Perry Exhibit, it is worth exactly nothing."

"You're deucedly classical to-night, Jim."

"Oh, I'm sick of this forsaken match and all the compliments we've had over it. I'm going now to have a tub, and then we'll get that Latin paper through, and, thirdly, I'll have the chessmen out."

"Sorry, I can't, Jim," said Todd, discontentedly. "There is that beastly Perry Scholarship—I must really do something for that!"

"Thomas Rot, Esq.!" said Cotton. "Haven't you been a-cramming and a-guzzling for that all this afternoon? You've a duty towards your chums, Toddy, so I tell you."

"That's all very well, Jim, for you, who are going to break some crammer's heart, and then crawl into the Army through the Militia, but my pater wants me to do something in the Perry, I tell you."

"Chess!" said Cotton, disregarding Todd's bleat, and then, with a sly smile, he added, "Shilling a game, Gus, and you know you always pull off the odd one."

"All right," said Todd, swallowing the bait with forlorn eagerness; "I'll have the board set out if you must come in."

"Oh, I must!" said Cotton, with a half-sneer at Todd's anxiety to pick up a small sum. "Clear the table, and we'll make a snug evening of it."

Todd's method of clearing a table was novel, if not original. He carried it bodily into Cotton's room, and then returned with his friend's mahogany, which was undoubtedly more ornamental than his own.

Acton was absolutely right when he sneeringly called Gus "Cotton's jackal." Todd was exactly of the material which makes a good jackal, though he never became quite Jim Cotton's toady. He was a sharp, selfish individual, good-looking in an aimless kind of way, with a slack, feeble mouth, and a wandering, indecisive glance. He had a quick, shallow cleverness, which could get up pretty easily enough of inexact knowledge to pass muster in the schools. Old Corker knew his capabilities to a hair, and would now and then, when Gus offered up some hazy, specious guess-work, blister him with a little biting sarcasm. Todd feared the Doctor as he feared no one else. Todd's chief private moan was that he never had any money. His father was a rich man, but had some ideas which were rather rough on his weak-kneed son. He tipped poor Gus as though he were some thrifty hairdresser's son, and Todd had to try to ruffle it with young Amorians on as many shillings as they had crowns. Not a lad who ever had naturally any large amount of self-respect, the little he had soon went, and he became, while still a fag, a hewer of wood and drawer of water to his better-tipped cronies. His destiny finished when, on his entry into the Fifth, Jim Cotton claimed him, and subsidized him as his man.

At the beginning of the term his father had told him that if he could make a good show in the Perry Exhibition there need not be any more grumbling about his tip. Gus came back to St. Amory's hysterically anxious to cut out all competitors for the Perry, but the shackles of his old serfdom were still about him. When he showed signs of being restive to the old claims, and recommended Cotton to do his own classics and mathematics, Cotton coolly and calmly demanded repayment of sundry loans contracted of old. Todd had not the pluck to face a term of plain living and high thinking by paying his former patron all he owed him and exhausting all his present tip by so doing, but flabbily, though discontentedly, caved in, and became Cotton's jackal as before.

Cotton was by no means as bad as his endearing name might make you think. He was a tall, heavy fellow, with a large, determined-looking face. He was wonderfully stupid in the schools, but was quite clever enough to know it. He had some good qualities. He was straight enough in all extra-school affairs, did not lie, nor fear any one; kept his word, and expected you to keep yours.

"You can't beat Hodgson of the Sixth, Gus, so what is the good of sweating all the term? Hodgson's got the deuce of a pull over you to start with."

"I'm not frightened of Hodgson if you wouldn't bother, Jim."

"Can't do without you, old cock. You're just the fellow to lift my Latin and those filthy mathematics high enough out of the mud to keep the beaks from worrying me to death. I tried Philips for a week, but he did such weird screeds in the 'unseens' that Merishall smelt a rat, and was most particular attentive to me, but your leverage is just about my fighting weight."

Gus had sniffed discontentedly at this dubious compliment; but Cotton had smiled stolidly, and continued to use Gus as his classical and mathematical hack. Besides, there was something about Gus's easy-going lackadaisical temperament which exactly suited Cotton, and he felt for his grumbling jackal a friendliness apart from Gus's usefulness to him.

This afternoon had been a fair sample of Todd's usual half-holiday. Feeling no heart for any serious work for the Perry, he had spent it in reading half a worthless novel, and skimming through a magazine, and feeling muddled and discontented in consequence. He had the uneasy feeling that he was an arrant ass in thus fooling time away, but had not sufficient self-denial to seize upon a quiet afternoon for a little genuine work.

Cotton soon returned from his bath, and the two cronies spent about an hour in getting up the least modicum of their classics which would satisfy Merishall; and then they played chess, by which Gus was one florin richer. A third game was in progress, but Todd managed to tip over the board when he was "going to mate in five moves." Cotton thereupon said he had had enough, but Gus avariciously tried to reconstruct the positions. He failed dismally, and Cotton laughed sweetly. Now Cotton's laugh would almost make his chum's hair curl, so he retorted pretty sweetly himself, "I say, Jim. I can't get out of my head that awful hammering you fellows got this afternoon. Think Biffen's lot likely to shape well in the House matches?" "There's no telling, old man. But if they get moderate luck they'll be waltzing about in the final."

"That's absolute blazing idiocy!" said Todd, knocking over more chessmen in his astonishment.

"All right, Gus. To talk absolute blazing idiocy is my usual habit, of course. They may carry off the final even, but that, perhaps, is a tall order."

Todd nursed his astonishment for a full five minutes, whistling occasionally, as at some very fantastic idea. At last he said more seriously: "Aren't you now, Jim, really pulling my leg?"

"No, honour bright! Biffen's are really eye-openers."

Gus said with infinite slyness: "Look here, I'll bet you evens Biffen's don't pull off the final."

"Oh, that is rot, Gus, to talk about betting, for you can't pay if you lose."

Gus had not too much sensitiveness in his character, but this unmeant insult stung him.

"You've no right to say that. I've paid all I've ever betted with you."

Cotton considered heavily in his own mind for a moment. "That is almost true, but—"

"Well, what do you mean—" began Todd, in a paddy.

"All right," said Cotton; "shut up, confound you! I'll take you."

"Three quid Biffen's are not cock-house at 'footer.'"

"Done," said Cotton, unwillingly pulling out his note-book; "and straight, Todd, I shall expect you to pay if you lose."

"Oh, shut up, Cotton, you cad! I shall pay if I lose, man. What do you want to keep on insulting me like that for?"

"Steady, Gus. You'll have Taylor up if you howl like that. I meant nothing."

"Nothing!" said Gus in a fury, seeking for something particularly sweet to say to his patron. "I jolly well hope, then, that if our house should meet 'em in the rounds you will do your little best to put a stopper on their career. Don't, for the sake of pulling off your bet, present 'em with a few goals. You 'keep' for our house, you know."

"Oh, dash it all, Todd," said Cotton, in a white rage, "you are a bounder! Think I'd sell my side?" he demanded furiously.

"Ah!" said Gus, delighted at having got through