"Not the lad's fault, you know, Comethup," he had said, "although I never liked the boy. But Robert Carlaw ought never to have been a father--ought never to have been anything, for the matter of that. And yet the boy's clever, I'm told; but it's a cleverness, an infernal smartness, I don't like." The afternoon wore away, and Comethup was roused from his reverie by the clanging of the bell summoning the boys to roll-call. He got up lazily and stretched himself, and suddenly saw a small boy standing before him, panting and eager. "Willis, there's some one to see you." "See me? Where?" He thought at first that it might be the captain, who had not been able to wait longer, in his eagerness for the morrow. "Out by the gate there," said the small boy, pointing behind him. "A man--a young man. Asked me to find you." "All right," cried Comethup, and went leaping and striding toward the gate. There seemed to be no one there at first, until he went out a pace or two into the road; and there, leaning easily with his back against the wall, was a young man smoking a cigarette. "Did you want to see----" began Comethup; and then, as the young man turned quickly, the boy stopped, and looked at him with a puzzled expression for a moment; as the other smiled and threw back his head, Comethup gasped out, "Why--it's Brian!" Brian nodded, and stepped forward and shook Comethup by the hand. It was the first time they had met since Comethup had left the old place with his aunt; yet there were things about this tall, handsome fellow of eighteen that were the things he had known in the Brian who had been a child. It was the same smile that broke over his face suddenly, like light; the dark eyes, that seemed to see so much farther and so much more than any other eyes; the brown hair, waving back from his forehead, and worn rather long; the slightly swaggering fashion of carrying himself--the fashion which his father had carried to an excess. There were, besides all this, a carelessness of dress and a recklessness of manner that seemed to be a part of his natural growth, too. "Yes; it's Brian. I thought I might be able to see you. By Jove! you haven't altered a bit, my cousin of the queer name. Of course you're bigger, but you've still got that angelic face and that maiden air of goodness. I'll put you into a poem some day, only no one will believe I've drawn you from life. There, let's stop jesting; I want you to help me. The truth of the matter is, there's been a kick-up between my father and myself; we never did hit it; his ways are not my ways, and he's a blackguard, and not with my sort of blackguardism either." He laughed, and clapped a hand on Comethup's shoulder. "Look here, old boy, I'm not envying you the plums of life you've got, but I want--oh, I have the right, as far as that goes--I want you to help me." "Why, of course," began Comethup, "if I can----"