'You know,' he said, 'the scrape into which Hales and Winthrop minor have got themselves, and you probably know what the punishment is for an offence like theirs. What the punishment ought to be, I mean. Your Head-master is going to leave it to you to say what their punishment shall be; it is for you to say whether they shall go or stay. 'Oh yes, I know,' Wyndham continued as he was half of us with our hands raised, or our mouths open, 'you are ready to pronounce sentence now. But it won't do. You must hear me out first. I am here by Mr. Foulkes's permission to plead for Hales and Winthrop, and I had to beg hard for that permission, for the breach of school rules was as bad as it could be. Not, mind you, that our Head cared twopence about the mop; he laughed, when he told me of that, as much as you fellows could have done; but he won't have smoking at any price, and he is justly annoyed, because, in spite of the serious scrape they were in, two of the boys reported to him for the disturbance in F. dormitory last night were Hales and Winthrop. You know the Head remembers quite as well as we do how splendidly Hales pulled the Loamshire match out of the fire' (cheers), 'and he wants to keep him at Fernhall; but you know discipline is more essential in a school than a good bowler in an eleven. 'Now, then, as to this smoking. I am not going to talk any soft rubbish to you fellows. We have all smoked. I have certainly, and I told the Head that if Hales went I ought to go. It was a great deal worse in us than in you fellows. We ought to have set an example and did not. As to the sin of smoking I haven't a word to say. My father smokes, and he is the best man I know. There is no mention of tobacco in the Bible, so the use of it can't have been forbidden there. It isn't bad form, whatever some folks say, for the first gentleman in Europe sets us the example; but (and here is the point) it is a vice in a Fernhall boy because it is a breach of discipline. Now, that ought to be enough for boys half of whom want commissions in the army, the very breath of whose life is discipline; but, as we are discussing this thing amongst ourselves quietly, I'll tell you why I think the Head considers smoking a bad thing for us. We are all youngsters and have our work to do. To do it well, we want clear heads and sound minds. Tobacco is a sedative, and sends the brain to sleep--soothes it, say the smokers. Quite so, by rendering it torpid. Men don't paint or write with their pipes in their mouths. They may dream with them there before beginning the day's work, or doze with them there when the work is done, but down they go when the chapter has to be written or the portrait painted. As to the effect of tobacco on your bodies, you know as well as I do whether the men who win the big races are heavy smokers. Why! I would as soon eat a couple of apples before running the mile as smoke a pipe. Besides