“Not half so much murder as this pulsum.  Why it will go in them both.  I can see with half an eye.”

“Isn’t it pello—-pulsum?”

“Pello, to drive out.  Hurrah!  That fits it.”

“Look out, Skipjack, there’s a moth.”

“Anything worth having?” demanded Bobus.

“Only a grass eggar.  Fama, fame; volat, flies; Idomoeea ducem, that Idomaeeus the leader; pulsum, expelled.  Get out, I say, you foolish beggar” (to the moth).

“Never mind catching him,” said Bobus, “we’ve got dozens.”

“Yes, but I don’t want him frizzling alive in my candle.”

“Don’t kick up such a shindy,” broke out Johnny, as a much stained handkerchief came flapping about.

“You’ve blotted my sum.  Thunder and ages!” as the candlestick toppled over, ink and all.  “That is a go!”

“I say, Bobus, lend us your Guy Fawkes to pick up the pieces.”

“Not if I know it,” said Bobus.  “You always smash things.”

“There’s a specimen of the way we learn our lessons,” said Caroline, in a low voice, still unseen, as Bobus wiped, sheathed, and pocketed his favourite pen, then proceeded to turn down the lamp, but allowed the others to relight their candle at the expiring wick.

“The results are fair,” said Mr. Ogilvie.

“I think of your carpet,” said Mary, quaintly.

“We always lay down an ancient floorcloth in the bay window before the boys come home,” said Carey, laughing.  “Here, Bobus.”

And as he came out headforemost at the window, the two ladies discreetly drew off to leave the conversation free.

“So, Brownlow,” said Mr. Ogilvie, “I hear you don’t want to try your luck elsewhere.”

“No, sir.”

“Do you object to telling me why?”

“I see no use in it,” said Bobus, never shy, and further aided by the twilight; “I do quite well enough here.”

“Should you not do better in a larger field among a higher stamp of boys?”

“Public school boys are such fools!”

“And what are the Kenites?”

“Well, not much,” said Bobus, with a twitch in the corner of his mouth; “but I can keep out of their way.”

“You mean that you have gained your footing, and don’t want to have to do it again.”

“Not only that, sir,” said the boy, “but at a public school you’re fagged, and forced to go in for cricket and football.”

“You would soon get above that.”

“Yes, but even then you get no peace, and are nobody unless you go in for all that stuff of athletics and sports.  I hate it all, and don’t want to waste my time.”

“I don’t think you are quite right as to there being no distinction without athletics.”

“Allen says it is so now.”

“Allen may be a better judge of the present state of things, but I should think there was always a studious set who were respectable.”

“Besides,” proceeded Bobus, warming with his subject, “I see no good in nothing but classics.  I don’t care what ridiculous lies some old man who never existed, or else was a dozen people at once, told about a lot of ruffians who never lived, killing each other at some place that never was.  I like what you can lay your finger on, and say it’s here, it’s true, and I can prove it, and explain it, and improve on it.”