If Corkey minor had been at school that term the thing would never have come about; but Corkey minor was always one of the lucky chaps, and just when, in the ordinary course of events, he would have had to begin fagging for an exam., something happened to his right lung, and he had to go on an awful fine trip to Australia in a sailing ship. That left Corkey major, who was a mere learning machine in the Sixth, and Corkey minimus, who was ten, and in the Lower Fourth. It began like this. After Bray had licked Derbyshire and Bethune, which he did one after the other on the same half-holiday, chaps gave him “best,” as a matter of course, and he became cock of the lower school. He was solid muscle all through, and harder than stone, and he had a brother in London who was runner-up in the amateur “light-weight” championship two years following. Bray fancied himself a bit, naturally, and was always roaming about seeking fellows to punch. But once, out of bounds in a private wood, a keeper caught him and licked him, which was seen by two other fellows, and remembered against Bray afterwards when he put on too much side. He and Corkey minimus were in the same class, because Bray, though thirteen, didn’t know much. At first they were great chums, and Bray bossed Corkey and palled with him; and when Browne, the under mathematical master, told Corkey minimus that he was “the least of all the Corkeys, and not worthy to be called a Corkey,” because he couldn’t do rule-of-three, or some rot, Bray said a thing that Browne overheard, and got sent up. But by degrees the friendship of Bray and Corkey minimus cooled off, and the matter of Milly settled it. The Doctor had four daughters, and Milly was the youngest. Mabel and Ethel held no dealings with any fellows under the Sixth, and Mary had something wrong with her spine and didn’t count. But I never cared for any of them myself, because you couldn’t tell what they meant. Beatrice, for instance, was absolutely engaged to Morris, for he told his sister so in the holidays, and his sister told Morris minor, and he told me the next term. Morris was the head of the school, and he had her photograph fixed into a foreign nut which he wore on his watch-chain. But when he left, and she found out he was gone into a bank at £80 a year, she dropped him like a spider. Mind you, Morris had told her he was descended, on his mother’s side, from a race of old Irish kings, which may have unsettled her. Anyway, when she found he came, on his father’s side, from a race of church curates, she wrote and said it was off.