"I say," said the little fellow, "it's jolly cold standing at the top of the stairs. Won't some one relieve guard?" "Oh, I will," answered Eric good-naturedly; "it's a shame that one fellow should have all the bother and none of the fun," and he ran to take Wright's post. After watching a minute or two, he felt sure that there was no danger, and therefore ran up to Upton's study for a change. "Well, what's up?" said the study-boy approvingly, as he glanced at Eric's laughing eyes. "Oh, we've been having leap-frog, and then Bombastes Furioso. But I'm keeping `cave' now; only it's so cold that I thought I'd run up to your study." "Little traitor; we'll shoot you for a deserting sentinel." "Oh no!" said Eric, "it's all serene; Rowley's out, and dear old Rose'd never dream of supposing us elsewhere than in the arms of Morpheus. Besides, the fellows are making less row now." "Well, look here! let's go and look on, and I'll tell you a dodge; put one of the tin washing-basins against the iron door of the lavatory, and then if any one comes he'll make clang enough to wake the dead; and while he's amusing himself with this, there'll be lots of time to `extinguish the superfluous abundance of the nocturnal illuminators.' Eh?" "Capital!" said Eric; "come along." They went down and arranged the signal very artistically, leaving the iron door ajar a little, and then neatly poising the large tin-basin on its edge, so as to lean against it. Having extremely enjoyed this part of the proceedings, they went to look at the theatricals again, the boys being highly delighted at Upton's appearance among them. They at once made Eric take a part in some very distant reminiscences of Macbeth, and corked his cheeks with whiskers and mustachios to make him resemble Banquo, his costume being completed by a girdle round his night-shirt, consisting of a very fine crimson silk handkerchief, richly broidered with gold, which had been brought to him from India, and which at first, in the innocence of his heart, he used to wear on Sundays, until it acquired the soubriquet of "the Dragon." Duncan made a superb Macbeth. They were doing the dagger-scene, which was put on the stage in a most novel manner. A sheet had been pinned from the top of the room, on one side of which stood a boy with a broken dinner-knife, the handle end of which he was pushing through a hole in the middle of the sheet at the shadow of Duncan on the other side. Duncan himself in an attitude of intensely-affected melodrama, was spouting-- "Is this a dagger which I see before me? The handle towards me now? come, let me clutch thee."