met with this passage: 'As a mad man who casteth firebrands, arrows, and death, so is the man that deceiveth his neighbour, and saith, Am not I in sport?' Firebrands, arrows, and death! Think of that. Nobody can tell what mischief may arise from sporting with the truth. It is very difficult to say where greening ends and lying, real lying, as you call it, begins; they are too much alike. You are an honest boy now, Swallow, and I want you to avoid all risk of becoming anything else."

"I will, too," said the other, looking up into Tom's face seriously.

When they went in to tea, to the surprise of all except one or two, the brick was found upon the table at the place where Chaffin was accustomed to sit. He removed it immediately, but not before it had been seen by many of the boys, who did not fail to improve the circumstance as their schoolboy wit suggested, till Mr. Grantly came in, when they were obliged to be silent. But when the bell rang again for "preparation," there, in the class-room on Chaffin's desk, was the brick again waiting for him, and the laughter and banter which ensued was now less restrained. Chaffin lost his temper, too, and began to abuse and threaten his tormentors.

"If I can only find out who put it here, I'll pay him for his trouble," he said.

"What do you pay per thousand for setting bricks in that style?" some one asked him.

"What am I to do with the horrid thing?" he said, without replying to the question.

"Hang it round your neck," said another, "like the albatross in the Ancient Mariner."

"Send it to your father," said a third; "it might be useful to him; he is in a large way, you know, and must want a great many bricks. Send it him in the hamper, carriage

paid."

G

"Chaffin reminds me of Scholasticus," said a boy named Hall, one of the seniors, "sitting there with his brick before him." What does he say?" Chaffin asked of Piggy, who was nearest to him; "what does he mean by Scholasticus?"

"A lower modern," the senior boy explained; and again there was a laugh at the Dook's expense. Scholasticus, you know," he continued, "was a contractor in ancient times who had a house to sell, and who carried one of the bricks with him wherever he went as a sample."

Chaffin would have told the narrator to "shut up," but it would have been dangerous to take liberties with a prepostor, being himself only a "lower mod." But silence was presently called, and they all set to work in earnest, and Chaffin was left in peace till they had finished.

But at night, after the lights were put out in the dormitories, when Chaffin was getting into bed, there was the brick once more, lying in wait for him between the sheets. He roared out as he struck his toes against it, and was still more exasperated upon hearing sounds of smothered laughter, in reply, from the adjoining cubicles. The brick seemed to haunt him. Was he never to be rid of it? Without stopping to consider what he was doing, he opened the little window of his cubicle, and threw the offensive object away from him with all the force he could muster; it fell with a heavy crash upon some slates below, rolled over and over, rattling horribly, and then stopped.

Some one came out upon the lawn soon afterwards, and called out to know what had happened. Chaffin thought he recognised Dr. Piercey's voice, and was terribly alarmed; but he closed the window as quietly as he could, crept into bed, and pretended to be asleep. He had forgotten the building below, a corridor, by which the dormitories were connected with the head master's house; but he hoped there was no harm done, and that he had now seen the last of his enemy the brick.

The next morning, however, as soon as it was light, he peeped out, anxious to see what damage had been done to the roof below. Two or three slates were broken; that was serious enough; but that was not all. The brick had been arrested by some spouting under the eaves, and there it lay, almost on the balance, apparently, ready to fall with the first impulse upon a skylight a little lower down. A breath of wind, or a sparrow alighting on it, might be sufficient to bring on the catastrophe. And then what might be the consequences? It might even fall upon Dr. Piercey's head as he passed under it. At all events, certain and severe punishment, Chaffin felt sure, must descend upon his own.

He began to think whether it would be possible for him to recover the brick from its threatening position without being seen. A few hours before, his chief thought had been how to get rid of it; now his only care was how to regain possession of it. He vowed to himself that he would not play practical jokes again; not of this kind, at all events. It was a long way down to the roof below, and there was no level standing-place for him if he should succeed in getting there; but there was a square iron spout running down by the side of his window, with joints at intervals, upon which he could rest his feet. The descent. appeared quite practicable, if he could only muster courage to attempt it. But the more he looked at the spout the less he liked it, and he sat for a long time upon the window-sill without venturing farther. Oh, how he hated that brick! There it lay, taking no notice of him, but threatening him, nevertheless, with pains and penalties which he could not endure to think of-for Chaffin was not of the stuff that heroes are made of. He gave it up at last; he could not venture; he should get out of the scrape somehow or other, he thought. Nobody had seen him throw the abominable brick down; he had only to keep his own counsel, and to deny all knowledge of it, and it would be

impossible to bring the offence home to him. The step from greening to lying was not such a long one but that Chaffin could thus think of accommodating himself to it. It was an easier one at all events than the step from the dormitory window to the iron spout, and a safer one, too, in his opinion.

But while he was thus hesitating and reflecting, other boys had begun to wake up, disturbed, perhaps, by the noise which he had made, and two or three voices were heard inquiring what was "up."

Among others, Tom Howard appeared upon the scene, and looking from the window of Chaffin's cubicle, took a survey of the situation.

"It's easy enough," he said; "anybody could get down by that spout, and up again."

"I can't," said Chaffin; "but I don't care. I did not bring the thing upstairs, and those who did must take the consequences."

You threw it out of window, at any rate," said one of them; "and if it should fall through the skylight it would be your fault. It might fall, you know, just when Dr. Piercey was passing under it; in that case his brains would be dashed out." "Oh, nonsense!" cried Chaffin, turning deadly pale.

"It's shocking to think of," the other continued, revelling in the catastrophe suggested; "Dr. Piercey! Such a man as he is, to have his brains dashed out! And such brains, and such a lot of them! Piercey is one of the most learned and best scholars in England. It would create a sensation all through the country!"

"Never mind," said Tom, beginning to feel compassion for the unhappy Chaffin. "I'll make it all right. Stand back, you fellows."

Balancing himself for a moment on the window-sill, he grasped the iron pipe, swung himself on to it, and descended without much difficulty to the slates below. Then he crept

down the slates, on all fours, till he could reach the brick, and having deposited it in a safe place, made his way back again to the spout and began to climb it. He was active and fearless, and had not lost the agility acquired on board ship on his voyage from India, and recently exercised again in the Neptune. But it was a harder task to climb up than to descend; and when he had reached the level of the dormitory window the most perilous part of the exploit remained to be accomplished. The boys stretched out their hands to help him in his passage from the spout to the window-sill; but his nerve did not fail, and bidding them stand aside he "lay out," as he would have called it, till he could get a firm hold of the window-frame, and in another moment was safe inside the dormitory.

Two of the monitors had been aroused by this time and had witnessed the feat.

"Well," said one of them, "you are a plucky little fellow, and as active as a monkey. But don't you know, young sir, that this is against all rules? No boy is allowed to enter another's cubicle. There is no law against climbing down the spout, I believe, for that was never contemplated; but I shall have to report you for what you have done."

"I am very sorry," said Tom. "I did not intend to do anything wrong. I won't do it again."

"I must report you," said the monitor. "Mr. Grantly will do as he thinks proper. I shall tell him how it all happened; and look here; you must go into training for the athletics next term; you must win a prize or two, do you hear?"

Tom was reported, but Mr. Grantly was not very angry with him. He sent for Chaffin, however, and told him that if he ever got that new boy into trouble again he would send him up to the head master for punishment, and that he had better give up trying to "green" others, for there was not a greater blockhead in the school than himself. Any idiot could tell a lie, or