“The Holy Supper is kept indeed,
     In whatso we share with another’s need
     Not that which we give, but what we share,
     For the gift without the giver is bare. 
     Who bestows himself with his alms feeds three,
     Himself, his hungering neighbour and Me.” 
     —­Lowell, The Vision of Sir Launfal.

The next morning, after breakfast, Tom, East, and Gower met as usual to learn their second lesson together.  Tom had been considering how to break his proposal of giving up the crib to the others, and having found no better way (as indeed none better can ever be found by man or boy), told them simply what had happened; how he had been to see Arthur, who had talked to him upon the subject, and what he had said, and for his part he had made up his mind, and wasn’t going to use cribs any more; and not being quite sure of his ground, took the high and pathetic tone, and was proceeding to say “how that, having learnt his lessons with them for so many years, it would grieve him much to put an end to the arrangement, and he hoped, at any rate, that if they wouldn’t go on with him, they should still be just as good friends, and respect one another’s motives; but—­”

Here the other boys, who had been listening with open eyes and ears, burst in,—­

“Stuff and nonsense!” cried Gower.  “Here, East, get down the crib and find the place.”

“O Tommy, Tommy!” said East, proceeding to do as he was bidden, “that it should ever have come to this!  I knew Arthur’d be the ruin of you some day, and you of me.  And now the time’s come.”  And he made a doleful face.

“I don’t know about ruin,” answered Tom; “I know that you and I would have had the sack long ago if it hadn’t been for him.  And you know it as well as I.”

“Well, we were in a baddish way before he came, I own; but this new crotchet of his is past a joke.”

“Let’s give it a trial, Harry; come.  You know how often he has been right and we wrong.”

“Now, don’t you two be jawing away about young Square-toes,” struck in Gower.  “He’s no end of a sucking wiseacre, I dare say; but we’ve no time to lose, and I’ve got the fives court at half-past nine.”

“I say, Gower,” said Tom appealingly, “be a good fellow, and let’s try if we can’t get on without the crib.”

“What! in this chorus?  Why, we shan’t get through ten lines.”

“I say, Tom,” cried East, having hit on a new idea, “don’t you remember, when we were in the upper fourth, and old Momus caught me construing off the leaf of a crib which I’d torn out and put in my book, and which would float out on to the floor, he sent me up to be flogged for it?”

“Yes, I remember it very well.”

“Well, the Doctor, after he’d flogged me, told me himself that he didn’t flog me for using a translation, but for taking it in to lesson, and using it there when I hadn’t learnt a word before I came in.  He said there was no harm in using a translation to get a clue to hard passages, if you tried all you could first to make them out without.”