"It's like magic!" exclaimed William. "No one entered the counting-house; not even Mr. Lynn or Cyril Dare." "Cyril Dare was with me," said the Quaker. "Verily it seems to savour of the marvellous." It certainly did; and no conclusion could be come to. Neither could anything be done that night. It was late when William reached home--a quarter past ten. Frank was sitting over the fire, waiting for him. Gar had gone to bed tired; Mrs. Halliburton with headache; Dobbs, because there was nothing more to do. "How late you are!" was Frank's salutation; "just because I want to have a talk with you." "Upon the old theme," said William, with a smile. "Oxford or Cambridge?" "I say, William, if you are going to throw cold water upon it----But it won't put a damper upon me," broke off Frank, gaily. "I would rather throw hot water on it than cold, Frank." "Look here, William. I am growing up to be a man, and I can't bear the idea of living longer upon my mother. At my age I ought to be helping her. I am no nearer the University than I was years ago; and if I cannot get there, all my labour and my learning will be thrown away." "Not thrown away," said William. "Thrown away as far as my views are concerned. I must go to the Bar, or go to nothing--_aut Cæsar, aut nullus_. To the University I _will_ go; and I see nothing for it but to do so as a servitor. I shan't care a fig for the ridicule of those who get there by a golden road. There's Lacon going to Christchurch at Easter, a gentleman commoner; Parr goes to Cambridge, to old Trinity." "They are the sons of rich men." "I am not envying them. We have not faced the difficulties of our position so long, and made the best of them, for me to begin envying others now. Wall's nephew goes up at Easter----" "Oh, does he?" interrupted William. "I thought he could not manage it." "Nor can he manage it in that sense. His father has too large a family to help him, and there's no chance of the exhibition. It is promised, Keating has announced. The exhibitions in Helstonleigh College don't go by right." "Right or merit, do you mean, Frank?" "I suppose I mean merit; but the one implies the other. They go by neither." "Or you think that Frank Halliburton would have had it?" "At any rate, he has not got it. Neither has Wall. Therefore, we have made up our minds, he and I, to go to Oxford as servitors." "All right! Success to you both!" Frank fell into a reverie. The friend of whom he spoke, Wall, was nephew of the under-master of the college school. "Of course I never expected to get to college in any other way," continued Frank, taking up the tongs and balancing them on his fingers. "If an exhibition did at odd moments cross my hopes, I would not dwell upon it. There are fellows in the school richer and greater than I. However, the exhibition is _gone_, and there's an end of it. The question now is--if I do go as a servitor, can my mother find the little additional expense necessary to keep me there?"