Mr. Prank, for instance, was much given to hops,--also to prinking for the same: and it was in his heart to combine all the good things he could, and "crawling" plebs came in among the rest. So on hop nights, after supper, when Mr. Prank was shaving, dressing, and vainly endeavouring to curl his short hair, Magnus Kindred was frequently detailed as valet. The work being to follow Mr. Prank about the tent and fan him during these fatigues, and also to soothe and attune his feelings by singing "Annie Laurie" or some other lovelorn ditty. How Magnus did hate it!--and how he did secretly vow vengeance, if ever he himself should have half a chance with Mr. Prank's best girl! But then! Mr. Prank had a relay of "best girls," and could spare one or two just as well as not. On the other hand, the two men who "tented" with Magnus thought he had an easy time. "If you had to black Mr. Mean's shoes!" said Randolph. "Or clear up after old Seaton," said Rig. Rig's technical name taxed all his powers of memory and patience. It began: "I am the distilled quintessence of stuff, the double-dyed result of being dipped in the Styx,"--and so on, _ad infinitum_, and to Rig, certainly, _ad nauseam_. Homesickness had broken loose in the fourth class, of late, and become epidemic. These boys were but boys, and the manliest of them all would--many a day--have given up his hopes of being a brigadier just to lay his head down on his mother's apron, and have her pet him and comfort him, and make him feel that he was not a "beast." "But she'd not find any hair to stroke, now," said Magnus Kindred, in one of these spasms. And then he caught hold of himself again, set his teeth in his favourite fashion, and announced to himself that he meant to be adjutant. "And I'll not look like you, either," he went on, apostrophising Mr. Larkin, who just then came strolling by between two admiring girls, turning from one to the other with much the air of the exquisite who said: "Really, now, you know--won't somebody come and share me?" The young adjutant's buttons were very bright, and his waist was very small; and the red and white (brown) of his complexion left nothing to be desired. If he had been a girl, you might have called his walk "willowy," but I know not the masculine of that. And the barber had plainly been open to persuasion in his case, and had left almost a lovelock or two on the tall head. Magnus Kindred watched the party go by, but they did not see him. In one of the rocky, shady nooks on Flirtation, where the green leaves rustle and the river whispers softly to the shore, there he had hidden himself away with his sweet and bitter fancies. Hard, literal facts they were just then, for Magnus.