Had the name of either ever appeared on a prize list, I am convinced there would have been a panic in the school. Even when they entered for the Wheeler Exhibition for boys under 15, Joe being on the day of examination 14 years 364 days, and Magnus being a week younger, no one supposed for a moment they had a chance against the fellows of eleven and twelve who went up against them; and no one was disappointed.

I asked Magnus afterwards how it was he came to grief.

"It was those beasts, the Greek G.o.ds. I'd like to kick them," said he.

By an odd coincidence I put the same question on the following day to my young brother.

"Eh?" said he, "what do you call them, you know, the thingamybobs that lived in Mount what's its name? I'm sick of 'em."

"Mount Olympus, you mean?"

"That's it--"

"Mount Olympus, Pack of Shrimpers."

This was a good specimen of my brother's poetic style!

I gathered from this that a new bond of sympathy had arisen between the two friends. They had both been ploughed in an unexpected paper on Greek Mythology, and were in consequence death on the divinities. I genuinely pitied the divinities!

Well--mind, as I wasn't in the affair, I can only relate it as I heard it--a very curious adventure happened to Magnus Minor and my young brother, shortly after this.

It was in the holidays, and we went, as usual, to Llandudno; and oddly enough, Magnus's people went there too. The two chums consequently had an opportunity of feeding the fires that consumed them, and of carrying on their feud with the Greek G.o.ds in boats and bathing machines, on the Great Orme's Head, and in the pier refreshment-room. Whenever I came across them they were still implacable; and once or twice I believe they actually spoke to one another on the subject, which shows how deeply they felt.

One day they made up their minds to do Snowdon, and with a respectable basket of provender, and an alpenstock apiece (on which the name of the mountain--in fact, several mountains, had already been cut), they started off by the train to Llanberis.

Magnus minor, being an athlete, occupied most of the journey in training himself on cold boiled eggs and damsons; while Joe, being a poet, read somebody's "Half Holiday" in a corner.

At the place where the train stopped they got out, and wondered whether they had not already had enough of it. It was a grilling hot day. They hadn't an idea which was the way to Snowdon, and n.o.body seemed to know.

A railway porter said "Second to the right"; but they could see he was humbugging. As if a mountain _could_ be up a turning!

"Let's jack it up," said Magnus, who was feeling a little depressed after the damsons.

"Eh?" said Joe, "there's no train back to what's-his-name for two hours.

What would it cost to cab it up?"

"Oh, pots," said Magnus. "I tell you what--we might have a go of ginger-beer somewhere, and see how we feel after that."

Whereupon in silence they found out the leading hotel or the place, and expended sixpence apiece on ginger-beer, at threepence a bottle.

Naturally they felt much refreshed after this, and, without condescending to further parley, decided to stroll on; only, as the porter had mentioned a turning to the right, they selected a turning to the left as decidedly more probable.

It may have been Snowdon, or it may not--in any case it was a hill, and a stiff one.

Magnus, the athlete, taking out his watch, said he meant to do it under twenty minutes, and begged Joe to time him.

Joe, the poet, agreed, and sat down on the shady side of a rock with the watch in one hand, the "Half Holiday" in the other, and his share of the damsons in his mouth.

"How long have I been?" shouted the athlete, after stumbling up the slippery gra.s.s slope for about five minutes.

"Time's up!" shouted the poet.

Whereat Magnus, surprised at the rapid flight of the enemy, checked his upward career, and not only did that, but, a.s.saying to take a seat on the gra.s.s, began to slide at a considerable pace, and in a sitting posture, downwards, until, in fact, he was providentially brought up short by the very rock under which his friend rested.

"_Facilis descensus Averni_," observed Joe, making a brilliant sally in a foreign tongue.

The remark was followed by instant gloom. It was too painfully suggestive of the heathen deities. Besides, Magnus had nearly smashed himself against the rock, and had to be brought round with more cold boiled eggs and damsons.

After this the ascent was resumed in a more rational way. They accomplished a quarter of a mile in the phenomenal time of two hours, during which period they sat down fourteen times, drank at twenty-one streams, fell on their noses about eighty times, and wished a hundred times they had never heard the name of Snowdon.

"I thought you said there was a `thingamy' all the way up?" said Joe.

"So there is--we're on it," said Magnus minor.

"Oh," said Joe. He had previously had some misgivings that he was growing shortsighted, but he was convinced of it now.

At the rate at which they were going there was every prospect of getting to the top of the first ridge about three o'clock on the following afternoon. But Magnus minor and my brother Joe were fellows who preferred doing a thing thoroughly--even though speed had to be sacrificed to the thoroughness.

So they pegged on, detesting this mountain as if it had been Olympus itself, and making a material difference in the level of the lakes below by the number of tributary streams they tried to drink up by the way.

At last they actually began to get up a bit.

"How far now?" said Joe, lying on his back with his coat off, his shirt- sleeves turned up, his collar off, and his braces slack.

"Just about there," said Magnus minor.

He spoke figuratively, of course. They were a quarter of the way up, perhaps.

"I don't believe this beast is what-you-may-call-him at all. It strikes me we ought to have turned to the--you know."

"It looks like him," said Magnus. "Anyhow, it'll do for him."

"I'd like to do for him," growled Joe.

They went on presently, in shocking tempers, both of them. They loathed that mountain, and yet neither liked to propose to go back. That is the way in which a good many mountains are climbed.

Magnus got riled with Joe for not giving in--he was the elder, and it was his business to begin. Joe, on the other hand, never thought so ill of Magnus as when he saw him pegging up twenty yards ahead, never giving him (Joe) time to catch up. He made faces at him behind his back, and tried to think of all the caddish things he had done since he came to the school. But it was no good. As sure as ever Joe tried artfully to cut a corner or "put it on" for a yard or two, Magnus, on ahead, cut a corner and put it on too.

When Magnus presently, having improved his lead, sat down to rest, Joe made sure he had caught his man at last. But--would you believe it?-- just as he approached the place, with every show of friendship, announcing that he had something particular to say, Magnus got up and went on again, leaving poor Joe not only still in the rear, but without time even for a rest.

All this astonishing activity, as I said, was the result, not of energy, but of bad temper. The worse their tempers became the greater the pace, and the greater the pace the nearer the top of that interminable ridge.

Towards the end it was uncommonly like running. Magnus would have given worlds to venture to look behind and see how the idiot below was f.a.gging; and Joe would have given a lot to see the lout above come a cropper and smash his leg. It wants a pretty hot friendship to stand the test of a mountain-side.

At last (without a suspicion of what o'clock it was, or how far they had come), Magnus actually stopped and lay down.

"Serves him right," said Joe, triumphantly, running with all his might to take advantage of his chance. Alas! when he got up to his friend, he discovered that after all he was not dead-beat, or wounded, or ill.

The reason he had stopped was that he had got to the top.

As was natural, as soon as this agreeable and amazing discovery was made, Magnus minor and my brother Joe forgot their rancour and loved one another again with a mighty affection. Their own brothers weren't in it.