“It’s a poem to Mabel by that beast Browne,” he said. Then he read it out, half to himself, but I heard. The thing ran like this: "TO MABEL “Oh let my Muse sing to the name of Mabel, Whose azure eyes are fastened to my soul, Like to forget-me-nots in button-hole. To tell of my heart’s torment I’m unable. My thoughts they spin; my brain it grows unstable When fixed on Thee. Perchance it is my rôle Never to reach my mad ambition’s Goal, But to live ever ’midst scholastic babel. Thy glances brighten all my lonely lot. Prometheus-like a vulture gnaws my heart, In biting blasts and under sunshine hot. My dreams are shattered by a barbed dart, And, waking wild, I scream that I may not Whisper the oaths I yearn to Thee impart.” I told Bradwell I didn’t quite understand it, and he sat on me. “You wouldn’t,” he said, “a kid like you. But I do. It’s a sonnit, and an extramly fine one. I _hate_ the chap, but it’s no good pretending he’s not a poet, because this jolly well proves he is. Look at the rimes and the smoothness!” It seemed a heroik thing of Bradwell to say that, feeling as he did to Browne. He thought for a bit, but told me not to go. “Of corse,” he said, “this must be returned. All’s fair in--in a case of this kind, but--” Then he thought very deeply and read the sonnit again. Suddenly he took a bit of paper and copied down Browne’s poem word for word. Then he told me to cut back like lightning to Browne’s study, and to put the poem back on his desk if I could--if not, to most carefully keep it till the first chance of getting it back to Browne’s room without being spotted. “You’re a splendid fag,” he said, “and I shan’t forget this. It’s the sort of thing that squires did for their knights in olden times; and they got good rewards too. Now hook it.” It’s worth a lot, mind you, to get praise like that from such a chap as Bradwell. When I got back, Browne was rumaging over his table and sweering a good deal in a loud wisper. He told me to wait a minute, and went off to look in his bedroom. Then I seezed my opportunity, and slipped the sonnit on his table under some papers. When he came back he was worried, and went on hunting till he found it. Then he said “Ah!” to himself, and got pleasanter and asked me what I wanted. I told him my Latin grammar, and, being in a very happy state now, owing to finding the poem, he gave my book back and told me to clear out; which I did. After prep. I met Bradwell going in to prayers, and he handed me a note for Mabel to put in the usual place. He looked awfully rum when he gave it to me, and he saw that I saw he looked rum. So he said: