Tall, strong, bloomingly healthy, he took the lead of his companions on land and water, and had more than one bondsman in his service besides Ripton Thompson—­the boy without a Destiny!  Perhaps the boy with a Destiny was growing up a trifle too conscious of it.  His generosity to his occasional companions was princely, but was exercised something too much in the manner of a prince; and, notwithstanding his contempt for baseness, he would overlook that more easily than an offence to his pride, which demanded an utter servility when it had once been rendered susceptible.  If Richard had his followers he had also his feuds.  The Papworths were as subservient as Ripton, but young Ralph Morton, the nephew of Mr. Morton, and a match for Richard in numerous promising qualities, comprising the noble science of fisticuffs, this youth spoke his mind too openly, and moreover would not be snubbed.  There was no middle course for Richard’s comrades between high friendship or absolute slavery.  He was deficient in those cosmopolite habits and feelings which enable boys and men to hold together without caring much for each other; and, like every insulated mortal, he attributed the deficiency, of which he was quite aware, to the fact of his possessing a superior nature.  Young Ralph was a lively talker:  therefore, argued Richard’s vanity, he had no intellect.  He was affable:  therefore he was frivolous.  The women liked him:  therefore he was a butterfly.  In fine, young Ralph was popular, and our superb prince, denied the privilege of despising, ended by detesting him.

Early in the days of their contention for leadership, Richard saw the absurdity of affecting to scorn his rival.  Ralph was an Eton boy, and hence, being robust, a swimmer and a cricketer.  A swimmer and a cricketer is nowhere to be scorned in youth’s republic.  Finding that manoeuvre would not do, Richard was prompted once or twice to entrench himself behind his greater wealth and his position; but he soon abandoned that also, partly because his chilliness to ridicule told him he was exposing himself, and chiefly that his heart was too chivalrous.  And so he was dragged into the lists by Ralph, and experienced the luck of champions.  For cricket, and for diving, Ralph bore away the belt:  Richard’s middle-stump tottered before his ball, and he could seldom pick up more than three eggs underwater to Ralph’s half-dozen.  He was beaten, too, in jumping and running.  Why will silly mortals strive to the painful pinnacles of championship?  Or why, once having reached them, not have the magnanimity and circumspection to retire into private life immediately?  Stung by his defeats, Richard sent one of his dependent Papworths to Poer Hall, with a challenge to Ralph Barthrop Morton; matching himself to swim across the Thames and back, once, trice, or thrice, within a less time than he, Ralph Barthrop Morton, would require for the undertaking.  It was accepted, and a reply returned, equally formal in the trumpeting of Christian