And somehow we gathered, then or later, that the captain was easy as an old glove at all times and over all crosses, unless he was a little "put up" by artificial help. He told us himself one day (not, of course, alluding to anything of this sort) that he had had naturally an awful temper, would go into passions of absolute madness for a minute or two, when he was younger; but that he had by much self-restraint chiefly if not quite subdued it. It was true; and the temper never need be feared now unless he took anything to excite him. Dan had the same temper; but without the good-nature. And they said Hetta had; but we saw nothing of it in her. Hetta was eighteen, a nice-looking girl, who was governess to little Ruth, or pretended to be; but Ruth would manage to escape her lessons five days in the week. It was all the same to Mrs. Sanker whether she did them or whether she didn't. At the time of this visit of ours to Worcester, the college school was in a ferment. Between the Cathedral and St. Peter's Church was situated a poor, back district called Frog Lane. It had been rechristened Diglis Street, but was chiefly called by the old name still. Crowded dwellings, narrow streets, noise and dirt--that's how the place struck me. The inhabitants were chiefly workmen belonging to the glove and china manufactories of the town. In this district was the parish school, always filled with boys, sons of the working-men, and under the superintendence of Mr. Jones, the portly parish clerk. Now there was wont to spring up from time to time a tide of animosity between these boys and the boys of the college school. Captain Sanker said it was the fault of the college boys: had they let the St. Peter's boys alone, St. Peter's boys would never have presumed to interfere with them: but the college boys could be downright contemptuous and overbearing when they pleased. They scornfully called the St. Peter's boys the Frogs, "charity boys;" and the Frogs retorted by calling them the College Caws--after the rooks that had their homes in the old trees of the college green and kept up a perpetual cawing. The animosity generally ended in a grand battle; and then hostilities would be dropped for months, perhaps years. One of these quarrels was going on while we were at Worcester; it had kept both schools in a ferment for some weeks, and there was every sign of a culminating fight. Of course we went in heart and soul with the king's scholars: but the boys on both sides held a code of honour--if you can call it so--that no stranger must take part in the engagements. The college boys were only forty, all told; the Frogs seemed to number four times as many.