But the boy's friendliness went far to comfort him, and at last, shaking hands with him, he said-- "Do let me speak to you sometimes, while I am a new boy, Russell." "O yes," said Russell, laughing, "as much as ever you like.

And as Barker hates me pretty much as he seems inclined to hate you, we are in the same box.

Good bye." So Eric left the field, and wandered home, like Calchas in the Iliad, "Sorrowful by the side of the sounding sea." Already the purple mantle had fallen from his ideal of schoolboy life.

He got home later than they expected, and found his parents waiting for him.

It was rather disappointing to them to see his face so melancholy, when they expected him to be full of animation and pleasure.