CHAPTER VII.
RONLEIGH COLLEGE.
The first two or three weeks of a new boy's life at a big school are, as a rule, a dull and uneventful period, which does not furnish many incidents that are of sufficient interest to be worth recording.
The Triple Alliance passed through the principal entrance to Ronleigh College one afternoon towards the end of January, with no flourish of trumpets or beat of drums to announce the fact of their arrival to their one hundred and eighty odd schoolfellows.

They were simply "new kids." But though, after the fame they had won at The Birches, it was rather humiliating at first to find themselves regarded as three nobodies, yet there was some compensation in the thought that, just as the smallest drummer-boy can point to a flag covered with "honours," and say "My regiment," so, in looking round at the many things of which Ronleians past and present had just reason to be proud, they could claim it as "our school," and feel that they themselves formed a part, however small and insignificant, of the institution.
The crowd of boys, and the maze of passages, rooms, and staircases, were very confusing after the quiet, old-fashioned house at Chatford; but though in this world there is no lack either of lame dogs or of stiles, there is also a good supply of kindly-disposed persons who are ever ready to help the former over the latter, and our three friends were fortunate enough to fall in with one of these philanthropic individuals soon after their arrival.
The stranger, who was a youngster of about their own age, with a pleasant, good-natured-looking face, patted Diggory on the back in a fatherly manner, and addressing the group said,-- "Well, my boys, we're a large family at Ronleigh, but fresh additions are always welcome.

How did you leave them all at home?
Quite well, I hope?
Um, ah! Just so.

That's what Dr.Denson always says," continued the speaker, without waiting for any reply to his numerous questions.

"You'll have to go and see him after tea.