thick and thin, and declares that, so far from being ill-tempered and selfish, he is one of the best fellows in the school, and one of the cleverest. And Mr Wraysford is prepared to maintain his allegation at the point of the—knuckle! That hulking, ugly youth is Braddy, the bully, the terror of the Guinea-pigs, and the laughing-stock of his own class-mates. The boy who is fastening a chalk duster on to the collar of Braddy’s coat is Tom Senior, the Doctor’s eldest son, who, one would have imagined, might have learned better manners. Last, not least (for we need not re-introduce Messrs Ricketts or Bullinger, or go out of our way to present Simon, the donkey of the Form, to the reader), is Master Anthony Pembury, the boy now mounting up onto a chair with the aid of two friends. Anthony is lame, and one of the most dreaded boys in Saint Dominic’s. His father is editor of the Great Britain, and the son seems to have inherited his talent for saying sharp things. Woe betide the Dominican who raises Tony’s dander! He cannot box, he cannot pursue; but he can talk, and he can ridicule, as his victims all the school over know.

He it is who has, of his own sweet will, summoned together the present meeting, and the business he is now about to explain.

“The fact is, you fellows,” he begins, “I wanted to ask your opinion about a little idea of my own. You know the Sixth Form Magazine?”

“Rather,” says Ricketts; “awful rubbish too! Papers a mile long in it about Greek roots; and poetry about the death of Seneca, and all that sort of thing.”

“That’s just it,” continued Pembury; “it’s rubbish, and unreadable; and though they condescend to let us see it, I don’t suppose two fellows in the Form ever wade through it.”

“I know I don’t, for one,” says Wraysford, laughing; “I did make a start at that ode on the birth of Senior junior in the last, which began with—

“‘Hark, ’tis the wail of an infant that wakes the still echoes of
lofty Olympus,’

“but I got no farther.”

“Yes,” says Tom Senior, “Wren wrote that. I felt it my duty to challenge him for insulting the family, you know. But he said it was meant as a compliment, and that the Doctor was greatly pleased with it.”

“Well,” resumed Pembury, laughing, “they won’t allow any of us to contribute. I suggested it to the editor, and he said (you know his stuck-up way), ‘They saw no reason for opening their columns to any but Sixth Form fellows.’ So what I propose is, that we get up a paper of our own!”

“Upon my word, it’s a splendid idea!” exclaimed Wraysford, jumping up in raptures. And every one else applauded Pembury’s proposition.

“We’ve as good a right, you know,” he continued, “as they have, and ought to be able to turn out quite as respectable a paper.”

“Rather,” says Ricketts, “if you’ll only get the fellows to write.”

“Oh, I’ll manage that,” said Anthony.

“Of course you’ll have to be editor, Tony,” says Bullinger.

“If you like,” says the bashful Tony, who had no notion of not being editor.

“Well, I call that a splendid idea,” says Braddy. “Won’t they be in a fury? (Look here, Senior, I wish you wouldn’t stick your pins into my neck, do you hear?)”

“What shall we call it?” some one asks.

“Ah, yes,” says Pembury, “we ought to give it a good name.”

“Call it the Senior Wrangler,” suggested Ricketts.

“Sounds too like a family concern,” cried Tom Senior.

“Suppose we call it the Fifth Form War Whoop,” proposed Wraysford, amid much laughter.

“Or the Anti-Sixth,” says Braddy, who always professes an implacable enmity towards the Sixth when none of them are near to hear him.

“Not at all,” says Greenfield, speaking now for the first time. “What’s the use of making fools of ourselves? Call it the Dominican, and let it be a paper for the whole school.”

“Greenfield is right,” adds Pembury. “If we can make it a regular school paper it will be a far better slap at the Sixth than if we did nothing but pitch into them. Look here, you fellows, leave it to me to get out the first number. We’ll astonish the lives out of them—you see!”

Every one is far too confident of Tony’s capacity to raise an objection to this proposal; and after a good deal more talk, in which the idea of the Dominican excites quite an enthusiasm among these amiable young gentlemen, the meeting breaks up.

That evening, as the fellows passed down the corridor to prayers, a new notice appeared on the board:

“The first number of the Dominican will appear on the 24th inst.”

“What does it mean?” asked Raleigh of the Sixth, the school captain, of his companion, as they stopped to examine this mysterious announcement; “there’s no name to it.”

“I suppose it’s another prank of the Fifth. By the way, do you see how one of them has altered this debating society notice?”

“Upon my word,” said Raleigh reading it, and smiling in spite of himself, “they are getting far too impudent. I must send a monitor to complain of this.”

And so the two grandees walked on.

Later in the evening Greenfield and Wraysford sat together in the study of the former.

“Well, I see the Nightingale is vacant at last. Of course you are going in, old man?” said Wraysford.

“Yes, I suppose so; and you?” asked the other.

“Oh, yes. I’ll have a shot, and do my best.”

“I don’t mean to let you have it, though,” said Greenfield, “for the money would be valuable to me if I ever go up to Oxford.”

“Just the reason I want to get it,” said Wraysford, laughing. “By the way, when is your young brother coming?”

“This week, I expect.”

“I wonder if he’ll fag for me?” asked Wraysford, mindful of his destitute condition.

Greenfield laughed. “You’d better ask the captain about that. I can’t answer for him. But I must be off now. Good-night.”

And an hour after that Saint Dominic’s was as still and silent as, during the day, it had been bustling and noisy.