"You have not letters to write, I suppose, Todhetley?" "Not I. I leave letters to Ludlow." "You'll come, then?" "Can't," said Tod candidly. "Don't mean to go in for wine-parties." "Oh," said Richardson. "You'll tell another tale when you've been here a bit longer. _Will_ you be still, you brutes?" "Hope I shan't," said Tod. "Wine plays the very mischief with work. Should never get any done if I went in for it." "Do you intend to go up for honours?" went on Richardson. "'Twould be a signal failure if I did. I leave all that to Ludlow--as I said by the letters. See to the dogs, Richardson." The animals had struck up a fight. Richardson secured the one and sent the other out with a kick. Our scout was coming in, and the dog flew at him. No damage; but a great row. "Charley," cried Tod, "this butter's not fit to eat." "Is it not, sir? What's the matter with it?" "The matter with it?--everything's the matter with it." "Is _that_ your scout?" asked Richardson, when the man had gone again, holding his dog between his knees as he sat. "Yes," said Tod. "And your dogs all but made mincemeat of him. You should teach them better manners." "Serve him right if they had. His name's Tasson." "Tasson, is it? We call him Charley here." "I know. He's a queer one." "How is he queer?" "He's pious." "He's what?" "Pious," repeated Richardson, twisting his mouth. "A saint; a cant; a sneak." "Good gracious!" cried Bill Whitney. "You think I'm jesting! Ask Ford here. Tell it, Ford." "Oh, it's true," said Ford: "true that he goes in for piety. Last term there was a freshman here named Carstairs. He was young; rather soft; no experience, you know, and he began to go the pace. One night this Charley, his scout, fell on his knees, and besought him with tears not to go to the bad; to pull up in time and remember what the end must be; and--and so on." "What did Carstairs do?" "Do! why turned him out," put in Richardson. "Carstairs, by the way, has taken his name off the books, or _had_ to take it off." "Charley is civil and obliging to us," said Whitney. "Never presumes." How much of the tale was gospel we knew not; but for my own part, I liked Charley. There was something about him quite different from scouts and servants in general--and by the way, I don't think Charley was a scout, only a scout's help--but in appearance and diction and manner he was really superior. A slim, slight young fellow of twenty, with straight fine light hair and blue eyes, and a round spot of scarlet on his thin cheeks. "I say, Charley, they say you are pious," began Bill Whitney that same day after lecture, when the man was bringing in the bread-and-cheese from the buttery. He coloured to the roots of his light hair, and did not answer. Bill never minded what he said to any one. "You were scout to Mr. Carstairs. Did you take his morals under your special protection?" "Be quiet, Whitney," said Tod in an undertone.