into trouble when I grew up, and was accused of murder or forgery, or anything like that, which does often happen to the most innocent people, Peters would give up anything he might be doing at the time, and devote his entire life to proving me not guilty.

I remember well the day he came. I was in the big school-room at the fire, roasting chestnuts and talking to Gideon; and Shortland and Fowle were also there. The Doctor came in with a new boy and said—

"Ah! There are some of the fellows by the fire, Peters."

Then he called out to Shortland and me and said—

"Shortland and Maydew, this is Peters. Make him welcome, and if there are chestnuts going, as I suspect, share them with him."

Then the Doctor went off to have some final jaw with the mother of Peters; and Peters came down the room and said "Good-evening" in a very civil and quiet tone of voice.

He was thin and dark, and when he warmed his hands at the fire it was easy to see the light through them. He also had a pin in his tie in the shape of a human skull, about as big as a filbert nut, with imitation ruby eyes.

We asked him who he was, and he said he came from Surrey, and that his father had been a soldier, but was unfortunately dead. His name was Vincent Peters.

Then Shortland, who is a silly beast and a bully, and only in the lower fifth, though quite old—and, in fact, his voice has broken down—asked Peters the footling question he always asks every new boy.

He said, "Would you rather be a greater fool than you look, or look a greater fool than you are?"

Of course, whatever you answer, you must be scored off. But young Peters seemed to know it. Anyway, instead of answering the question he asked another. He said—

"Would you rather be uglier than you look, or look uglier than you are?"

"WOULD YOU RATHER BE A GREATER FOOL THAN YOU LOOK, OR LOOK A GREATER FOOL THAN YOU ARE?"

Gideon was interested at this, because it showed at once Peters must be a cool hand.

"What are you going to be?" Gideon asked; and then came out the startling fact that Peters hoped to be a detective of crime.

"If you go detecting anything here you'll get your head punched," said Shortland.

"I may or I may not," answered Peters. "But it's rather useful sometimes to have a chap in a school who has made a study of detecting things."

"You can begin to-night, if you like," I said; "because Johnson major's bat was found to have seven tin tacks hammered into it last week, when he took it out of the case to give it a drop more oil; and if you find out who did that, I've no doubt that Johnson major will be a good friend to you—him being in the sixth and captain of the first at cricket."

"I don't know enough about things yet," answered Peters. "Besides, you have to be sure of your ground. In detecting you may make friends, or you may not; but you will make enemies to a dead certainty. In fact, that's the drawback to detecting. Look at Sherlock Holmes."

"That's only a yarn," said Gideon.

But Peters wouldn't allow this. He evidently felt very deeply about Sherlock Holmes.

"He is founded on fact—in fact, founded on thousands of solemn facts," said Peters. "The things he does are all founded on real crimes, and if anybody is going to be a detective, he can't do better than try to be like Sherlock Holmes in every possible way."

The tea-bell rang about this time, and Peters sat next to me and told me a good deal more. He said he was very thankful that he was thin, like Holmes, and wiry, and had a beak-like nose. He asked me if he had piercing eyes; and I could honestly say that they were pretty piercing. Then he brought out a picture of Sherlock Holmes, which he always carried, and showed me that, with luck, when he grew up, he ought really to be very much indeed like the great Holmes.

He was learning to play the violin also—not because he liked it, but because of the importance of doing it in moments of terrible difficulty. He said that it soothes the brain and helps it to do its work—but not so much while you're learning. He said that after he had thoroughly mastered a favourite piece of Holmes's he should be satisfied, as there would never be any occasion for him to play more than one piece.

Chaps liked Peters very fairly well. He was a good 'footer' player, and very good at outside right. He was fast, and told me that speed often made all the difference to the success of a criminal case. Pure sprinting had many a time made all the difference to Holmes. Peters didn't know much in the way of learning, but he dearly liked to get hold of a newspaper and read the crimes. He didn't find out about Johnson major's bat, however; but he said it wasn't a fair test, because he never heard clearly all that went before the crime. A few small detections he made with great ease, and found the half-crown that Mathers had lost in the playground. This he did by cross-questioning Mathers, and making him bring back to his mind the smallest details; and then Mathers remembered turning head over heels while only touching the ground with one hand, to show how it could be done. And on the exact spot, in some long grass at the top of the playground where he had performed this feat, there was the half-crown. Mathers offered Peters sixpence on the spot, but Peters said it was nothing, and wouldn't take any reward.

He generally knew by the mud on your boots which of the walks you had been, and he always could tell which of the masters was taking 'prep' before he went into the room, by the sounds or silence. He also had a very curious way of prophesying by certain signs if the Doctor was in a good temper or a bad one. He always knew this long before anybody else, and it was a very useful thing to know, naturally.

But Peters did not really do much till his own guinea-pig was found dead in its lair about half-way through his second term at Merivale. He did not care for animals in a general way, excepting as helping to throw light on crime; which, it seems, they are very much in the habit of doing, though not intentionally. But this particular guinea-pig was far from a common creature, being a prize Angora pig, and having been given to Peters during the Christmas holidays by a friend of his dead father. It had long hair, and looked far more like one of those whacking chrysanthemums you see than a guinea-pig. It was brown and yellow, and had a round nose like a rabbit, and seemed so trusting and friendly that everybody liked it. One other boy—namely, James—had a guinea-pig also, because these were the days before we took to keeping lizards and other things in our desks—which was discovered by a dormouse of mine coming up through the inkpot hole in my desk under the Doctor's nose, and so giving itself away.