"What--then you must be a Classic! They're all Classics at Wakefield's. Why can't you tell the truth when you're asked, instead of a howling pack of lies?" "I didn't know, really, I thought--" "Come, that's a good one. Any idiot knows what side he's on at Fellsgarth." Fisher minor was greatly confused to stand convicted thus of greenness. "You see," said he, putting on a little "side" to cover his shame, "I was bound to be stuck on the same side as my brother, you know." "Nice for you. Not a gentleman among them. All paupers and prigs," said this young Modern, waxing eloquent. "You'll suit them down to the ground." Considering that Fisher minor had just lent the speaker half a crown, these taunts struck him as not exactly grateful. At the same time he writhed under the reproach, and felt convinced that Classics were not at all the "form" at Fellsgarth. "Why," pursued the other, pocketing his coin in order to release his hands for a little elocution, "we could boy 'em up twice over. The workhouse isn't in it with Wakefield's. There's not a day but they come cadging to us, wanting to borrow our tin, or our grub, or something. There, look at that chap going across there! He's one of 'em. Regular casual-ward form about him. He's the meanest, stingiest lout in all Fellsgarth." "Why," exclaimed Fisher minor, looking in alarm towards this prodigy of baseness, "why, that's--that's Fisher, my brother!" The Modern youth's jaw fell with a snap, and his cheeks lost what little colour they had. "What? Why didn't you tell me! Look here, you needn't tell him what I said. It was quite between ourselves, you know. I must be cutting, I say. See you again some day." And he vanished, leaving Fisher minor considerably more bewildered, and poorer by a cool half-crown, than he had been five minutes ago. CHAPTER TWO. LAMB'S SINGING. Wakefield's house, as Fisher minor entered it under his brother's wing, hardly seemed to the new boy as disreputable a haunt as his recent Modern friend had led him to expect. Nor did the sixty or seventy fellows who clustered in the common room strike him as exactly the lowest stratum of Fellsgarth society. Yorke, the captain, for instance, with his serene, well-cut face, his broad shoulders and impressive voice hardly answered to the description of a lout. Nor did Ranger, of the long legs, with speed written in every inch of his athletic figure, and gentleman in every line of his face, look the sort of fellow to be mistaken for a cad. Even Fisher major, about whom the younger brother had been made to feel decided qualms, could hardly have been the hail- fellow-well-met he was with everybody, had he been all the new boy's informant had recently described him.