CHAPTER SIX.
BREAKERS AHEAD.
Mr Parrett was a popular master at Willoughby.

He was an old Cambridge "blue," and it was to his influence and example that the school in general, and Parrett's house in particular, were chiefly indebted for their excellence in all manly sports.

He was the most patient of trainers, and the most long-suffering of "coaches." Nearly all his spare time was given up to the public service.

Every afternoon you would be sure to find him in his flannels running along the bank beside some boat, or standing to be bowled at by aspiring young cricketers in the meadow, or superintending a swimming party up at the Willows.
Boys didn't give Mr Parrett credit for all the self-denial he really underwent; for he had a way of seeming to enjoy even the drudgery of his self-imposed work, and it rarely occurred even to the most hopeless of "duffers" to imagine that all the trouble spent over him was anything but a pleasure to the master who spent it.
Mr Parrett had his reward, however, in the good will of the boys generally, which he prized highly, and nowhere was he more popular than among the juniors of his own house.
What was their dismay, therefore, at the accident of that unlucky afternoon, and with what doleful faces did they present themselves in a melancholy procession at the door of his room at the appointed hour! "Come in," said Mr Parrett, who was still in his flannels, and had not quite done tea.

"Oh, you are the boys that I met on the river this afternoon.