interest; but not as he watched the lads on the river, whose life was spent in launching boats and withdrawing them from the water in continual succession. He had no pride; and the livery and the living were infinitely more comfortable than anything he had ever known. “His mind did not go with it,” he said to himself; and that was all it was necessary to say. While he was thus meditating, Valentine Boss, in correct Eton costume--black coat, high hat, and white necktie--fresh from his tutor, with books under his arm, came in, and spied him where he stood waiting. Val’s face lightened up into pleased recognition,--more readily than Dick’s did, who was slow to recognise in this solemn garb the figure which he had seen in undress dripping from the water. “Hollo, Brown!” said Val; “I am glad you have kept your time. Come up-stairs and I’ll give you what I promised you.” Dick followed his patron up-stairs, and through a long passage to Val’s room. “Come in,” said Val, rummaging in a drawer of his bureau for the half-crown with which he meant to present his assistant of last night. Dick entered timidly, withdrawing his cap from his head. The room was quite small, the bed folded up, as is usual at Eton. The bureau, or writing-desk with drawers adorned by a red-velvet shelf on the top, stood in one corner, and a set of book-shelves similarly decorated in another; a heterogeneous collection of pictures, hung as closely as possible, the accumulation of two years, covered the wall; some little carved brackets of stained wood held little plaster figures, not badly modelled, in which an Italian image-seller drove a brisk trade among the boys. A blue-and-black coat, in bright stripes (need I add that Val--august distinction--was in the Twenty-Two), topped by a cap of utterly different but equally bright hues--the colours of the house--hung on the door; a fine piece of colour, if perhaps somewhat violent in contrast. The window was full of bright geraniums, which grew in a box outside, and garlanded with the yellow canariensis and wreaths of sweet-peas. Dick looked round upon all these treasures, his heart throbbing with admiration, and something that would have been envy had it been possible to hope or wish for anything so beautiful and delightful for himself; but as this was not possible, the boy’s heart swelled with pleasure that his young patron should possess it, which was next best.