pressed against a sooty pane. His mouth was
wide and protuberant. He had small, gleaming,
malignant eyes, like those of a mongoose
when it sights a snake. Altogether, the fellow
had a carnivorous aspect; insomuch that, but
for an impression that cannibalism was less in
vogue than formerly in the tropics, we might
have easily persuaded ourselves that the Honourable
Mr. Bohné had not been wholly unaddicted
to that luxury. As it was, a whisper was
considerately passed round to Looby Weekes—a
fat chap in the junior class—that he had better
avoid the eye ot our new schoolfellow, at least
till after dinner. Christian was very loose-
jointed—tall, awkward, and sprawley—and,
when in energetic action, had a way of working
all his legs and arms together, like a machine
suddenly wound up. He was about fifteen,
and in tails; but these were, he confessed, his
first, a circumstance his manner of twitching
round to see how they followed would have
sufficiently betrayed without it.

The doctor introduced him to the two masters,
and then, in a few kind words, to us,
recommending us to show him the premises,
bounds, &c., and, in short, make him perfectly
at home. This we did, on the doctor's exit—
by forming a motionless and speechless living
circle about him, and examining him calmly
from head to foot, as if he had been a specimen
sent express from the tropics for deposit in a
museum of natural history. Mr. Bohné did not
resent the scrutiny in the manner his truculent
appearance rendered more than probable. He
seemed, if anything, rather flattered—"posing"
himself for our inspection as if he had been a
lay-figure, though not, it must be owned, selecting
the attitudes most familiar to the studio.
Tacitly responding to the challenge to let us see
what he was like, he went through a series of
antics, twisting his limbs, cracking his joints—
even turning an occasional somersault—all the
while preserving the most profound, not to say
melancholy, gravity; so that he resembled
nothing so much as a depressed baboon, winding
up the performances of a long public day. This
done, he regained the human form, and, taking
out a coin, spun it in the air.

"Crik! he's got a sov.," squeaked a small
voice, from the top of a desk.

Mr. Bohné turned on his heel, and executed
a slow and lurid wink. It might not have
been intentional, but this single gesture so
disconcerted Charley Lysons that he slid down
into the general company and was seen no
more.

"I say, what a jolly lot of fellows you an't!"
remarked the new arrival, relapsing into easy
affability. "Can't you stump up something to
eat? This sort ot thing takes it out of a
fellow, you know."

"We shall have dinner in two seconds and a
fraction," said Snashall Major, who always pined
for that festive season, and was invariably first
at the board.

"Two seconds will not do," replied Mr.
Bohné, with decision. "'To be fed, nourishingly
(with licorice, if possible, or, failing that,
toffy with almonds and a little ginger), every
six minutes while he is growing,' were the
directions given by my phys—Ha! that
knell! Do, then, these ears deceive me?
Nay, 'tis terr-rue. To dinner!"

And stooping down, as if he had been
going on all fours, the Honourable Christian
made a headlong charge through the circle, in
the direction of the dining-room. A most
exciting contest ensued—between three—Snashall
Major and Ambrose Hall pressing the favourite
hard. Nothing else was in the race. Christian
made strong running, but was passed both by
Snashall and Ambrose, the latter going on
second. They arrived in this order to the turn,
where Christian, who had run with remarkable
patience, called upon himself and gallantly
responding, landed first, beating Snashall by a nose.

There was at Tweezum Hall Academy a
received idea that Doctor and Mrs. Normicutt
lived with their boys. They certainly sat
down with us, and, if crumbling bread and
playing with a potato means dining,
undoubtedly partook of our meal; but something
of a more genial character subsequently occurred
in the parlour.

The performance of our schoolfellow at this
his first dinner did honour to his tropical
breeding. He ate like an alligator. Tweezum
House was, to do it justice, a liberal establishment.
Nobody was stinted. Even when the
appetite of Snashall Major began to show signs
of languor, Mr. Bohné's was brisk as ever;
and when he demanded a fourth supply, the
countenance of the patient and esurient doctor
exhibited amazement.

Mr. Bohné appeared to be indicating a fifth
attack; but this was too much.

"Ohe! jam satis," muttered the doctor; and
the banquet came to a close.

"Do they call this dinner?" grumbled Christian,
as we thronged into the playground. "/
call it a swindle. I shall write to Kalydon, and
have this put to rights."

Rather to our astonishment, he did write, using
an enormous envelope, and securing his epistle
with two seals. But it made no difference, the
despatch being handed back to Mr. Bohné in
the course of the day, opened, but enclosed in a
still larger envelope, with three seals, inscribed
with the doctor's best compliments. Mr. Bohné
laughed melodramatically (he had been at the
theatre with Lord Kalydon on the previous
night, and had witnessed a piece by a popular
author, the cast of which included five burglars,
a deserter, two convicts, nine bigamists, the
usual detectives, and a Jew). Mr. Bohné
laughed, I repeat, and observed, in a voice that
could only be compared to that of a lion growling
through a speaking-trumpet, that "a time
would come."

There was no pride about our honourable
friend. He entered frankly enough into our
habits and pleasures, and there were even some
who foretold that he would prove, upon the
whole, an acquisition to the commonwealth. It