He left a name at which the world grew pale,
To point a moral or adorn a tale,
Jickling had laboriously fabricated this:-
Nomen linquebat per quod jam palluit orbis,
Pungere moralem aut caudam decorare super-

bam;

oured to glide unobserved past that wor- | from the master, and enjoined to write out thy at school-hours, and not only with Ovid's "Medea to Jason" in a legible Spankie, but with all the other tart-men, hand, and bring it the next day at one Spankie's colleagues, who lined the low o'clock. As to Jickling's verses they stood wall which bisects the College part of High on a par with his prose performances, and Street and forms a bulwark to the school-were a continuous source of distorted yard. No sooner, indeed, did Jickling nightmares to our unhappy tutor, whose heave in sight, with his necktie all awry, duty it was to correct and put some sort his hat brushed the wrong way, and his of shape into them. It was currently repockets bulged out with fives'-balls, stumps ported that, having to turn into hexameof half-eaten pears, and blotted pænas (ie. ters the two lines, Punishment MSS.) than Spankie himself, brown-trousered Levi, Spankie's next neighbour and vis-à-vis, red-faced, strawhatted Jobie, whose basket was a step further on, grey-coated old Brion, who wheeled about a whole vehicle full of confectionary, and certain desultory vendors, who sold apples peripatetically, would set up a chorus of howls and appeals, that and certainly this would have been rather would be taken up at the very school-gate above than below the average of his ordinitself by blue-cloaked Mrs. Pond-more ary productions. Needless to add that, familiarly "Missus"—who, seated on a although Jickling was in lower fourth, low stool, retailing fruit and dormice, that is, in the last division of the upper would shrilly call upon Jickling for pence school, he had only arrived there after faillong overdue. In school, Jickling was as ing to pass his first examination out of the unsatisfactory as out of it. When called lower school. It was even rumoured that up to construe, he never knew where to go he would have been rejected the second on: often he had brought the wrong book; time had it not been for the Macchiavellic and, somehow, he generally contrived to determination of the lower master to get get himself weighted with a sentence to rid of him at any price, as a boy whose inwrite out and translate the lesson before curable idleness was contagious, and likehe had fairly started. And when he had ly to corrupt the whole form. So there started, who shall describe the torrent of was Jickling, at the very bottom of his disolecism, false quantities, and hideous vision - a boy of about twelve, with lank errors of translation that flowed imperturb- hair of a muddy flaxen colour; fingers ably from his mouth? With a coolness permanently ink-stained; Balmoral boots utterly and unquestionably beyond rival- that were never laced; and a curious white ling, he would declare that bis was the da- face, that looked inquiringly at you, out of tive plural of bos, and sum the accusative a pair of eyes so wild, shifty, and defiant singular of sus, and that the correct rend- in their expression, that it was a wonder ering of basis virtutum constantia was "con- Nature had not taken them to put into the stancy is the basest of the virtues." Some-head of a polecat.

times indeed, under immediate and forci- Now that Jickling should have flourble threats of condign punishment, he would so far prepare his lesson as to go through it twice attentively with a crib" before proceeding into school, and on such occasions, his memory not being retentive, he would generally treat his hearers to something in this style: :

ished in our midst was a circumstance astonishing enough, seeing that of all the staid and proper youngsters I have ever met with, we Etonians were certainly the most exemplary; but that he should have been the fag of such a fellow as Asheton was a downright puzzle; for Asheton being captain of the house, and entitled to four fags, might have chosen any one he pleased and was under no compulsion whatever to select Jickling, who blacked his toast for him, spilled the gravy of sausages over his trousers, and when sent to carry a note, invariably took it to the wrong place. There could have been no community of thought or sympathy between Asheton and Jickling; for the two were simply as opposite to each other as white is to black,

or coal to sugar. What Jickling did folded silk umbrella, were things to see' wrong, Asheton did well; and what Ashe- admire, and copy; the more so as Asheton ton did well, Jickling was morally certain was always trim, always speckless, always to do wrong. Asheton was a quiet and glossy, whatever befell - even though, for finished type of that class of boys who at instance, he had been rowing up to MonEton are termed "swells " a subtle de- key Island, and had reached Windsor signation, the exact meaning of which it is Bridge on his return, with only seven minnot very easy to explain to outsiders. A utes in which to land, dress, and run down boy was not a swell because he dressed to College, to answer to the calling of his well, or played cricket well, or boated well, name at two-o'clock "Absence -a ciror was high up in the school. All this had cumstance of not unfrequent occurrence, to be touched off with certain social quali- and always particularly trying to the ties, and a great- I was going to say "swell" temperament. It would be diffialmost exaggerated-air of personal dig-cult to convey an idea of the extent to nity, before the swell was complete. which we young shavers respected AsheStumpes maximus, the best bat in the ton; but mind, I say respected not liked; eleven, who would alternately slash an for Asheton would no more have familiarinnings of sixty and be bowled out first ized with a lower boy in-doors, or taken ball; who slouched about the streets with notice of him in the streets, than a colonel his hands in his pockets, and nodded good- would chum with a private soldier; and naturedly to lower boys of his acquaint- our feelings towards him were consequentance Stumpes was a very pleasant fel- ly much of the same reverential order as a low, and immensely popular, but he was no soldier's might be towards an officer who swell. Cashman, again, whose father was kind and just, but cold and a little of owned five millions sterling, and stuffed a a martinet. When I have added that in fifty-pound note in each of his son's waist- his school-work Asheton shone pretty coat-pockets in sending him back to school much as he did in athletics, that is, uniafter holidays Cashman was anything formly and moderately well, without startyou please: well dressed, well bejew-ling brilliancy that, for example, after elled, generous and conceited, but nobody an examination, his name was generally to called him a swell, neither was he one. be found between the fifteenth and the Asheton, on the other hand, was a swell twenty-fifth on the list (out of seventy or nem con. He was not surpassingly excel- eighty), and that in the half-yearly trials lent in anything, but he was good at every- or "collections" he was habitually in the thing, and might be relied on in every-second class—I shall, I think, have said thing. He pulled a capital oar, without all that is needful to fill up his portrait. great dash, but conscientiously and in fine To sum up: Without being one of those form; he, moreover, bowled and batted overpoweringly good youths whom we are well enough to hold his own with credit in bound to admire in books, and whom, in any match that took place in that part of private life, we do so deeply and ardently the playing fields called " Aquatics," and long to see flogged, he was a slightly prim, reserved for "wet bobs," or fellows whose accomplished, and honourable young Brithabitual vocation was the river. At fives on, whom our tutor did well to enjoin us and football he was also counted among smaller boys to imitate, and whom we certhe first; but in these and all other pas- tainly should have striven to imitate times the great merit of him was that whether he had enjoined it or no. Nohis play was sure. As he had played body would have said of Asheton (at least, to-day, so would he play to-morrow; there not we his fags, who were apt to judge of was nothing unequal in him, no wavering, things superficially) that he was one of no unexpected breaking down at a mo- those fellows who blossom out into Pitts, ment when all the hopes of his friends Cannings, Wellingtons, or other of those were centered on his performance. Per- swell Etonians whose busts in marble sonally he was neatness itself. About adorn the upper school-room; but he was eighteen years old, lightly built, and a boy who might develop, when the due rather above middle height, he had a season came, into an unimpeachable M.P., handsome aristocratic face of essentially a Chairman of Quarter Sessions void of English mould, though, perhaps, a little reproach, or, if he took to soldiering, too serious for his age, and a figure that into an officer who, in victory or dewas fitly set off by the absolutely faultless feat, would make an unbragging stand style in which he dressed. His white cravat, with his men against quintuple odds, tied as only Etonians used to tie them; and die, firm to his post, with cool intrehis speckless linen, glossy hat, and trimly pidity.

This said by way of introducing my | not been here a week," pursued Greegleby, dramatis persona, let me, with your leave, still very wroth, for it was evident that it take up the thread of my narrative at the went sore against his notions of morality point where, having just arrived at Eton that anybody should be deceived until he in the month of September of the year had been at school long enough to be pre185, I learned that untidy Jickling and I pared for it. were to be fag-mates.

It was not Jickling himself who brought me this piece of news, but Stumpes minor, brother to the Stumpes in the Eleven, who entered my room on the next morning but one after my arrival, holding a copper kettle in one hand and a plate of muffins in the other, and said, "Rivers, you're to come down with me to Asheton's

room."

"If I waited a week he wouldn't be greenable," answered Jickling, coolly; and saying this, he turned one of the pockets of his trousers inside out, and proceeded to remove a piece of Everton toffee that was sticking in a corner thereof. "New fellows," added he, sucking the toffee, "are like puppies-they begin to see clear towards the ninth day."

"Don't mind what he says, Rivers," exclaimed young Greegleby, loftily. "Nobody pays any attention to him."

66

No, nobody," assented Blazepole, who had just ascertained that his resources amounted to one pound sixteen shillings and a penny, and was restoring this wealth to his pocket-book.

So I was informed both by Greegleby and Blazepole, the one corroborating the other, that I had nothing to fear of Asheton, that he was a good fellow, and that he never bullied, because bullying was a blackguardly thing, only practised at "low shops," (and here Greegleby mentioned the public schools which he regarded as "low shops,") but never at Eton. Yet somehow these assurances must have left me not altogether convinced, for it was with something very like a feeling of being about to suffer tribulation that on the following morning I obeyed the summons of Stumpes minor, and followed him, the copper-kettle, and the muffins down to the room where Asheton lodged.

I cannot say this summons caused me anything like a great pleasure, for at the private school whence I came the word fag had been held up in terrorem over me by everybody who had ever pronounced it. Certain of my schoolfellows, amicably jealous, no doubt, of my going to Etou, had given me clearly to understand that, as a preliminary to all further relations with me, my fag-master would begin by having me tossed in a blanket, then set me to blacken his boots for him,. and that, on my failing to polish these to such a degree of perfection as would admit of his shaving himself by their help instead of in a looking-glass, he would order me to stand on my head in the middle of the room and take shots at me with a toasting-fork. Jickling, who had apparently divined the existence of these fears in the course of our first conversation, had, on the second occasion of our discoursing, taken benevolent pains to develop them; and he was in the act of gloomily relating to me how this very Asheton had once fagged him to go to the top of the "Long Walk," a distance of four miles and a half, walking all the way on his hands, legs uppermost, - thump against my brown waistcoat, when he was severely interrupted by one and my cheeks flushed with anticipatory Greegleby, four foot high, but irascible, emotion. It was a largish room, perhaps and protector of the weak, who joined twenty feet by fifteen, and had two winus on the pavement outside our tu-dows, both of which were curtained with tor's house where the interview was tak- some warm purple stuff, which I took for ing place, and cried out indignantly, silk, but which was probably not that, and Shut up, Jickling: it's a chouse greening new fellows."

"You're always doing something caddish," followed up young Blazepole, whose head was like an orange-coloured mop, and who, leaning against a door-post, was gravely counting what remained of three pounds he had brought back with him after an equitable settlement of all his debts.

None but a snob would tell such confounded cracks as that to a fellow who's

I remember this room as if I were still standing in it now, on that bright September morning, with my heart going thump

filled with flower-boxes, where glowed some scarlet geraniums, whose showy coats stood out bravely against the dull bricks of a boarding-house opposite. The carpet under our feet was what is, I believe, called a Kidderminster, but it was an honest Kidderminster of good ruddy hue, chosen to match with which was the crimson figured paper, not very expensive I should say the yard, but handsome nevertheless, and sundry velvet brackets supporting pewter and silver prize-cups,

་

166

on one of which I read floridly engraved: squirrels fighting a duel, the blood of the "Frederick Asheton, Winner of the Pulling. worsted squirrel being realistically repreFloreat Etona." In the way of furniture, sented by a blotch of meandering sealingprovided by our tutor, and destined to wax. Then the upper-boy sphere of white pass along with the room itself to succes- ties, five-pound tips and ten-pounds sive owners, were, in addition to the carpet half-yearly pocket-inoney, had been atabove-mentioned and its attendant hearth- tained; and trained enough by this time rug, a shut-up bedstead, which had done to essay his own taste unshackled, the unmistakable service already, if one might lover of river sports and member of the judge by its venerable oaken complexion; | Eight had chosen a really admirable series a bureau, on the leaf of which Asheton of water-colours depicting Thames scenery had (presumably in the lower-boy phase and artistically done by hand, not chromoof his existence) carved his initials and graphed. You would think that this agcrest; four Windsor chairs, also carved glomeration of lights and shades must have and chipped; a shut-up wash-hand-stand, formed a strange medley; but no, everywith a piece of oil-cloth in front of it; and thing was in its place, looked well where a square deal table, covered with a red it was, and did its share towards making flowered tablecloth, and like the chairs, carved to any lengths, if you were only prying enough to lift up a corner of the tablecloth and see. But all these items played only a subsidiary part in the adornment of the chamber, for it is not to his tutor that an Eton boy looks to make his room cozy. From the day when he is installed in the small apartment, which is his to do with as he pleases. (blessed privilege!), the boy's one thought is how to give it that habitable look which smells of home; and in Asheton's case this preoccupation, extended over six years, had taken shape in pictures, stuffed-bird cases, and useful knicknacks, in such numbers as to make the room seem almost alive with comfort, colour, and cheerfulness. By gazing with a little attention, too, one could detect at what different dates the things had been bought, and so follow the boy through the various gradations of taste and culture engendered by his public-school training. Those flashy-looking sporting cracks, now relegated to an obscure corner, had clearly been purchased when a love of paint predominated over other considerations, and when the chief thing to be aimed at was the making of much effect with little money. By and by taste had improved; the fourth form was abandoned and the remove was reached. The young invester had said: “Instead of these staring things that are too cheap to be good, I'll lay out a couple of pounds at one sweep." Yet not daring to trust his own taste so far as to select something quite original, he had resolved to buy what he had most often heard praised; hence, "Dignity and Impudence" and "Laying down the Law," by Landseer; "My dog," "My Horse," "The Rent Day," and a few more prints as well known and popular; intermingled with which were a case of stuffed frogs playing cricket, and a case of stuffed

up that comfortable total which means snugness. There was no such thing as a vacant place on the walls; every inch of space was filled up. Here a pair of prize foils with velvet and gilt handles; here a miniature out-rigger with the date of a race upon it; here again, nailed to the wall near the fireplace, three ribbons, scarlet, dark blue and light blue respectively, and lettered, "Saint George," "Britannia," and "Victory," the names of three boats to which Asheton had in turn belonged; and there, five feet above the mantel-piece, a set of branching antlers decked out with a couple of those small silk flags such as flutter from the bows at boat-races, and with a gala straw-hat emblazoned with the Eton scutcheon, and made to be worn at the 4th of June and Election Saturday regattas. I shall not have enumerated everything, however, if I do not allude to a picture, of no great merit in itself, but which had evidently, through all changes and chances, held the same post in Asheton's room—and that the post of honour. It was a picture of a country-house-— of home-executed by mother's or sister's hand, and hung just under the antlers over the mantel-shelf, the first thing that struck you as you went in, and the thing towards which the eye most gladly returned after roaming over everything else. Asheton had stuck a couple of home valentines in the frame of this picture, and in one of the nail-rings a wedding favour, memento of some home wedding.

I took in all this at a glance, though I have been five minutes describing it; and I had leisure to examine the whole room in detail, while Stumpes mi., to whom, presently, was added Blazepole, began laying his master's breakfast-things. For Asheton had not turned round on our entry; he was seated at his bureau, reading up his seventy lines of Horace for eleven

"Oh, I beg your pardon," he said, civ- "Then it must have been for something illy; "I didn't know you were in the else," said Stumpes, perplexed; but he room. Why didn't you tell me, Stumpes?" was spared the trouble of drawing further With which words he seated himself at the on his imagination, for at that moment table, and pointed silently to the ham, as a there was a precipitate shuffling of feet in hint to Blazepole that the carving-knife the passage, and a double entry --- Blazeand fork had been forgotten. Both fags pole with the mustard, and Jickling himrushed together towards the cupboard, ex-self with nothing.

changing mutual reproaches sotto voce. It was the first time Asheton had seen "Your name's Rivers, I believe?" added Jickling that half, so he held out his hand. Asheton, buttering a roll. Northampton- "How do you do, Jickling?" he said. shire or Somersetshire Rivers?" And he "'Do, Asheton?" mumbled Jickling, exmade a second gesture towards the ham, tending a dusky paw. thus intimating to Stumpes to begin carving, which that model fag proceeded to do