Roscoria settled down in his ancestral home at the head of a collection of such boys as a private tutor will generally get--awkward boys in temper, vicious boys, hopelessly dense boys, backward boys, idle, wool-gathering, foolish, blockish boys. Two lads had been expelled from Eton, but Roscoria thought himself a born reformer. A third youth had been recently superannuated: he was for ballast, Louis said. At first the young schoolmaster governed the wild set gently, having great faith in boyhood. Afterward he fell one afternoon upon a passage in Plato: "If he is willingly persuaded, well; but if not, like a bent and twisted tree, they make him straight by threats and blows." Blows! Happy thought! "The influence of my mind and character on theirs has failed," Roscoria thought. "Go to, now; let us see whether there be not some animal magnetism by which a lad may be drawn toward the good." And Roscoria felt up and down his strong young arm, and knew a complacent sense of muscle. At this time Roscoria met again, and liked as well as ever, Dick Tregurtha. Tregurtha had grown sun-browned, tall, and broad. Tregurtha had merry blue eyes and a winsome grin. One was happy to shake hands with a man who was obviously on such good terms with his own heart and conscience. "You helped me to run away from school, you know," he said, holding out his hand to Roscoria when they first met again. "Yes; did I serve you well by that?" asked Roscoria, who had grown into what our ancestors called "a pretty fellow," with features as correct as his own morality, and a pair of dreamy black eyes. "You did; I've not forgotten it. Here is your knife in token." "And here is yours. Come and dine with me." And the two young men got into a corner and foregathered together, and the friendship renewed by romance was riveted firm by reason. This is the one important feature in these two young men, and the one point that distinguishes them from others. Now passionate natures know no "friends," nor commonplace ones either. A friend is only granted to philosophers. When a sociable hunting-man asked the other day, "How do you make a friend? I never had one; I never wanted one," at least he knew what he was talking about. And indeed, few people want a friend, and there are many other sentiments to satisfy the unworthy. Is not love perennial, a thing as common as June roses? Acquaintanceship is necessary; affection is a partially inevitable state. But friendship ever was, as it is now, the rarest gift beneath the sun. Ask any one, all the same, who has ever known an assured friend, whether he would give him up for any pleasure or profit. Why, see how the theme of Friendship makes even Montaigne serious and eloquent. Observe how it has attracted great minds of all descriptions. If Byron could be brought to affirm that "Friendship is love without his wings"--well, there _must_ be something in it.