Muirtown is not a large city, and schoolboys of high principle and domestic habits used to go home in the dinner-hour and take the meal with their anxious mothers, who seized the opportunity of repairing the rents made in their clothes since morning, and giving them good advice on their behaviour. Thoroughly good boys, who had been tossed to and fro, much against their will, in the tempest of morning play, were glad to go into harbour and come back at two o'clock, not only revictualled, but also re-fitted and re-painted for the troubled voyage of the afternoon; and boys not so entirely good as the Dowbiggins, and other models of propriety, still appreciated the home trip, because, although there might be an embarrassing review of garments, and awkward questions might be asked about a mark on the face, there was always a toothsome dainty for a growing laddie, weary with intellectual work and the toils of a snow-fight. As the business of a horsedealer took Mr. McGuffie senior in various directions, and as in no case were the arrangements of his house since Mrs. McGuffie's death of an extremely regular character, there was no meal to which his promising son--Speug--could return with any confidence; and therefore Peter did not make a practice of going home at one o'clock, unless there was a special event at the stables, such as the arrival of a new horse, in which case he invited a few friends to an inspection, with light refreshments; or unless, having racked his brain to the utmost for four hours, he was still in sheer despair of mischief. With one or two other young friends of a like mind, he was accustomed to spend the dinner-hour in what might be called extramural studies--rowing over to the island below the bridge against the tide and coming back gloriously with the current; assisting the salmon-fishers to draw their nets and gather the silver spoil; in the happy snow-time raiding the playground of a rival school when the boys were away, and leaving insulting remarks wrought in snow; or attending the drill of the cavalry on the South Meadow. Like other guerillas, he carried his biltong and mealies with him, and took his meal anywhere and by preference when on the run. Perhaps that was one reason why Speug in after years made one of the best of South African fighters.