"If you please," said I, "I'm a new boy--can you tell me where to go?"

The senior, a bland, good-looking sort of youth, surveyed me carefully and replied--

"To bed, I should say."

"All right, thanks," said I; "which way is that?"

He laughed pleasantly.

"What's your name?"

"Thomas Jones."

"You needn't mind about the Thomas up here. Where have you come from?"

"Do you mean, where do I live, or where have I been just now?" I inquired, anxious to avoid any misunderstanding.

"Look here," said he, "hadn't you better take a seat, if you want to tell me all your family history? I'm sure it's very interesting, but it's rather late in the day to begin now. Where have you come from, not originally, but just now?"

I flushed up very much at this polite rebuke. Whatever made every one so anxious to a.s.sume that I was an a.s.s?

"Pridgin's," said I. "I'm his f.a.g, and he's having a tea party."

"Oh," said the youth; "who's there?"

"Only Tempest and Wales," I replied, feeling more at my ease.

"No one else?"

"No," I answered. Then, guessing he might have the same antipathies as Tempest, I volunteered--

"Crofter's not asked."

My companion opened his eyes. "Indeed--why?"

"I don't know. Only I know Tempest wouldn't have gone if he had been.

Please which way do I go?"

"What objection has Tempest to Crofter?"

"I don't know--I suppose he's a beast. Tempest hates beasts."

The boy laughed.

"He must be very fond of you," said he.

"Yes," said I, "we're old chums; we were at Dangerfield together, and both got ex--"

There I was, after Tempest's warning about keeping my exhibition dark.

"Both got what? _Expelled_?" inquired the senior, with interest.

"Well--yes," said I, thinking that the best way of getting out of it.

"It was this way--"

"Really, Jones, it's getting late," said the senior; "I've no doubt it's an interesting story. There, go and inquire in the fourth room on the left. They'll show you the way to bed."

And he departed.

I was very sorry he had not given me time to explain the little matter at Dangerfield. It would be a pity for any one to get a wrong impression about it. Still, what a lucky escape I had had from blabbing about my exhibition! The fellow, too, seemed a nice sort of chap, and disposed to be friendly, so there was no harm done after all.

I could tell, long before I reached it, that the room which had been indicated to me as the place where I might get the information for which I thirsted was, to say the least, inhabited--for the noise which penetrated through the keyhole and the cracks of the door was appalling.

Either, thought I, a free fight is going on within, or there is a steam engine at work, or the builders are shooting bricks through the window.

I was mistaken. It was only five boys of about my age talking.

The silence which greeted my appearance was rather more formidable than the noise which had preceded it. In the midst of it, however, I observed the form of Master Trimble, also that of my travelling companion of the morning, and concluded therefore that I had come to the right place for information.

"Full up! cut!" was the cordial greeting of the company generally.

"Hullo, it's Sarah!" cried my travelling companion. "What a lark!

Collar him, you chaps. That's the idiot I was telling about. He came down in the train with his ma--"

"She wasn't," said I; "she was no relation."

A loud laugh greeted this disclaimer.

"Well, his nurse, or aunt, or washerwoman, or something."

"No, she wasn't."

"Shut up, and don't tell crams."

"It's _you_ who are telling crams," said I, for the blood of the Joneses was getting up.

"Look here; do you mean to call me a crammer?" demanded the speaker, looking very imposing.

"If you say it again I will," said I. "I tell you that woman had no more to do with me than you; there!"

It was a critical situation, and the key to it was in my accuser's hands. If he insisted that the lady in question had anything to do with me, I was committed to call him a crammer. And if I called him a crammer, he was equally committed by all tradition to punch my head.

And in the humour I was then in, he was not likely to do that without getting one back for himself.

"I know who it was," suddenly cried Trimble; "of course! Tempest told me last term there was a young a.s.s coming up who'd been at a girls'

school, and had got an exhibition or something. Of course this was his old school dame. Good old Sarah!"

At this terrific exposure the spirit leaked out of me. My tell-tale blushes confirmed what was true in the story, and my silence lent countenance to what was untrue. The delight of my tormentors was beyond words. They danced the "mulberry bush" round me, overwhelmed me with endearing expressions, offered me fans and smelling salts and cushions and hairpins, simulated hysterics and spasms, trod on my skirts, and conversed to me in shrill treble till I was sick of the business. Only one course was open to me. It was an unpleasant one, but on it depended, I felt, my future welfare at Low Heath.

I seized the nearest, who happened to be Master Trimble, and pulling him gently but firmly by the nose, demanded if girls generally treated him that way? He kicked vigorously, and ordered me to release the imprisoned member. I declined to do so until I had kicked back, and finally deposited him on the floor, amidst the laughter of his perfidious comrades, who told him it served him right, and that "Sarah"

was evidently one too many for him.