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VELVETEENS WELL IN.

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"Hullo, Velveteens, mind your fingers if you come any higher."

The keeper stops and looks up, and then with a grin says: "Oh! be you, be it, young measter? Well, here's luck. Now I tells 'ee to come down at once, and 't'll be best for 'ee.

"Thank 'ee, Velveteens, I'm very comfortable," said Tom, shortening the rod in his hand, and preparing for battle.

"Werry well, please yourself," says the keeper, descending, however, to the ground again, and taking his seat on the bank; "I b'eant in no hurry, so you med' take yer time. I'll larn 'ee to gee honest folk names afore I've done with 'ee."

"My luck as usual," thinks Tom; "what a fool I was to give him a black. If I'd called him 'keeper' now I might get off. The return match is all his way."

The keeper quietly proceeded to take out his pipe, fill, and light it, keeping an eye on Tom, who now sat disconsolately across the branch looking at keeper a pitiful sight for men and fishes. The more he thought of it the less he liked it. "It must be getting near second calling-over," thinks he. Keeper smokes on stolidly. "If he takes me up, I shall be flogged safe enough. I can't sit here all night. Wonder if he'll rise at silver."

"I say, keeper," said he meekly, "let me go for two bob?"

"Not for twenty neither," grunts his persecutor. And so they sat on till long past second callingover, and the sun came slanting in through the

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VELVETEENS' REVENGE.

willow branches, and telling of locking-up near at hand.

"I'm coming down, keeper," said Tom at last with a sigh, fairly tired out. "Now what are you going to do?"

"Walk 'ee up to school, and give 'ee over to the Doctor; them's my orders," says Velveteens, knocking the ashes out of his fourth pipe, and standing up and shaking himself.

"Very good," said Tom; "but hands off you know. I'll go with you quietly, so no collaring or that sort of thing."

Keeper looked at him a minute

"Werry good,"

said he at last; and so Tom descended, and wended his way drearily by the side of the keeper up to the school-house, where they arrived just at locking-up. As they passed the school-gates, the Tadpole and several others, who were standing there, caught the state of things, and rushed out, crying "rescue;" but Tom shook his head, so they only followed to the Doctor's gate, and went back sorely puzzled.

How changed and stern the Doctor seemed from the last time that Tom was up there, as the keeper told the story, not omitting to state how Tom had called him blackguard names. "Indeed, sir," broke in the culprit, "it was only Velveteens." The Doctor only asked one question.

"You know the rule about the banks, Brown?" "Yes, sir."

"Then wait for me to-morrow, after first lesson." "I thought so," muttered Tom.

"And about the rod, sir?" went on the keeper; "Master's told we as we might have all the rods

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"Oh, please sir," broke in Tom, "the rod isn't mine." The Doctor looked puzzled, but the keeper, who was a good-hearted fellow, and melted at Tom's evident distress, gave up his claim. Tom was flogged next morning, and a few days afterwards met Velveteens, and presented him with half-a-crown for giving up the rod claim, and they became sworn friends; and I regret to say that Tom had many more fish from under the willow that may-fly season, and was never caught again by Velveteens.

It wasn't three weeks before Tom, and now East by his side, were again in the awful presence. This time, however, the Doctor was not so terrible.

few days before, they had been fagged at fives to fetch the balls that went off the court. While standing watching the game, they saw five or six nearly new balls hit on the top of the school. "I say, Tom," said East, when they were dismissed, "couldn't we get those balls somehow?"

"Let's try, any how."

So they reconnoitred the walls carefully, borrowed a coal hammer from old Stumps, bought some big nails, and after one or two attempts, scaled the schools, and possessed themselves of huge quantities of fives' balls. The place pleased them so much that they spent all their spare time there, scratching and cutting their names on the top of every tower; and at last having exhausted all other places, finished up with inscribing H. EAST, T. BROWN, On the minute hand of the great clock. In the doing of which, they held the minute-hand, and

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disturbed the clock's economy. So next morning, when masters and boys came trooping down to prayers, and entered the quadrangle, the injured minute-hand was indicating three minutes to the hour. They all pulled up, and took their time. When the hour struck, doors were closed, and half the school late. Thomas being set to make inquiry, discovers their names on the minute-hand, and reports accordingly; and they are sent for, a knot of their friends making derisive and pantomimic allusions to what their fate will be, as they walk off.

But the Doctor, after hearing their story, doesn't make much of it, and only gives them thirty lines of Homer to learn by heart, and a lecture on the likelihood of such exploits ending in broken bones.

Alas, almost the next day was one of the great fairs in the town; and as several rows and other disagreeable accidents had of late taken place on these occasions, the Doctor gives out, after prayers in the morning, that no boy is to go down into the town. Wherefore East and Tom, for no earthly pleasure except that of doing what they are told not to do, start away after second lesson, and making a short circuit through the fields, strike a back lane which leads into the town, go down it, and run plump upon one of the masters as they emerge into the High street. The master in question, though a very clever, is not a righteous man; he has already caught several of his own pupils, and gives them lines to learn, while he sends East and Tom, who are not his pupils, up to the Doctor; who, on learning

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that they had been at prayers in the morning, flogs them soundly.

The flogging did them no good at the time, for the injustice of their captor was rankling in their minds; but it was just the end of the half, and on the next evening but one Thomas knocks at their door, and says the Doctor wants to see them. They look at one another in silent dismay. What can it be now? Which of their countless wrong-doings can he have heard of officially? However, it's no use delaying, so up they go to the study. There they find the Doctor, not angry, but very grave. 'He has sent for them to speak very seriously before they go home. They have each been flogged several times in the half year for direct and wilful breaches of rules. This cannot go on. They are doing no good to themselves or others, and now they are getting up in the school, and have influence. They seem to think that rules are made capriciously, and for the pleasure of the masters but this is not so, they are made for the good of the whole school, and must and shall be obeyed. Those who thoughtlessly or wilfully break them will not be allowed to stay at the school. He should be sorry if they had to leave, as the school might do them both much good, and wishes them to think very seriously in the holidays over what he has said. Good night.'

And so the two hurry off horribly scared; the idea of having to leave has never crossed their minds, and is quite unbearable.

As they go out they meet at the door old Holmes,

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