“Thirteen.”

“Can you sing?”

The poor boy was trembling and hesitating. Tom struck in—“You be hanged, Tadpole. He’ll have to sing, whether he can or not, Saturday twelve weeks, and that’s long enough off yet.”

“Do you know him at home, Brown?”

“No; but he’s my chum in Gray’s old study, and it’s near prayer time, and I haven’t had a look at it yet. Come along, Arthur.”

Away went the two, Tom longing to get his charge safe under cover, where he might advise him on his deportment.

“What a queer chum for Tom Brown,” was the comment at the fire; and it must be confessed so thought Tom himself, as he lighted his candle, and surveyed the new green-baize curtains and the carpet and sofa with much satisfaction.

“I say, Arthur, what a brick your mother is to make us so cosy. But look here now, you must answer straight up when the fellows speak to you, and don’t be afraid. If you’re afraid, you’ll get bullied. And don’t you say you can sing; and don’t you ever talk about home, or your mother and sisters.”

Poor little Arthur looked ready to cry.

“But please,” said he, “mayn’t I talk about—about home to you?”

“Oh yes, I like it. But don’t talk to boys you don’t know, or they’ll call you home-sick, or mamma’s darling, or some such stuff. What a jolly desk! Is that yours? And what stunning binding! why your school- books look like novels.”

And Tom was soon deep in Arthur’s goods and chattels, all new, and good enough for a fifth-form boy, and hardly thought of his friends outside till the prayer-bell rang.

I have already described the School-house prayers; they were the same on the first night as on the other nights, save for the gaps caused by the absence of those boys who came late, and the line of new boys who stood all together at the further table—of all sorts and sizes, like young bears with all their troubles to come, as Tom’s father had said to him when he was in the same position. He thought of it as he looked at the line, and poor little slight Arthur standing with them, and as he was leading him up-stairs to Number 4, directly after prayers, and showing him his bed. It was a huge, high, airy room, with two large windows looking on to the School close. There were twelve beds in the room. The one in the furthest corner by the fireplace, occupied by the sixth-form boy, who was responsible for the discipline of the room, and the rest by boys in the lower-fifth and other junior forms, all fags (for the fifth-form boys, as has been said, slept in rooms by themselves). Being fags, the eldest of them was not more than about sixteen years old, and were all bound to be up and in bed by ten; the sixth-form boys came to bed from ten to a quarter-past (at which time the old verger came round to put the candles out), except when they sat up to read.

Within a few minutes therefore of their entry, all the other boys who slept in Number 4 had come up. The little fellows went quietly to their own beds, and began undressing, and talking to each other in whispers; while the elder, amongst whom was Tom, sat chatting about on one another’s beds, with their jackets and waistcoats off. Poor little Arthur was overwhelmed with the novelty of his position. The idea of sleeping in the room with strange boys had clearly never crossed his mind before, and was as painful as it was strange to him. He could hardly bear to take his jacket off; however, presently, with an effort,