwater, which breaks thef jrce of the Channel's angriest storms, andpreserves a sure and safe anchorage behindit.

It was originally suggested by AdmiralEarl St. Vincent, when Earl Grey wasFirst Lord of the Admiralty in 1806, andEennie, senior, designed it. His plan wasto form a basis for the stupendous workby casting into the sea huge angularblocks of rock, weighing from two toten tons, intermingled with rubble,which the waves would fix in suchpositions as to be in the end impregnableto their assaults. Its curved form wasadopted as presenting the greatest faceresistance. The cost was estimated at£1,055,000, .and 2,000,000 tons of stonewere deemed sufficient to complete theundertaking.

This great work was began in 1811,one of the first contracts entered intobeing the leasing of 25 acres of lime-stone for £10,000, at Oreaton, on theGattewater. In the year 1812, quarrieswere opened, rails laid, wharves built, andother developments affected. By thespringtime of 1813, 50,000 tons of rock hadbeen deposited, and the work done becamein part visible at low water; later in theyear an array of navvies were at work onit, and in the following year (1814) thestructure grandly withstood the fiercestonslought of a terrific storm, the waterprotected by it being calm enough forships to shelter in. Year by year the workcontinued. In 1816, 333,000 tons of stone

were deposited, and matters appeared to beprogressing rapidly, but in the followingyear a hurricane displaced 200 yards of theupper rabble, and some modifications inMr. Rennie's original plan became need-ful.

Herein the sea itself was the firstengineer; it indicated where the weaknesswas, and taught Renuie how, where andat what angle to form his resisting slope,in this way vastly adding to the stabilityof the work. The waves formed an angleof repose at which their successors mightlash vainly for centuries to come. Duringthat terrific, if useful storm, the Jasperwarsloop and Telegraph schooner, whichhad anchored outside the Breakwater,were totally wrecked and their crewsdrowned.

Renuie the elder died in 1821, and theprosecution of the work fell into the handsof his sou, Sir John Rennie, who mademany modifications and improvements inthe plans. The difficulties he encounteredwere appalling, but by one device or an-other they were all surmounted, thelighthouse was built, and finally, in 1847,after nearly forty years' hard work andanxiety, something like completion wasattained. The structure has now beentested long and severely, and shows nosigns of weakness anywhere. The perfectrepose of its angular rock formation indepth of water varying from 18 to 45 feet,is as great as if Nature had placed themthere, and not mas. But the Breakwaterproved a more stupendous and costly workthan its originators contemplated. Morethan 4,000,000 tons of stone were used inits construction, and the cost was little lessthan £2,000,000. Within it there is a fortof first-class strength, mounting ten heavyguns, perhaps one of the strongest placesin the world, harmless as it appears. Theentire length of the Breakwater is 1,700yards, its breadth of base 120 yards, andits height 50 feet.

PLY

MO

UT

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BK

EA

KW

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KK

.

A N E C D O T E S .

Obvious.They were sappers of the Royal En-

gineers, and they were testing one of thenew military balloons. Merrily theysailed away, till it seemed they had comefar enough.and they determined to descendand ascertain their precise location. Theycame down over a field where a rustic wasat work.

" Hi, Johnny I where are we ? "The Bucolic one gazed upward in amaze-

ment. s»nd the gallant warrior thought hehad not heard.

" Can you tell us where we are ?" hebawled. And just as the balloon driftedpast came the answer .-

" Whoy, ye be in a balloon, bean't ye ?"The sappers' comment on the reply is

really not worth recording.* **Didn't Answer.

Little Jimmy Roberts was the mostjunior reporter on the "Slowfield Times,"and one of his first commissions was toreport an address by an eminent travellerand engineer. Now, little Jimmy hadstored away in his capacious mind a row ofpatent memory pegs, on which to hangimportant facts. Unfortunately, one ofthose memory pegs broke off short on thisoccasion. He noticed that the eminentlecturer was described as a Member of theInstitute of Civil Engineers.

"H'ml" he said. " M.I.C.E.—mice.That's an easy combination. I shall re-member that easily."

But, as we have said, the memory pegbroke off, with the consequence that thechief-sub had a fit when he read Jimmy's"copy" which began:

'• An exceedingly interesting lecture wasgiven last evening by Mr. Thomas Jawkins,R.A.T.S. \" * »

*

A Poser.Little Tommy Tubbins was taking his

first lessons in astronomy, and, in hisusual taking way. was putting his dearpapa through his paces.

" What I want to know, dad," he saidcofidentially, " is this. Can you tell me ifthe moon is inhabited 1"

" Well, Tommy," said Tubbins senior,after a frantic dive into the archives of his

memory, " some astronomers think it isand gome think not; but the generalopinion is that it is."

'• Many people live there, dad ?""Yes," said pa. "It is supposed that

there are more people in the moon than inthe earth I"

" I say pa!"The old man wiped his brow." What is it ?"" Mustn't they be crowded when there's

a new moon ?" „ »#

Why Freddie was Unhappy." You do not look happy Freddie," said

his class-teacher. " What is wong fThe boy's blue eyes filled with tears, and

he had to take a shy bite at his apple forcomfort.

"•I ain't happy, teacher.'' he said; "andits all your fault."

"My fault? What do you mean ?•'Freddie had to take two bite's at his

apple this time before he could get hisvoice under control.

" Why," he said, " you remember youtold us that it was a poor rule whichwouldn't work both ways ?"

" Yes."" Well, I thought it wasn't right for

father to have a poor rule, so I took hisnew brass-bound two-footer and bent ittill it worked both ways, and then fatherhe said I'd broken the joints, and hespanked me I Boo-hoo I "

# *#

Oratory.The lecturer was excelling himself. His

metaphors may have been a trifle mixed,and his oratory a little perfervid; butwhat did that matter when loud cheersgreeted every sentence? Imperial unitywas his theme, and as he ueared the endhe felt that something great was demandedof him in the way of peroration. Bydegrees he worked himself up to theclimax, and then the words gushed forthlike water from the rippling brook.

'• Patriotism " he cried—" Patriotism isthe back-bone of the British Empire!And, gentlemen what have we to do withthat back-bone to bring it to the front I"

Then he sat down, and felt he had sur-passed himself indeed,