If he hadn't told me himself, I should have called any one who told me Browne had been a cad--well, I'd better not say what I should have called him. I knew my chum had been a rollicking sort of fellow, who found it hard to say No to anybody who asked anything of him; but that he was a blackleg I, for one, would not believe, for all the Dravens in the world. Hardly knowing what I did, I walked up to the master's study door and knocked. "Come in." I could tell by the voice that came through the door I should do no good. I went in. Mr Draven was pacing up and down the room, and stopped short in front of me as I entered. "Well?" I wished I was on the other side of the door; but I wasn't, and must say something, however desperate. "Please, sir, Browne--" "Browne leaves here to-day," said Mr Draven coldly; "what do you want?" "Please, sir, I hope you will--" I forgot where I was and what I was saying. My mind wandered aimlessly, and I ended my sentence I don't know how. Draven saw I was confused, and wasn't unkind. "You have been a friend of Browne, I know," he said, "and you are sorry. So am I, terribly sorry," and his voice quite quavered as he spoke. There was a pause, and I made a frantic effort to recall my scattered thoughts. "Won't you let him off this time, sir?" I gasped. "That, Smither, is out of the question," said the head master, so steadily and incisively that I gave it up, and left the room without another word. The fellows were trooping down the passage to breakfast, little guessing the secret of my miserable looks, or the reason why Browne was not in his usual place. But the secret came out, and the school staggered under the shock. Mr Draven announced our comrade's departure kindly enough in the afternoon, adding that he had confessed the offence for which he was expelled, and was penitent. Two hours later we saw his cab drive off, and as we watched it disappear it all seemed to us like a hideous dream. We said little about it to one another. We did not even care to inquire particularly into the offence for which he had suffered. But we moped and missed him at every turn, and wished the miserable term were ending instead of beginning. This, however, is a long digression. I sat down to write the story of my own trouble, not Browne's. But the reader will understand now why I said that, as it was, apart from my own misfortunes, the term, which had still a month more to run when my story begins, had been a dismal one. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I was wandering about the playground one frosty November morning, beginning to hope that if a frost should come we might after all get a little fun at Draven's before the holidays came, when Odger junior, whistling shrilly, crossed my path.